Home > How to charge what you want, and get away with it, and damn the medical system

How to charge what you want, and get away with it, and damn the medical system

Written by Jose Gonzalez on February 15, 2010 - View Comments
Categories: Having a system, Performance & Efficiency, Posts & Articles, Your Reputation

To say that December 2009 was a stressful month would be an understatement.

It was one of those months when things seem to go from bad to worse.

Somebody very dear to me needed to go into hospital, and fast.

At the time we were in Glasgow, but location is not relevant to this post.

Attitude, on the other hand, is.

Without going into detail, let me rush you through the sequence of events…

GP schedules appointment with hospital.
We traipse across Scotland to get to said hospital, where a scan takes place.
We go back GP, who can’t do anything until the hospital send the scan results. Bear in mind that we already know the scan results, because they told us at the hospital!
I stupidly make the dimwitted assumption that the hospital are going to e-mail the GP with the scan results. It appears however that this is not how the system works. Things have to be sent out by letter. Fair enough. It’s the 21st century, but only just…
We wait.
Time is of the essence. It’s an urgent situation growing more desperate by the day. But still we wait, because the GP still hasn’t got the scan results.
We contact the hospital, not once but twice. The person we need to speak to is not ‘in’ right now. We try again. The GP doesn’t seem to be chasing anybody up, so it seems we have to take matters into our own hands to get anything done.
Finally, after much to-ing and fro-ing, it transpires that the scan results have been lost in the post.

At that point, two weeks had passed and the stress was mounting. Nobody was doing anything and everybody was failing miserably.

At that point we made a key decision that turned everything around

Having had enough of the appalling excuse of a system we were being subjected to, we decided to go private.

I say ‘we’ simply because I refer to us as a unit, not to take credit for somebody else’s decision.

Again, to spare you from the details, let me rush you to the next sequence of events…

We contact a top private hospital in London.
They immediately assign the surgeon’s PA to our case.
The PA asks for the scan results and certain medical documents.
We explain that we don’t have access to any of these things, because they’re either lost or the GP has them and doesn’t seem in a rush to get anything done.
The PA says: “leave it with me, and don’t worry about the scan results. If I can’t get hold of them, we’ll scan you ourselves”.

That’s it.

That same day, the PA rang after office hours (around six-ish) and left a voice message with an update on the situation.

Nice. A phone call, an update, a plan, knowing where you are and where you’re going, keeps you sane.

Everything was done. The patient had a short interview scheduled with the surgeon the very next week.

Fast.

And what’s even more impressive is that the patient talked to the surgeon on Monday, and was in the theatre on Wednesday (two days later) and back home on Thursday that same week.

All done, all fixed, better than ever.

As they say, you get what you pay for.

The Private surgery was expensive. It cost an arm and a leg (boom, boom). But it was worth every damn penny of it.

I don’t want to get into politics here, but the system makers at the NHS need a real kick up the backside.

Not the medics, nor the staff. What they do is nothing short of miraculous. Well, at least when they get it right.

I’m talking about the rule makers.

No, I wouldn’t fancy having to deal with their system. Evidently, it’s very hard.

The easy way out would be for me to say: I didn’t break it in the first place.

But that doesn’t help anybody.

The bottom line is that if a private company can run a hospital beautifully and efficiently, then an institution backed with a bottomless pit of taxpayers money should work just as well, if not better.

And if it can’t, then they need to bring in consultants to show them how to run things properly.

Here’s a tip: hire the people from the top private hospital and have them come in and fix the system.

Don’t worry about the bill: we’re paying for it.

And here’s another tip: don’t rely on archic postal systems when there is a better, faster alternative (e-mail) that you are already using!

Some things to consider urgently for your business:

Are you utilising the best tools available to you and your business, or are you running an average company?

Do you have a system in place? If not, why not!

Lessons to take away for your business

The real lesson here is that you can charge whatever you want to charge, no matter how extortionate it seems, if you put in the hard work to become the best choice available.

If your molar explodes in your mouth and you are screaming in agony, do you drive 10 miles to the ‘free’ dentist, or do you burst through the door of the expensive private dentist down the road?

The higher the desperation or the need of the client, the more you can charge – as long as you perform and deliver excellently.

I’m not talking about extortion here, or ripping off your clients. I’m talking about spending an awful amount of your time acquiring the skills you need and putting together a great system to enable you to perform excellently, and then being reimbursed for your effort, charging top dollar for your services, because you deserve it.

Be the best, and charge for it.

I want to recap on something very important. In fact, on the most important sentence in this whole piece. It’s what the PA said and did, without prompting, without needing to be told or reminded.

The PA asked a few questions on first contact, to establish what was what. That’s all she needed. As soon as it was clear that we didn’t have the scan results or the necessary documents, and that we were in fact a little panicked, she said:

“Leave it with me, and don’t worry about the scan results. If I can’t get hold of them, we’ll scan you ourselves”.

That’s the attitude of an excellent performer. The PA took responsibility for the whole situation. And she even rang back from her office, after office hours, to let us know things had been done.

And of course, she e-mailed.

That’s how you do things properly.

Business tip: put in the time and effort to become the very best choice for your customers, the best performer amongst your competition, and your higher prices will be justified.

* I neglected to mention something that happened round about the time the PA got busy contacting everybody in the system to get hold of any information she needed, and that is that the scan results actually turned up.

The GP had them all along.

She just misplaced them.

Enough said.