Patients Over Profits

Are you inspired or are you influenced?...

First of all, I will admit this is preachy - but this what I preach and remind myself of everyday.

I believe we must all be very conscious of truthful empathetic practice, particularly the awareness of both short and long-term patient management decisions not being influenced or dictated by monetary concerns.

For example, unnecessary diagnostic testing, frequent recalls, unnecessary labs, imaging, and other testing which will do nothing in terms of changing management. Altering diagnostic codes to get the insurance to pay, cash pay vs insurance dictating our approach to care, or potential reimbursements guiding us. And a wealthy patient or homeless patient does not matter - or anything else other than what is best for our fellow human being sitting in our chair. We are all the same and our patients are all the same with respect to doing what is ethically right.

We must ask ourselves, should we prioritize creating patient management protocols to grow our practices with profitability part of the equation, or do we first ignore profitability?...not understanding and believing the goal is to ultimately create longstanding genuine trust, which will always bring more patients and grow a practice.

The latter always wins, and exponentially. I can attest to this using our nearly 60 years in private practice and close to 100 years of combined clinical experience along with my father, John J. Martinelli, OD, as proof. You will then create a practice such that you literally won’t know what to do with all the patients! This is a good problem to have! And better yet, building trust is free - it is more powerful than any expensive or elaborate marketing campaign you can devise.

I’ve dedicated a significant part of my life making an effort to be aware of and attempting to master this art of handling, care, and positively managing people with absolute honesty. I strongly believe this is the real business we’re in. Encouraging and focusing on positive human connections day-in and day-out yields returns well beyond pure monetary or material success - a philosophy we must embrace. How many of us truly live and practice by it? We need always to be truthful with ourselves and our patients.

There is an important caveat however, we must first absolutely know what we’re doing in terms of full clinical acumen and competency. This is not easy. To achieve this takes years of study, work, and experience which can only occur with a passion for what we do - which is a genuine calling for helping people.

With proper practice year after year, medical knowledge and reasoning as well as the clinical mechanics will become second nature. However, this is very much a loaded concept as it is ultimately only as effective as how we learn to apply it – developing an aptitude to do the right things in the right ways to take care of people, our fellow human beings, ethically with truthfulness.

Build trust. Be inspired by the opportunity to help people first. Volume and profits will follow - and for the right reasons!

- John Martinelli