How and When to Hire for Your Private Practice

As a private practice owner, it was always a challenge for me to know when to hire new staff until I figured out the right process and schedule for this task. We all wish we could hire a person exactly when we need them. For example, you need one to start in two weeks and you find the perfect staff member and hire them. Wouldn’t that be great if they could actually start in two weeks, just when you need them? 

But that’s not how it tends to work. Therefore, you have to be skilled in knowing how to fill those positions as soon as you’re ready.

The Importance of Learning How to Hire

If you are good at driving in floods of new business, you don’t have to worry about filling a staff position because you know how. 

I talk a lot about learning how. In fact, I’m super-passionate about learning how to do things. When you know how, it takes away the fear that you might have of being the CEO of your practice. Many CEOs are fearful because they don’t know how to do some parts of the job. They worry, “I won’t be able to afford the staff I need.” When you learn how and when to hire, you’ll be able to afford the staff. 

I’m not going to pretend I can teach you everything you need to know about hiring in a few minutes. I’ll give you enough tips and tricks to make you better at this essential task. If you want to learn more, go after that knowledge. 

There are just three things that are really going to handle your hiring as covered next.

#1: Learn How to Drive in Floods of New Business

The first thing you have to know is how to drive in floods of new business, as I said previously. If you know how to drive in floods of new business, you won’t be fearful of adding a new hire. 

Bringing in new business is all about building relationships in your community. I learned how to do that in the Consistent Referrals Program (one of my favorite programs offered by Survival Strategies, Inc.)  It taught me who to network with and how to network. I thought I knew how to build relationships, but I didn’t. Now I do.

If we build relationships out of just wanting to provide help, then we’re creating lasting relationships and friendships. Your referral sources want to refer to someone they have a relationship with. They want to refer to someone who will partner with them and provide the right kind of help for their patients.

Make a list of all those potential referral sources you’re going to go after. Be sure to constantly refer to and add to your list so that you know who to build the right relationships with. 

#2: Develop a Wait List for Scheduling New Patients

Now that you’re driving in floods of new business, develop a waitlist. When you have a waitlist, you can feel comfortable that whomever you hire is going to have a baseline number of patients. You’ll need to figure out how many patients a new hire has to see for you to break even. It’s not that many patients, but it’s different for everybody based on their reimbursement rates. 

Take your average reimbursement and then take the salary that you’ll pay an average employee. How many patients do they need to see to drive in that dollar amount?

As long as you have them seeing that baseline number of patients and you’re breaking even, you don’t have to get stressed about whether or not their schedule is full. You’ll have the know-how to fill their schedule. 

#3: Know How to Hire the Right People for Your Practice

The third thing you need to know is how to hire the right people in your state. You need to know where to look for those people, for example: 

  • Networking with universities
  • Putting an ad on Indeed
  • Networking on LinkedIn
  • Ensuring you have plenty of student interns coming into your office so you can hire them

I love to hire our interns. They’re the best hires as we’ve already trained them and had an opportunity to spend time together for eight, 10, 12 weeks—however long the internships are in your community. If it’s a good fit, you’ll know. 

When to Start Hiring for Your Practice

Here’s how you know it’s time to start hiring: Each time a new hire’s schedule is half full, begin to recruit and hire again. Your new hire won’t be able to start right away. They are often going to have to give a month’s notice to their current employer. They might not arrive for a couple of months after you start looking for them. By then, you should have the schedule completely filled for the last person you hired. 

How long does it take to actually fill the schedule for a new hire? For me, it was three to four months. For you it may be 30 days. When you know this, you know when you should start looking for that next hire.  

Seek Out the Knowledge You Need to Hire and Expand Your Practice

Here’s some knowledge you need to succeed in this area: 

  • What is your break even point for your hire? In other words, how many patients do they need to see for you to break even? 
  • How to drive in floods of new business. 
  • What your current waitlist looks like
  • How you’re going to go about hiring

I recommend the Consistent Referrals Program so you learn how to drive in floods of new patients. There’s also the Hiring & Retention Program that can help you learn how to hire and retain personnel.

Survival Strategies has our backs. They have developed training programs that enable us to be the best owners we can be. They customize these programs and offer them to us so that we can spend time doing what we do best—giving help to the community. Take the time, reach out and learn how. Then give that help to your community with your passion and your love. I’m cheering you on, I know you’ve got this.

Get the Secret Weapon That Makes Hiring and Organizing Easier

In the book Keys to Private Practice Success, you’ll learn many more very specific skills to make your hiring successful. These are tips you really shouldn’t be without. Get Keys to Private Practice Success today and check out chapter 13 on recruiting and hiring the best staff. This can be your secret weapon when streamlining your recruitment process. This valuable manual is only $29.95. Click here to order now.

About Diane Crecelius

Diane Crecelius is a physical therapist and founder of a multi-million-dollar, multi-location practice with well over 3,000 visits per week and 200 staff! In the past several years, Diane has worked tirelessly to support the Peds-A-Palooza group and the success of Private Practice Owners. Diane has presented at nearly every Peds-A-Palooza live and virtual conference since the first sold-out conference in 2018. Her extensive knowledge derives from her decades in practice and from being trained and consulted by Survival Strategies, Inc. She uses this training to help Private Practice Owners learn how to thrive and expand while keeping their stress low.