Most incentives need to be “retuned” each year. They should be in line with practice goals and calculated so that it’s Win/Win. That is, staff share in the practice’s success and wage overhead is kept proportional to collections.
Here are some important ground rules for any Incentive Program:
1.All incentives are subject to change or discontinuation at any time based on the Doctor’s discretion.
2.Incentives are meant to pull the team together, not apart. If they’re causing discord, they may be discontinued.
3.Individual team members can be pulled off the incentive if, in the Doctor’s opinion, they are not appropriately contributing to the team effort.
4.All incentives automatically cease at year-end subject to next year’s goals and strategies.*
The last one is most important, because otherwise there’s a real danger the staff will just take the incentives for granted. Incentives can lose their power to stimulate performance over a long period of time. They must be set to coincide with practice objectives.
We can help you set up or “retune” your incentives. Just call.
*Hygienists paid in some form on their productivity, are not really on incentive programs so much as a “compensation formula”. So those are not as readily subject to change or discontinuation, but you still must give yourself some leeway in doing so.