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:
- All incentives are subject to change or discontinuation at any time based on the Doctor’s discretion.
- Incentives are meant to pull the team together, not apart. If they’re causing discord, they may be discontinued.
- Individual team members can be pulled off the incentive if, in the Doctor’s opinion, they are not appropriately contributing to the team effort.
- 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.