My six best ideas
2002; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Volume: 55; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1097/01.hj.0000293448.88102.5c
ISSN2333-6218
Autores ResumoHere are six of my best ideas for making your business and life better. Enjoy. (1) HAVE A LIFE If you work in this business for any extended period of time you must have a life outside this field; otherwise you won't make it. This is a tough job. Some days, all the people you talk with are frustrated and unhappy. Patients come to your office when their hearing aids are not working. Even on good days, many patients share their pain with you because they have family members with severe problems like Alzheimer's or heart disease. Patients constantly tell you, “Don't get old.”FigureI know medical doctors who retire and spend their days going to “rounds,” learning more about medicine. Not me. The day I retire, I'm gone. This column is gone. You will not see me at conventions. I'll be fishing in Alaska with my son Matthew or going on Boy Scout camp-outs with my son Danny. I may be eating dim sum with my wife, Jun, or drinking beer on a sailboat or going to a football game. I love this business passionately, but it is no longer my life. I have been a workaholic and have gone through professional burnout. I still have the scars to prove it. It's no fun. Now I have a healthy, loving, creative life outside of this business. Don't define yourself in terms of this profession. Your personal life is even more important than your professional life. Your personal life sustains you. (2) NINETY PERCENT OF THIS BUSINESS IS SERVICE If you're new to this field, don't get the idea that you're in the hearing aid sales business. You're not. While the actual sale of the hearing aid is a critical and integral part of this business, it represents only a small portion of your job. As the line above says, 90% of this business is service. If this were not true, the Hearing Aid in a Box Company would have put us all out of business long ago. The people we service have a wide range of abilities and they are at a stage in their lives when they change rapidly. They may have a good memory and be pleasant, happy people in January and have a weak memory and be difficult to work with by November. My typical day includes items like: teaching Joe for the third time how to put his hearing aids on, cleaning wax out of Andy's ears, teaching Ann how to clean wax out of her hearing aids, putting on a new battery door, testing Sam's hearing and hearing aids to see why he is not hearing, encouraging Sue to wear her hearing aids, calling Bill's wife to ask her to check to make sure his hearing aids are inserted all the way, trying to teach Jane how to move the program switch on her hearing aids from P-1 to P-2, and telling David for the 10th time he needs new hearing aids. You must adapt your teaching style to the needs of each patient. You need to talk to some patients as if they were engineers; with others, you need to draw ultra-simple illustrations and write words like “up” on the hearing aid. One frustration is having patients turn against you. I give patients my “big and ugly is better” speech and recommend that they purchase larger, more dependable hearing aids. Yet, some patients forget this and ask me, “Why did you choose these little hearing aids for me if you knew they would break down so often?” This type of conflict can be minimized if you work with more than one family member. (3) MAKE A PROFIT If you fail to make a good living in this business, frustrations over money will drive you nuts. Here are six simple rules: Don't go into debt. It is hard to build a practice while paying off loans and leases on sound rooms, audiometers, hearing aid analyzers, and office. Set your prices fairly from your point of view and the patient's point of view. Setting prices is one of the trickiest aspects of this business. Manage expenses incessantly. Every dollar you spend unnecessarily drains the lifeblood out of your business. Don't be afraid to work. You are not going to make a fortune being the boss. If you hire a bunch of people to work for you, you will find your gross income goes up dramatically, but your net income disappears. Buy hearing aids at competitive wholesale prices. You can't compete with the big boys if you pay twice as much for your hearing aids as they do. Have a business savings account. This business fluctuates markedly. Some months you work like crazy, but the cash does not come in until the insurance pay off. Other months are simply slow. Your saving account sees you and your staff through the fluctuations. (4) MANAGE EXPECTATIONS People expect too much from hearing aids, and the more they pay the more they expect. Few patients are prepared for the adjustment period. Most expect hearing aids to work well immediately in all listening conditions. I like to use the example of buying a bicycle. I tell the patient, “When you purchase your first bicycle, it would be ridiculous to take it and ride in the mountains. You need many hours of practice, riding the bike on level, paved ground. The same goes for hearing aids. Do not wear your new hearing aids at a family party or other noisy events. Start by wearing the aids at home watching TV.” Use the manufacturer's information booklets to guide patient use during the first month or two. Keep initial hearing aid use to under 5 hours a day and restricted to quiet listening conditions. If hearing aids are worn in adverse listening conditions during the first week, the patient is likely to become discouraged and want to return them. (5) USE THE REAL-EAR TARGET MATCH Few patient have the sophistication to tell you what sound they need. If you ask them, “Is this comfortable or too loud?,” some patients will respond by having you give them 20 dB too much. For patients to be successful, the volume levels need to be set and marked at the appropriate point. Otherwise the patient evaluates the quality of the hearing aids at a level 10 dB too loud or 10 dB too soft and concludes that the aids are no good. The best way to set aids to a correct level is to run real-ear tests and adjust REIR (real-ear insertion response) to match the target. Use red fingernail polish and mark this point on the volume wheel. Tell the patient, “This is the sound you need, not the sound you like. It will take several months for you to get used to this much sound. Turn the volume down slightly if it sounds too loud.” This strategy has many advantages. Patients have marks on their hearing aids to indicate the “correct settings.” If they want to evaluate their ability to hear and understand words, they set the aids to these red marks. But, they also understand that the setting will seem too loud until they get used to amplification. When they turn the aids down to make themselves comfortable, they realize they are not getting the recommended amplification. (6) THE RUB-THE-HANDS TEST Teach patients a simple, down-to-earth way to check that their hearing aids are working and the amplification is set to the appropriate level. The test must allow the patient to check each ear independently to see if hearing in both ears is balanced. Listen to the noise made by patients when they rub their hands together. Adjust the way each person makes this noise. For example, if a person's hand rubbing is noisy, have him rub his index finger across his hand to make a soft, high-pitched sound. Hand rubbing has the powerful advantage of being audible when the hearing aids are being worn and are turned on, inaudible when they aren't. Well, that's my list. What did I forget? Send your ideas to David Kirkwood, the editor, at [email protected] (yes, kirkwoo is correct!).
Referência(s)