Of course, you care. You wouldn’t be a doctor if you didn’t care, right? It’s not always clear to patients that doctors actually care. Remember that most patients don’t want to be in your office. They are often feeling bad or scared or both, so they are in a particularly vulnerable situation. Listen, empathize, and treat patients the way you would want to be treated.
2. Give Patients a Say in their Treatment
Lay out the options. Tell them what you would do if it was your loved one. And, then ask how they want to proceed. If they choose a course that you don’t agree with, have a conversation about why you think it’s a bad idea and document it. Ultimately though, be their advocate and supporter, not a dictator.
3. Educate Yourself on Non-traditional Treatments and Keep a Straight Face
Your patients are taking over the counter supplements, using essential oils, and Googling for treatments…. whether you want them to or not. If you give them the stink eye about these things, they will just lie to you. Would you rather know what your patient was taking or not??
Choose to educate yourself on the non-traditional treatments so you can speak openly with your patients about them. It’s okay to say that you aren’t a fan of them and that there is a huge lack of research on the efficacy and dangers. It’s okay to say that we don’t know the long-term effects of these things. It’s okay to say that taking them in lieu of real medicine can be dangerous.
They key is to have an open, informed conversation.
4. Read the Paperwork You Have Patients Fill Out
It’s not okay to have patients fill out 10 minutes of paperwork and not look at it. It is okay to read it in front of the patient. You are human. You aren’t expected to know everything about every patient. Want the patient to feel like you spent more time with them? Scan their paperwork in front of them. Walk in, greet them, and say “Give me just a minute to read through your paperwork” or “Give me a second to refresh my memory on your medical history/prescriptions.”
About
the Author
Amanda Brummitt has extensive healthcare customer service experience in hospitals, medical practices, and as a consultant. She’s a customer service snob that thinks asking people to be nice isn’t asking too much. She believes that the vast majority of doctors are good people that care about their patients and that sometimes they just need a little help conveying that.
When you grab a patient from the lobby, it’s the first opportunity to make a friendly impression. Please don’t stand at the door and say “Smith.” At a minimum, say “Ms./Mr. Smith” and look around the lobby to make eye contact with the patient as they come to the door. If there is only one patient in the lobby, walk up to them and ask if they are Ms./Mr. Smith. If they are a returning patient, say “Welcome back” when they make it to the door. Ask how they are.
2. Tell Patients What to Expect
Let them know what you are about to do. For example, say “We are going to get your height and weight. Then, I’ll take you to the exam room to get your vitals and learn about what we can do to help you today.”
3. The Scale
Be sensitive to the fact that most patients aren’t ecstatic about hopping on the scale. Use discretion when saying the weight. If they are there for weight loss and have lost weight, praise them for it.
When you weigh
patients, have somewhere they can place their belongings or offer to hold them.
It’s gross to set your purse on the floor of a doctor’s office.
4. The Interview
Explain that you are going to ask a bunch of questions to help get the most accurate picture of their health. Go ahead and address that the provider may repeat some of the questions to get further clarity. Listen to the patient. Make eye contact. Don’t just look at the screen. Face your screen towards the patient so your face is towards them the whole time.
If they are a new patient, this is a great time to talk up the provider. Let them know that the doctor/physician assistant/nurse practitioner is very knowledgable and will take great care of them.
5. The Exit
Recap any instructions from the doctor with patients and walk them to the spot to check out. Let them know what to do if they have questions once they get home (portal, call, email, etc.). Wish them a happy day or hope for feeling better.
About
the Author
Amanda Brummitt has extensive healthcare customer service experience from hospitals, medical practices, and as a consultant. She’s a customer service snob that thinks asking people to be nice isn’t asking too much. She believes the support staff is just as important as the doctor in making sure patients have a positive experience.
Walk into your
lobby like a patient. See it from their
view.
Do you have any signs that sound mean? Do you have any signs that sound rude? Do you have a sign that says, “Don’t tap on the window,” “Payment expected at time of service,” or “If you are more than X minutes late….”? Do you have more than two signs in your lobby?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, take those signs down. Have you ever seen a sign at a MedSpa that says payment is expected up front? Nope. Let’s treat your patients at least as good as a MedSpa. Your office should be a safe place for patients; not one where they feel unwelcome. Signage should be friendly and welcoming or not exist at all. Promote new services, new providers, social media, or survey tools in your signage…not policies. Patients are customers. Treat them that way. Don’t treat your patients like an inconvenience before they even get the opportunity to talk to your staff.
2. Eye Contact, Smile, Greet
When a customer walks in the front door, the front desk person should make eye contact and smile. When the customer gets about three feet from the front desk, they should greet them warmly. “Hello, how are you?” is a great start. If they are on the phone, they can still smile and mouth “I’ll be right with you” or make a hand gesture to indicate it. Essentially, make sure the customer knows they’ve been seen and acknowledged.
3. The Window
Oh, how I loathe
the window. If your practice is in a
dangerous area and you see patients at night, okay, you can have a window. And, thank you for loving humanity enough to
practice somewhere that needs healthcare so desperately.
Outside of
actual dangerous situations, what is the deal with the window? Are we hiding from patients or what? And please don’t say it’s because of
HIPAA. You can absolutely be HIPAA
compliant without being closed off to the lobby.
I prefer no
window. If you have a window, keep it
open all the time. If the window is frosted,
shame on you. If it’s an overlay remove
it. If it’s built into the glass, keep
it open all the time.
Don’t build
barriers between you and your patients.
Remove them. And start with that
window.
4. Name Tags
Did you know it is a patient’s right to know the name of the person caring for them and what their credentials are? Every member of your team should wear a name tag every single day, including doctors and administrators.
Also, people
behave better when they know someone knows their name…because patients can tell
on them. Using names also starts to
build familiarity.
If 100% of your
office isn’t wearing name tags now, order them today. High turnover? Fine. Use a label maker for the name/credentials on
blank name tags with your logo. If you
need help finding a vendor for name tags, we’re happy to share who we use.
5. Addressing Patients
When checking in a patient, script your staff’s language. My preferred language is, “Hi, how are you? (Pause for answer.) What’s your name?” Say hi before asking for name. And, it’s “your” name, not “the” name. I hate it when someone says, “What’s the name?” Seems so impersonal to me.
Want to step it up a notch? Try to remember patient names. Include a pic (even if is the driver’s license picture) in a patient’s medical record. When it’s a repeat patient, look at the schedule and see if you can figure out their name. How much better is it when staff can say, “Hi Mrs. Smith. Welcome back. I’ve got you checked in.” Bam. Service. Or, even say, “Hi! Welcome back. Can you remind me what your name is?” Acknowledging that the person is recognized is HUGE!!
About
the Author
Amanda Brummitt has worked in healthcare since
2001 in administration of both hospitals and medical practices. She’s a customer service snob that thinks
asking people to be nice isn’t asking too much.
She loves secret shopping physician practices, customer service training
for clinical and non-clinical staff, and using customer service to improve the
patient experience.
We’ve shared about some of our earliest clients and we hope you loved the history. Now, let’s talk about what we’ve worked on in 2018! We can’t tell you everything…because we don’t share our client’s secrets…and so much of strategy has to stay on the down low. But, here’s a snapshot of some of our 2018 projects that we can tell you about!
Playing well with others has been a continuing theme in 2018 as we’ve enjoyed working with Expio on the AWH website and collaborating with print publications like N2 Publishing to share the AWH message.
Baylor Scott & White Medical Surgical Clinic Irving
Frans Beltran, MD
Baylor Irving MOB Groundbreaking Dr. Beltran with Irving Chamber Leadership
Dr. Beltran relocated to DFW from the East coast and we’ve enjoyed introducing her to primary care physicians in the area. Through these introductions, we’ve been able to share her impressive expertise in obstetrics and gynecology with her colleagues and the community.
Learning more about our clients through our projects is one of our favorite fringe benefits, and Dr. Beltran has been a pleasure to work with and get to know.
Kristen Carmichael, MD
Designed by Dalia Steer
We’ve known Dr. Carmichael for years, and it’s always fun to catch up and assist with whatever she needs. She is always thinking of new ways to reach out to the community to educate patients and share more about her OB/GYN practice. A perfect example is the upcoming Women’s Health Panel where she is a speaker.
We also revamped her bio and launched a Facebook page for her practice. We collaborated on promoting articles for print publications and her practice website, too. Updating all of her online profiles has been a big, but worthy undertaking to ensure patients can find her when they do an online search. And, Myesha Johnson, a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner from Dr. Carmichael’s team, has partnered with us on community outreach activities as well.
J. Douglas Overbeck MD
One of our earliest clients, Dr. Overbeck always has a special place at The Brummitt Group. Most of our projects with him have moved to autopilot, which we consider a success!
And, in the last month we have also helped transition most of this over to the wonderful folks at Baylor Scott & White as Dr. Overbeck’s group became part of Health Texas Provider Network.
chisholm trail orthopedics & sports Medicine
Designed by Dalia Steer
Chisholm Trail Orthopedics & Sports Medicine came to us through their involvement in building a strategic plan for another client. We are very proud that every single Brummitt Group client found us via word of mouth!
We partnered with Chisholm Trail on a complete re-branding campaign helping them roll out their new name, creating a logo and identity package, updating their forms, and offering full spectrum marketing recommendations.
We launched their Facebook page, created lots of custom graphics announcing the name change, and successfully handed off to their talented staff in June. Our hand-off included training and an Editorial Calendar through year end. And, we facilitated a press release that got picked up by Becker’s Spine Review!
Banner, Baseballs, Pens, and Water Bottles by The Brummitt Group
They are very involved in the community and we just love this! They had lots of wonderful ideas that we helped put into action by designing a beautiful banner and procuring promotional items with their logo. We also collaborated with the Cleburne Railroaders and Keene FC on the marketing side of team sponsorship.
Because they have a very capable in-house team, we are currently setting them up through a partner on a portal for re-orders and small edits of letterhead, business cards, forms, prescription pads, and promotion items. Any time we can make a process more efficient by removing ourselves, we are all for it. We love saving our clients time and money!
Healthcare Associates of texas
We have enjoyed working with our very first client, Healthcare Associates of Texas, and their various offices, especially as their practice has grown over the years.
Coppell
Working with the Coppell office of Healthcare Associates covered the gamut of designing and copy writing for ads in the local newspaper, organizing community outreach opportunities for Dr. Jason Conn when he joined the practice, collaborating with Dr. Conn and the Coppell Chamber of Commerce, procuring materials for health fairs, photographing the Coppell Health and Wellness Expo, creating posts for the Healthcare Associates Coppell Facebook page, and beta testing a patient review monitoring service.
Irving
Release on Community Impact
For the Irving office of Healthcare Associates of Texas, we beta tested a patient review monitoring service as well wrote and/or distributed press releases to the local media for several physicians who joined their ever-expanding practice including Mihills Web Medical, Dr. Wei Sam Gao, and Dr. Kavitha Moolamalla.
McKinney
2018 brought a lot of growth to the McKinney office! With that, came marketing to let patients know what providers and services the practice offers.
Behind the scenes projects included updating online profiles for Dr. George-Zieser so her previous patients could find her easily, developing a video with NCM for movie theater advertising, creating Facebook content through September, design and placement of Community Impact ads, and design and placement of Living Magazine ads.
Design, direct mail, and print advertising focused on Sleep Apnea all took place in 2018 for Smart New You, the aesthetic side of Healthcare Associates. We created and facilitated mailing of a Sleep Apnea piece, designed a Sleep Apnea treatment options brochure, and designed ads for Living Well Magazine and Living Magazine.
Kuriachan eye institute
Dr. Kuriachan is a former client that launched a new private practice in 2018. We were excited to get to work with Dr. Kuriachan again to market his Ophthalmology practice. We assisted Dr. Kuriachan with pulling some market data to help organize his marketing efforts.
precision orthopedics & sports medicine
Designed by Dalia Steer
2018 has entailed a name change, adding physicians, and building a second office for Precision Orthopedics & Sports Medicine. It’s been a ton of fun crafting a strategic marketing plan and helping Precision roll it out this year.
The doctors at Precision Orthopedics & Sports Medicine are quite social…and we are managing five social media accounts for them! It’s been fun crafting content for the different platforms and they even trusted us to do our first-ever Spanish page. Stop in to socialize on any one of their five platforms: Twitter, Insta, English Facebook, Spanish Facebook, and a professional Facebook for one of their individual surgeons.
surgical group of north texas
As our third client, we’ve been serving Surgical Group of North Texas for nearly ten years and worked on too many projects to count. 2018 has been no exception with outreach, design, and patient satisfaction.
Design and advertising have been a fun part of 2018. We created two of our favorite designs to date, their bariatrics brochure and 2017 Year in Review. We also designed and oversaw the framing of a Mission Vision Values wall-hanging, inspired by a find from Dr. Shafi. We created niche specialty packets (with a lot of help from the doctors) to give patients specific pre and post-op information. We worked with Texas Monthly on two Super Doctor profiles (that can’t be announced until the December issue comes out), a Southlake Style Top Doc profile, and Living Magazine on two Best of Doctor profiles.
Patient satisfaction is extremely important to these devoted surgeons. They were tuned into this long before it was the “in” thing. In 2018, we’ve worked on streamlining their internal patient feedback mechanism to make it less manual and more automated, but also easier for patients.
It didn’t fit in smoothly with any of the areas above, so McEwen & Associates gets their own paragraph! We collaborate with them on a variety of projects pertaining to EMR and data reporting. And, by “collaborate,” we mean that they help us out a ton. We are thankful for their patience, dedication to Surgical Group, and for not blocking our phone number! 🙂
Texas Health Surgery center cleburne
We had the pleasure of building a full strategic marketing plan for Texas Health Surgery Center Cleburne back in 2017. Promoting their great surgeons and highlighting their overwhelmingly positive patient reviews were at the top of the list of to-dos.
Designed by Sheerah Haywood
In 2018, we assisted with the roll-out of that plan by writing provider bios, updating their Yelp profile, claiming and updating their Google profile. We also got their Facebook page verified, updated, and managed the content from February to June. We had a lot of fun creating custom graphics for Orbera weight loss balloons and patient testimonials. Their patients love them and their physicians…and that makes it an easy story to tell!
Designed by Sheerah Haywood
This center had just gone through a corporate website refresh. The website looked great and just needed minor updates to staff and forms. We aren’t website geniuses, but we can definitely do basic updates in user-friendly platforms like WordPress. So, we took care of many minor updates to the site keeping it current. This is a unique center that offers some total joint replacements and we got to create website copy for that!
Their story is the ultimate in collaboration. On branding, we worked with Surgical Care Affiliates and Texas Health Resources to ensure we stayed within the brand guidelines and enhanced the overall brand with our creations. Dept 11 facilitated the website refresh and was an absolute pleasure to work with on website updates and edits. Based on the web-heavy needs for the center and what we considered to be opportunities for economies of scale, we eventually recommended and assisted the center in selecting a single vendor to manage website, SEO, PPC, social media, and reputation management. That perfect person is Daryl Johnson and his team at Frontier Marketing. They’ve done a great job and we still help as needed, but are thrilled that our collaboration ultimately gave our client a better product at a better price.
that’s a wrap
Longest blog post ever, right? We just get so exciting talking about our awesome clients! But, we had to stop somewhere or this would be the never-ending blog post. Since starting on this post two weeks ago (our clients come first; we come second), we’ve started up a new social media project with LifeStream Health Center & MedSpa and have a few more in the works! We feel incredibly blessed that so many wonderful physicians and an ambulatory surgery center have entrusted us with their marketing needs in 2018. It’s been a great year and we look forward to another amazing ten years!
In Fall of 2010, The Brummitt Group had just celebrated our second birthday and was plugging along with three employees. We were working on projects for many clients, including the first three that we’ve talked about in previous posts.
And then, Doug Welch called. As you may recall from the first post in this series, Doug has a knack for making phone calls that change the course. 🙂 He was the CEO of Medical City Lewisville. The phone call went something like this:
Doug: My anesthesia practice is looking for a CEO/COO with strong recruiting and business development skills. I know you are doing your own thing, but I think you’d be great if you are interested.
Amanda: I’m flattered you thought of me, but I love what I’m doing. I’m working in my pajamas right now. Why would I ever give that up?
Doug: They are really good docs and I think you’d like them. Will you just do me a favor and meet with them? If you end up not being interested, then maybe you can help them find someone.
Amanda: Sure, I can do that.
Amanda met with Norm Rice, MD and Stephen Ellis, MD of Metro Anesthesia a few weeks later. She was impressed with the doctors and felt like it could be a great project, but wasn’t willing to give up The Brummitt Group. She pitched to them a consulting gig. They countered with going through the interview process and then only considering a consulting gig if she didn’t want to work directly for the group after that. Clever guys! She interviewed with their Management Committee and it was a great fit.
She’s still not sure how she got talked into it, but Amanda accepted a full-time position as their Chief Operating Officer! They did agree to allow her to continue with The Brummitt Group. It was a wonderful experience that stretched her skills, taught her a ton about hospital-based practices, and deepened her knowledge of anesthesia, revenue cycle management, and operations.
She got to work on a public education campaign with other large anesthesia groups about why you might want a Physician Anesthesiologist for your care, DoctorByYourSide.org. She helped Metro produce their first press releases and improve their marketing materials.
She worked with the group to formalize many of their operating practices, negotiate hospital and payor contracts, improve their Requests for Proposal, and managed the day-to-day operations of the practice with the help of a great internal team, many who grew in their positions!
I knew a lot about anesthesia as it pertained to patient-care and hospitals, but nothing about how they got paid, how they scheduled, and daily operations. I think I learned the most from Dr. Rice’s drawings. He would create these elaborate charts by hand and run the numbers on staffing/revenue/anything else you needed on hand or in his head! So smart!! Of course, I needed it all in Excel. But, I had to learn the why before I could learn the how. Putting Dr. Rice’s brilliant plans into Excel formulas/charts was a great way to learn! After just a few months, I could build sophisticated models…and learned quickly because he started with the why. – Amanda
A little over a year into it, Amanda was loving Metro, but felt like she wasn’t giving enough of herself to The Brummitt Group. It’s hard to do two jobs well, and it took losing a key employee at The Brummitt Group for her to see this. With much sadness, Amanda resigned her position at Metro, or at least attempted to. Apparently, the relationship had come full circle. Richard Haldeman, MD countered with a consulting gig!
Amanda gladly accepted the offer to continue her operational/strategic responsibilities, and The Brummitt Group enthusiastically assumed many ongoing and as-needed responsibilities at Metro including launching a Facebook page, graphic design, printing, press releases, and website updating/design.
The Brummitt Group team worked closely with the Metro Marketing Committee, led at the time by Jenni Germany, MD and Jamie Sunny, MD. Dr. Germany, Dr. Sunny, Dalia, and Amanda freshened up Metro’s logo and created a new identity package, launched a new website, created their first Facebook page, and first Twitter profile. There were also many event invitations, holiday cards, brochures, and sign creations.
We had a blast working with the Metro team on everything from quality initiatives to patient satisfaction to branding and even revenue cycle management with the awesome folks from abeo!
And, they are some of our very favorite anesthesiologists! You only want the best putting you to sleep…and we trust Metro Anesthesia.
In February of 2009, we got a call from Dr. Ed Clifford of Irving-Coppell Surgical Associates that they were adding a new physician (Dr. Shahid Shafi, who is now their CEO), opening a new office, in the process of becoming Surgical Group of North Texas, and needed help marketing all of it. Amanda had the pleasure of working with Dr. Clifford and his partners (Dr. Sina Matin and Dr. Julio Rivera) when at Medical City Las Colinas, so she knew they were great physicians that would be a good fit for The Brummitt Group.
We kicked off with a strategic plan and marketing campaign focused around the new office, new physician, and new brand. Since that time, we’ve organized Open Houses, facilitated outreach campaigns, done photo shoots, assisted with operational and strategic decisions, developed press releases, and created countless print and web advertisements.
These projects have been accomplished with help from the surgeons and staff, as well as many other vendors. We like to brag that we “play well with others,” and Surgical Group of North Texas is a fantastic example of that. Level 2, Frontier Marketing, Expio, HomeKey Studios, McEwen & Associates, Schwenn & Associates, AlphaGraphics, Ultimate Bariatrics, and The Press Group are just a few of the folks that we’ve worked beside for Surgical Group of North Texas. In fact, we are very aware of what we do really well and what others do better so we never hesitate to work with others who can balance our strengths with theirs.
Over the years, we’ve seen the group grow to seven surgeons, add additional service lines and niche specialties, build their own building, hire Dr. Shahid Shafi as their Chief Executive Officer, and continue to set the bar for surgical services in North Texas. They provide excellent patient care at eight locations and counting across the DFW metroplex. And our own team, family and friends can vouch for their amazing care.
Surgical Group of North Texas remains a client today, and we are thrilled to have witnessed their exciting growth. We just love working with them.
Dr. J. Douglas Overbeck was our second client, and we’ve had a blast working with him for the last 10 years! Around the same time that The Brummitt Group was forming, Dr. Overbeck was joining Medical & Surgical Clinic of Irving. He had the concept of Tuscan Cardiovascular Center – a beautiful office (decorated by his talented wife) and one of the best Cardiologists with a solid reputation for over 20 years (himself). He just needed someone to help tell his story.
Photo Shoot with Freeman Photography – The beautiful Donna Castro
Through Dr. Overbeck, we also got to know the amazing team at Medical & Surgical Clinic of Irving (recently changed to Baylor Scott & White Medical & Surgical CIinic Irving) including Jeff Duke and Lynne Hollyfield. Jeff and Lynne really set the bar for practice administration! They run a lean, efficient, and patient-centered organization. It’s been our pleasure to work on outreach projects in Ophthalmology, Neurology, Pain Management, Pediatrics, ObGyn, Nephrology, and Endocrinology with them, as well as press releases, advertising, brochures, and social media.
In a very kind Facebook review, Jeff Duke said, “We have appreciated the excellent work from Amanda and her team at The Brummitt Group for many years. They consistently deliver timely and effective marketing information, press releases and assistance with our new physician practice referral development process. Thanks for the wonderful support of Medical & Surgical Clinic of Irving.”
Fun fact about our work with Dr. Overbeck: It’s created friend of a friend of a friend projects! Dr. Overbeck introduced us to Medical & Surgical Clinic of Irving who recommended us to Dr. Vipin Kuriachan (a fantastic Ophthalmologist) who then suggested us to Dr. Tina Ali Mohammad (the coolest Psychiatrist we have ever met)! We’d like to extend a huge THANK YOU to Dr. Overbeck for trusting us with his marketing needs…and being a conduit for us to do so many fun projects for so many great physicians.
The Brummitt Group wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for our amazing clients. We’ve been blessed to work with some of the best doctors around.
Our first client…and current client is Dr. Charlie Powell, Founder and Executive Vice President of Clinical Operations for Healthcare Associates of Texas. Amanda first met Dr. Powell when he and his better half, Keila, were still in Florida. Amanda worked at Medical City Las Colinas and he was in the Navy. She recruited him to Texas and to Healthcare Associates of Texas. While growing his private practice in Irving, they worked together on a corporate wellness outreach campaign where Dr. Powell did health talks at many of the large corporations in Las Colinas.
About the same time that The Brummitt Group was being created, Healthcare Associates was recruiting a new specialist to their practice. This was winter 2008. Dr. Powell hired The Brummitt Group to build a strategic marketing plan for this physician and introduce him to the local community.
Facebook Cover designed by Sheerah Haywood
Here’s what Dr. Powell had to say when we asked how he felt about working with The Brummitt Group after that project: “Amanda with The Brummitt Group has been the real reason for all of my success here. She helped recruit me to the area and into a wonderful practice. This has given me the opportunity to thrive and build a wonderful and very busy organization. I now own the multispecialty practice, imaging center, sleep lab, pharmacy and other businesses that she helped me build through many other forms of advertising and promotion of me and my ventures. Now that I own the practice and businesses, she has always been there in my times of need. She has even been willing to step in as my acting CEO in a tough time of transition. Her current projects with me include promoting my new physician and getting his practice started from the ground up. Her numerous and invaluable contacts she has established in this area have proven to be an incredible asset. Her continued devotion and attention to detail have made her and my ventures a wonderful success. I recently started a new dietary supplement company called MetaRevive and had hopes of it being a hobby at best.”
Poster designed by Dalia Steer
D. Powell added, “Early on I realized that I had a great product line and a lot of demand for it. I knew I had to quickly take my “mom and pop” operation and turn it into a top-notch business with a professional flare. Amanda was the first person I called to help with this. Within hours, she had formulated a lengthy and detailed plan on taking my new venture to the next level and beyond. Her incredible professionalism and dedication to her work are extremely notable but are shadowed by her skill and genuine care that she brings to each project. I look forward to the many future projects we will have together and the continued success she brings to them. Thanks, Amanda.”
Open House Invitation designed by Dalia Steer
Since then, we’ve helped Dr. Powell and his team with everything from packaging design of MetaRevive, to secret shopping prospective acquisitions, to organizing open houses, to secret shopping and process improvement in their call center and pharmacy, to developing their website, to managing social media, to helping market all the cool procedures he develops. Yes, develops. He’s that guy! He’s developed hair restoration procedures, allergy shot protocols, and ways to reduce/eliminate snoring. He’s always looking for ways to improve the lives of his patients.
We can’t talk about Dr. Powell without telling you about Courtney! Courtney LeClaire is Practice Manager of Cosmetic & Wellness Division of HealthCare Associates and she’s been working with us since the MetaRevive days. We just adore her! She is the glue that holds everything together on the aesthetic side of the practice….and she keeps Dr. Powell on task. 🙂 We asked Courtney what she loved about working with us and here is what she said: “Collaborating on ideas, working as a team, knowing that you all care about the final outcome, as well.”
We are incredibly thankful to Dr. Powell, Courtney, Keila, and all of the Healthcare Associates of Texas Family! It’s been fun seeing them evolve and growing with them. Thank you, Dr. Powell, for trusting us with that first project and every one along the way over the last 10 years!
Hi there; it’s Amanda. As hard as it is to believe, The Brummitt Group celebrates it’s 10th anniversary this year! It started with just me and a plastic desk from Costco. Over ten years, The Brummitt Group family has grown and evolved. Join us for a series of posts about our team, our clients, and the projects that have shaped us.
So, how did it all begin?
To think about the start of The Brummitt Group, I have to rewind … to 2005. I was working for HCA Inc. at Las Colinas Medical Center (now Medical City Las Colinas). I was the Director of Physician & Business Development, Marketing, and Managed Care. Not a typo. I had all those jobs thanks to Dany Decell and Doug Welch condensing roles and cobbling together an amazing position. My ultimate goal was to be a hospital CEO. Within HCA, the fastest way to do this was through the COO Development program, and to apply, I needed a master’s degree. I had an undergraduate degree in business and wanted to stretch myself, so I considered JD, MPH, and MHA. I landed on JD because law had always fascinated me. The night before my LSAT, Doug Welch called me. Doug had always been a bit of an unofficial mentor for me. The short version goes like this:
Doug: “Do you want to be a lawyer or a hospital CEO?”
Me: “A hospital CEO”
Doug: “Then why are you going to law school? Go get an MHA.”
I bailed on my LSAT and narrowed it down to two in-classroom Executive MHA programs, University of Southern California and Cornell. USC won out. With a lot of my family in San Diego, I thought I’d get to see them since I’d be spending time in LA. I didn’t. During the 17 months that I cranked through a 34-month program, I didn’t have time to see them even once!
USC was an amazing experience. Our faculty were incredible … many sitting CEOs of large organizations. And my classmates were pretty impressive, too! We had doctors, lawyers, health plan execs, hospital execs, lobbyists, and IT execs. It was like going to a conference every weekend when we had class. Oh, did I mention it was weekends in LA? Yep, I was very blessed to have an amazing boss, Dany Decell, that worked with me on my schedule. I was a full-time hospital executive, single mom, and traveled to LA every other Friday – Sunday for class. Yes, I might have been working during class…but it worked out just fine!
About those classmates … I met one of my very best friends who was definitely a key to the Brummitt name. She set me straight when I was unclear whether or not I was ready to get married. I was. She knew it. But, I’m getting ahead of the story. We were both “commuter” students and instantly hit it off that first weekend of class. At some point, we had the conversation about how silly it was for both of us to be paying for hotels/cabs in downtown LA and started sharing a room, and effectively became roommates. She helped me with public policy and I helped her with finance. Oh, you may have heard of her. She’s sorta famous. She was on the cover of Time Magazine for being a Silence Breaker and speaking up to eliminate discrimination, sexual harassment and assault within employment and academic settings. Yep, I knew Adama Iwu when we were grad school students just trying to get a paper written so we could live the LA high life on a pooled $20! Our cohort really was amazing. Just Google Henri Ford MD. Amazing surgeon and humanitarian. And we got to do group projects with him! His online profile doesn’t come close to how fantastic he is in person.
Early Spring 2008, I was in the doctor’s lounge at Medical City Las Colinas and one of the physicians randomly suggested that I should start my own consulting company. It was either Ted Krum MD or Steve Hoffman MD. I don’t remember what sparked the conversation or which of these brilliant ObGyns said it, but I quickly dismissed it. (THANK YOU to whichever of you guys suggested this!). I had several of these odd moments where the idea came up, but I just wasn’t really interested in leaving hospital administration.
A few weeks later and nearing completion of my program, I’m sitting in my Physician Practice Management class taught by Michael Harris and had an epiphany. Harris, who had been the CEO of Healthcare Partners, a large practice in Torrence, CA, told his personal story of walking away from this dream job to start a consulting company. All of his reasons spoke to me. I had never planned to walk away from the corporate life. I loved HCA. I loved being in hospital administration. And, all of a sudden, his personal story rocked my plan. (THANK YOU, Michael Harris!).
I was also about to get married to the ever-amazing, Bret Brummitt. We had big plans … all of which included me being a hospital CEO with a large steady income, health insurance, and retirement. He was on board and supportive of trashing all those plans and taking the risks of me starting a company. Did I mention he was (and still is) self-employed? Yep, two self-employed people which was terrifying to me as I’m pretty risk averse. But, he had faith in me and pushed me to go for it. Hence, the name of the The Brummitt Group!
Now, to clear up some misconceptions about The Brummitt Group. No, Bret doesn’t work here. No, Bret doesn’t own it. And, for goodness sake … No, Dalia, Lian, Lillie, and I don’t work for Bret. I just named the company after him … and someday plan to get around to legally changing my name to Brummitt. Thanks to Bret for believing in the vision!
That’s the beginning in a nutshell. Huge thanks to the people that influenced me along the way…whether they knew it or not!! And, in case you were wondering what happened to that plastic Costco desk…it gets used every now and then for a health fair or open house. 😉
Dr. Kuriachan is a former client that launched a new private practice in 2018. We were excited to get to work with Dr. Kuriachan again to market his Ophthalmology practice. We assisted Dr. Kuriachan with pulling some market data to help organize his marketing efforts.
