MW Ep 14 Audior
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Megan Walker: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Healthcare Online Podcast. My name is Megan Walker and I'm delighted to welcome Damien Adler, who is the co-founder of Power. Diary to our chat today. Hey, Damien, how are you?
Damien Adler: Hello. Good. Thank you, Megan. How are you?
Megan Walker: Very, very well. This is a super exciting podcast where we, Damien and I have met and we couldn't land on a few topics because there's so much.
Damien has a wealth of expertise working with private practices. He's also a registered psychologist, so we've come up with some questions. We've got the background that we're gonna cover first, and then we are going to put the lights on and rapid fire and see how much amazing [00:01:00] content that we can cover to give all of your listeners.
Terrific value in our conversation. So, Damien, start off, tell us about you and for anyone who lives under a rock, tell us about Power Diary.
Damien Adler: I I'll give you the super truncated version. So, yes, I'm a, a psychologist. My wife is also, uh, background. You know, we worked in the public system, then moved into private practice.
And so my wife grew a.
Days we realized there wasn't the right software solution. And long story short along with my brother. We co-founded power Ari. And Power Ari is a software platform that really makes it a lot easier to run practices. So I think as, as a audience would, would well know. There are lots and lots of moving parts and lots of things to kind of, manage in running the health practice.
And the idea with is simple online platform takes all that, simplifies it. [00:02:00] Brings a bit of order to the chaos.
Megan Walker: Beautiful. And just for those who don't know, what does it do other than diary management? 'cause I bet there's a heck of a lot.
Damien Adler: Yeah, it, it does pretty much everything. So yes. Diary management, all things that go with that, like your automated binders and confirmations and so forth.
But it also does invoicing, it does letter writing. It does notes, it does online forms. It does you know, you can process your payments through that. You can manage things like, you know, your wait list you can develop, you know, automations to kind of, you know, keep everything kind of ticking along.
If you're doing debt collection and things like that, it will kind of run all that for you. It'll generate all your statistics. So if you wanna see how people are practitioners are performing and retention rates, things like that, it will. Do all of that. It will give you all your financial reports. It will tell you where your cust, where your patients are coming from.
It will manage your referrals. It [00:03:00] will track your session numbers. It will work out, you know, against budgets and things. If patients have budgets and have funding allocated it, we'll track those. So it does. Full gamut of of things. And, and we try and we sort of look at what are the annoying, time consuming things of running a practice.
And then we try and use technology to simplify that. So things like writing notes, you know, you can have kind of templates, so it's all, you know, they're, you're writing letters to gps. You can again, have templates and pre-populates a whole bunch of content and merges it all in. Yeah.
Copy any previous clinical note into a new note. So you can just edit the parts if you want.
Speaker 3: I love
Damien Adler: it with the current. So pretty much we look at all the things that kind of cause headaches or that people find time consuming, distracting and we try and simplify.
Megan Walker: Tell me the size of the practice that that works with you.
What size are [00:04:00] they? Where are they? Who, what do they do? Tell us about your subscribers, your clients.
Damien Adler: So, allied Health is our, you know, primary focus. So sort of think of psychologists and physiotherapists, massage therapists, speech dieticians, osteopaths, that kind of, that allied space is our our core business.
Very significantly so we have solo practitioners all the way through to multi-location and franchise models where people are all over, all over the place and have locations everywhere. So it really does scale to suit, whatever that whatever someone, you know, someone needs, it will grow with them.
Of our, you know, we've.
Solo and now they've got lots of locations and they're offering telehealth, which is another thing I didn't mention that does for you. So it has built in telehealth and, you know, they'll be running all over the, the place in terms of our customer location. We started in Australia as a Australian company.
And then [00:05:00] over time we went to UK and um. Really good in growing u user base UK and then in north America as well. So, US and Canada, we have so it's, we're in bunch of other s as well, but they're the main sort of, you know, markets and we. The bulk of our, our customers are, and that, that actually happened organically.
That, you know, people were using this in the UK and using this in the US and we're like, oh, okay. There's you know, there's a need here. What's that all about? And then now, you know, we have local support and, and whatnot in each of those countries to make sure that, you know, people are getting local support from local people.
And yeah. So it's, it's grown over the years.
Megan Walker: And, and do you have a modest achievement in there that you haven't mentioned? It's something about the largest, do you wanna tell us story?
Damien Adler: The okay. Yes. So there's I think what you might be alluding to perhaps is our G two so G two is a an online, the largest sort of rating system for software companies.
And it's where people go on and rate [00:06:00] software across all sort of different categories. over time and now are rated the number one in, in the world for, you know, which is amazing. And that's not even to say that the largest, there are practice management systems outta the US that are actually larger than us in terms of, of size.
So that we'll have, although we're growing rapidly, we are. But this is about the feedback from users around usability about the difference it makes to their practice. About our support or like a whole bunch of kind of metrics. And they look at that and they have some magic formula that they use to sort of assess and, and rank.
And yeah, we, we we look, I have to admit, we were even, we were surprised in that, you know, you always, you work away and do the best you, you can. And, and we, we saw that we were moving up through the ranks and then about 2023, we hit that number one spot. So cool. And it, you know, it's really Yeah, amazing and we're so appreciative, but our customers and, you know, that they get on there and make those ratings and give that feedback and you know, that's such a, you know, we're very appreciative of, of what they, you [00:07:00] know, what they do.
And it's great.
Megan Walker: Huge congratulations to you. Thank you. Running any type of business and achieving that level of success, where it's based on user feedback is massive. So yeah. Hats off. I'm, I'm glad Got that out. You, thank you. And, and if you took I'm gonna ask you this question. I. I was gonna ask you, what problem do you solve for your practitioners, clinicians, and therapists?
But I'm gonna ask it in a reverse way. If you took three of your features away from Power Diary, what would cause the biggest uproar? Which three would cause the biggest uproar among your current clients?
Damien Adler: I'm gonna not say like the core booking function because I think that you, obviously, that's.
Sort of things that we, we do, I think the, probably the client portal. You know is is one. So we have a client portal that allows people to manage their own bookings and manage even their own invoices and things like this. And the people can go on and pay invoices, but still, whilst [00:08:00] giving the control practices still have control to set all the rules around bookings and cancellations.
So it's not like handing over and allowing. Patients have free range to your schedule and then feel like you've lost control. But see, practices can still control everything, but it just reduces so much sort of admin time that it's, you know, phenomenal. Next I would say, and there's so many, but I would say, the online forms would be another one, right? Because they online forms are a secure form that kind of gets sent out to, patients. They complete that and you can customize, mask whatever you want. And then that all gets, and the patient completes it, it gets stored securely in their, in their profile, but it also updates a whole bunch of the fields in the system.
So when you are, you know, collecting information. All that gets populated.
So it just means that all that is done. You don't have to have, you know, [00:09:00] people typing in and updating kind of, you know, information manually. So I think that would be one. Another one would be, and it's sort of like up there, I would say our SMS communication system is, is second to none. So we have the normal appointment reminders, which you'd expect, right?
But we also have. When people reply to SMSs, we automatically update the status of the appointment so people can reply, confirm, and or cancel if the practice allows it. And then automatic things can happen based on that. So we can notify the practitioner, Hey, this person cancel and so forth.
But we also have this sort of live two way SMS chat. That, so iPhone. That type of interface that a panel opens up so you can have this rapid back and forwards with, with patients. So when you're thinking about scheduling or moving appointments or, hey, don't forget to bring the referral from your.
You can actually just quickly message them, you know, and have that go back and forwards and all get stored in their [00:10:00] in their record as well. So you're complying with all the record keeping obligations and so forth. And so that is a huge, and it just, again, it reduces admin time. Like if you try and play phone, you know, phone tennis us right away, oh, for a cancellation, you know, you ring up and leave a message, the person doesn't answer
Speaker 3: and they bring you
Damien Adler: back.
You may or may not be answer the phone. Then they leave a message and then still you haven't filled that spot. Whereas if you message and say, Hey, got a spot, do you wanna, or Hey, I've got a cancellation, do you wanna move up? Or do you of that stuff is so.
Megan Walker: That's fantastic. I mean, all of that, like you said, that back and forth, what a waste of time and I'm so delighted to hear your ele electronic forms.
I know we had a big assessment we had to do in our family and it, the form came in post, we had to fill it by hand. We were asked to scan it, send it back. Thank goodness we had a home office. But how many people have that level of technology that very few would have printers and scanners and, yeah. You know, and then repeating that [00:11:00] information over and over again.
Yeah. It really is a negative impact on that practice as well as the patient experience, so absolutely.
Speaker 3: Thank goodness you have electronic thoughts.
Megan Walker: Now we're gonna have you got a glass of water there, Damian? Look,
Damien Adler: I do. Right here
Megan Walker: you are. [00:12:00] You're on the spot here. So you've got huge amounts of wisdom.
Around all aspects of owning and running a practice, you've had a successful practice yourself as well. So let's run through a few of these in, you know, a little relatively rapid fire. So the first one I'm gonna ask you is how can practice owners increase the value that they offer team members or con contractors who are working with them without increasing the amount of money that they're paying to those contractors?
This is an interesting one. I know I've got a client who says I'm having to pay more and more and more for my psychologist. They're pricing me out to the point where I'm actually not taking home an income because I'm paying them so much that I'm not earning anything. But I know if I don't do it, they're gonna leave and go to my competitor.
Damien Adler: Yeah. Okay. What do we do? The first thing is, I think is a mindset thing around this, in that, if your, if your focus is on wanna attract or retain people just by pay you, what you ultimately end up doing is attracting mercenaries. [00:13:00] And you know, the mercenaries gonna go where the pay is highest.
And if that is their primary driver is around and, and they're gonna go to a competitor simply because the payer is higher, then, you know, and, and nothing else is important to them, then you've got a mercenary there. And I'd rather have. Mercenaries elsewhere and not in my practice. Right?
Because there'll there, there'll be no loyalty, there'll be no commitment to it. It'll just be about the money. Now, it's not to say money isn't important, of course you've gotta be within a reasonably competitive range, but that definitely is often a long way from people that are paying top dollar and just trying to attract and siphon off, right?
So first thing is, I think move away from an idea that, you know, and if people threaten sort of to go elsewhere, you know, have a good look at it. Bye-Bye. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think that that's and often, you know, people find that the reality of being elsewhere you know, there's a reason that they're having to pay top to retain, right?
So I think first of all is getting that thinking. But in terms of what you can actually do. Is try and think of your practitioners as customers, [00:14:00] right? And identify what's important to them as a customer, right? So, and, and you look at it from their, their perspective. Now, what we typically find is that there's a whole, you know, that they don't like.
Having the annoying parts of running a practice, right? So practitioners, you gotta, you gotta do your study. You have a picture in your head of what being a practitioner's gonna be like. It's gonna be a new picture, being in a room, whatever, providing treatment to a patient. That's what people think about.
Mm-Hmm. They don't think about, no one ever goes to, to uni and study to be, you know, to do paperwork, do the admin, but that's a reality that comes with it. So if you can deliver that idealized. Vision of what being a private practitioner is like by taking away. From their responsibilities as much of the annoying stuff as you possibly can, right?
Yes. Love and that can be either, you know, probably a combination of things of, you know, utilizing software of course, but also it may be the things that, that can't be done, you know, by having good [00:15:00] admin support
Speaker 3: Mm-Hmm.
Damien Adler: You know, within the practice to sort of take away as much as you.
Invoicing debt collection. Yes. The way notes are written because they might have to write it, but if you make it super efficient and structured and easy, right? Dealing with the legal stuff that comes up, dealing with, you know, the, the, any of that kind of, you know, chasing up, dealing with a complaint, all those sorts of things.
Strip all that of way and, and provide that kind of service where they can come into work, do the thing that they always wanted to do. Yes. Right. But that if you do that, you'll find your 80% of the way there. Yeah.
Megan Walker: I was just gonna add to that.
Yeah. But also communicate the value of what you are taking off them, because I know a lot of situations where someone will go, well, I want to earn the whole amount. I don't wanna just earn a portion, so I'm gonna go and set up my own shop and then not realize all of the hidden costs that they were being saved.
Absolutely. So when you join us, here's the table. We will take all of this off [00:16:00] you, which will save you Yes. And get some of that reality. What are your thoughts about that?
Damien Adler: No, totally. And, and in fact, there's a real, there's a value creation here too, because as a, if you're in a group practice, for instance, or you're running a group practice.
You can do all those things more efficiently. Like, because you can, you know, then for everyone, then someone can do by themselves, right? So for instance, you have, you know, as a group practice, you may have a bookkeeper, right? Who's doing a lot of stuff. But there, it doesn't make, you know, it's, it's more efficient to do that for multiple, but to have, if you're a solo practitioner, to have a bookkeeper, you know.
You know, so you can actually genuinely create value here where you can provide that for cheaper than what they can do it on their own. Mm.
But the value to the, the person is high because if they were on their own, they're gonna have to do that. Yes. Right. So there creates a, a value there, which allows you to, you know, make a profit, right.
Which is, you know, important. So I think that that side of thing, the other side, right, is I think is looking at things like, And the sort of support around the, [00:17:00] the practitioners. So clinical decision making, difficult interactions or patients that might be challenging risk scenarios that come up, right? These are the sort of things that play on practitioners. After hours that they worry about. Right? So where you can create value is creating a team atmosphere where, and, and having a a sort of a hierarchy, not necessarily in terms of just a managerial, but in terms of that you can escalate an issue, right?
So that you know if there is a problem or a risk. Scenario that pops up that the practitioner can, one, you know, debrief, but two, by talking to the practice owner, whoever might be designated as a se senior person. It's not that that person has to have all the answers, or not even that the person assumes all the risk either.
Yeah. Often the standard when you're evaluating clinical interactions is did you do what a reasonable practitioner would do in similar circumstances? Mm-Hmm. Right. That's sort of often the standards used to evaluate in [00:18:00] response to risk and so forth. When you are then getting immediate or close immediate consultation with colleagues or with a senior person, you're going a long way to establishing like, I did this.
I checked it then with the senior person, you know, they also agreed that this was a reasonable thing to do in the circumstances. Right. And so you are creating this sort of support, you know, safety net if you like, that you don't get when you're on your own, right? Yes. And it's not the same on your own and just calling a colleague or a friend and money that passed because Yes, that still
it. Same as within our organization. These are the escalation points, right? And that peace of. Provides a lot of value, right? Because they feel a lot more secure, a lot more, you know, safe. Yeah. So there's that element. Mm-Hmm. And the other thing that I would I would say that creating value is around the benefits of a team [00:19:00] overall, right?
So sharing knowledge, having that that social kind of element, the debriefing element, even depending on the, people, but even that little bit of dark humor sometimes that, you know, it's actually can be quite healthy, right? Yes. Debriefing, you've got debriefing bit someone who understand some of the, you know, the intricacies of providing you healthcare and challenging, you know, circumstances at times, so.
Having that kind of space, having things like internal education sessions where maybe a different person presents their passion or they go conference and they come back and create a space for people to kind of. Talk about that. Share the knowledge. Even do case conferencing as a group, you know, where, you know, obviously you deal with the confidentiality elements of that, but it's all very manageable and get collegial input on some of those challenging cases.
Right? So all of those things create, you know, you put it all together, it fits the [00:20:00] lifestyle, it gives us support. Yes. It, it, you know, creates a team atmosphere. And often, you know, I think it's important that practices. A sense of vision and a purpose, right? So they also have a thing that binds the, you know, the, the, you know, the ethos if you like together.
So you put all those things together. Money, of course, remains important, but it's not the driving thing. The driver, no, no, no, no. You've
Megan Walker: created such a beautiful mentally healthy workspace as well, and that has enormous value. Absolutely. That it hasn't cost you any hard dollars. It has costed time, but then it's reduced your retention if you keeping the right people and nurturing them.
Damien Adler: Absolutely. Yeah. And it provides such a contrast, right? When if people do leave, you know, sometimes people will leave, they'll go to a high paying, you know, competitor that's offering, you know, crazy high money. But then what's quite handy when that happens occasionally, because that person goes, you know, they may have taken for granted all those wonderful things you're doing, they're still in contact with the people that work for you, right?
Yes. And they go, oh my God, I'm so [00:21:00] stressed. We have to do our own debt collection. We, if we don't. If we don't get, the customer doesn't pay us, the patient doesn't pay us, we don't get paid. Like I thought that, you know, like, you know, say in our, in our practice, we would, we would deal with it separately.
If a patient didn't pay us, we would still pay the practitioner, right? Because we'd say, well, our job is to follow up on the money. That's our responsibility. That's part of the service, you know, that we're offering, right? So within that, someone, if they did leave. Then suddenly that contrast and it actually, it, it's quite healthy and positive because then people start to appreciate
Speaker 3: Yes.
You know?
Damien Adler: And it's the same when someone joins you that has been often bounced around, a few practices that have really bad kind of vibe about them and a bad, you know, and then they go and they go, oh my God, this is heaven, right? Yes. Because. I'll never
Megan Walker: leave.
Damien Adler: Yeah. I'll never leave. Right. And I mean, we had retention, like our, our psychologist would be with the, for years and years and years.
You know, like it was very, very high when when everyone else was complaining about the sort of, you know, the turnover and all the [00:22:00] stuff that, that happens in the industry. Yeah.
Megan Walker: Wow. And you were in such a great position to have a. You know, you're so hands on having had your own practice, but you get to see over the fence into,
Speaker 3: yeah.
Megan Walker: Thousands of different practices. What do you think are your top three recommendations to create a really efficient, streamlined practice? What would be your. Top three?
Damien Adler: Yeah, I think it would almost go back to the, the things I was talking about before about the kind of client bookings and, you know, getting people, getting as much of that kind of admin as you can, you know, automated.
So that kind of using that, that client bookings getting that online forms going to people or collecting information sort of efficiently and securely. I think. I would also put in, into that automating payments as well, where you can and you know, we a lot others practice system, practice management systems will have options as well, but you can get people paying, you know, via credit card online doing, getting a lot of that sort of done.
It just takes out so much headache and speeds up [00:23:00] that, that front end you know, the reception area or something that, you know, it means that. Paying online the claiming process, say if they're doing a Medicare or doing a, you know, you can just click a button and it submits all the claims and everything.
So you can do most of it, have it all done, super streamlined, and then, you know, if there is a claim involved you know, click a button and, and, and do it. That just keeps everything kind of running. That's, you know, smoothly means that one admin person, if you are taking phone calls, they're not tied up.
Sort of, they can actually, they're more available for phone, you know, to take phone bookings, things like that. Yeah. So the whole thing kind of runs. Smoothly.
Megan Walker: Brilliant. Oh, so good. And I think as we are getting tight on time, we need to do a part two, Damien, if that's okay with
Damien Adler: you. Sure. We can do.
Absolutely.
Megan Walker: But something that I hear a lot about, you know, when I talk to my own therapists and clinicians and practitioners, is really different opinions around no show [00:24:00] policies. So let's talk about this and then I'm gonna get you to. Explain to people how they can find out more about Power Diary and, and get started with you guys.
But I've seen things like, oh yes, we're gonna charge them the full amount. We are gonna give them a 72 hours notice period. We're gonna give a 24. It seems to be so inconsistent. Have you got a view on no show?
Damien Adler: I do. And it's not. Tends to work well. And you know, is a 24 to 48 hour, you know, window.
So depending on the practice and the nature of the you thing is to have a 24 40 hour, and I would say that's during like business hours, right? So that depending on what your capacity's over the weekend, but like you can ask for, that needs to be on Friday if. Depending on practice, but if you can, the offer of or making people aware that telehealth is available as an right, because that often sometimes attend.
Is something like what a sick child. Right. [00:25:00] Which you can understand, but they can actually still do telehealth. And by setting that up in advance and having that, you know, that is good because then it reduces the instance of this kind of happening. Right. And, but I'd also say that looking at full feed, right.
For, without that, and we could get into a whole sort of discussion, some people sort of say, look it too, too harsh.
If you get those things there, it's important that it's very clearly articulated at the start. Yes, it's agreed to in writing, and that there's context put around why that is you, why it's, it's important. So, and then it's reinforced throughout, so making sure that if you do have people come into a waiting room, you do have, you've got reminders about, you know, that there, so that it just sort of keeps it fresh in people's mind around, you know, that.
So I think if you do all of those things. The way I view it, people are buying time when they book an appointment, they are buying time, and time is perishable. Right? It, it's not something, so [00:26:00] when you kind of, you know, you buy, you can't sort of buy a piece of fruit, right? Take it home. Right. Let it sit there.
Right. And then, decide I'm gonna return it because now that it doesn't have the value right? Okay, you've bought it, right? And essentially when you book an appointment, the closer you get to the actual appointment time, that the, you know, it's becoming the, the, the, the capacity to reuse that is rapidly, you know, diminishing, right?
So yes, all those things happen in life that it's not, that someone can be bothered turning up, whatever, all those things happen. Understand that, but that isn't, that's sort of a risk that the patient takes, not the practice. Right. When you book a an appointment time, you are assuming that risk because the alternative is that you have to charge so much.
You have to, everyone has to, you know, pay a lot, lot more. Yes. Right. To cover the income from those shows. And that's not fair, right. It really should. Only the people [00:27:00] that are unable to attend their appointments for whatever reason, in my view, should be the ones that, that wear the cost of that. And that's just part of life.
The same as, oh, I got called into work. Okay, that's fine. But you've made a decision to prioritize attending work versus that. That's okay, but there is a cost attached. That one should, you know, it shouldn't be a matter of passing that to the practice.
Megan Walker: Interesting. So good. Okay. I love it. I love the fact of talking about time as perishable and whose responsibility is it?
Yeah, so good. We have got more to cover, but I think we'll put a pin in it there because Sure. You and I are great talkers. We've got things to talk about with personal boundaries. Separating self-worth when we are charging thoughts on expanding the practice and diversifying. And I've even thought of just another one of NDIS charging and non NDIS client charging.
We could go on for days. Let's park it there. Damien, because you've imparted so much wisdom. I love what you've said about increasing the value for team members and [00:28:00] not, and. Changing the conversation from money based. Yeah. I love your efficiencies for streamlining operations. I mean, if you can get all of those cogs moving through automation and technology, what a breath of fresh air and your thoughts on no-show policy have been so helpful.
It's such a good reminder to get out of that, that space of, and these are just closing thoughts, I'll get you to touch on. This is not a free service that our clients are offering to the community. Yeah. These are businesses that have to run profitably. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Megan Walker: Tell us your final thoughts about. Running a proper business charging, not letting money get in the way.
And then we must wrap up. Tell us how can people get in touch with Power Direct? So, yeah, sure. Over to you.
Damien Adler: Look, I think that, you know, when you look at it broadly, you need and Practi practitioners need to be in a good mental space to do the work that practitioners do, right? And you extrapolate that. It need to [00:29:00] be in a position where the business is running as a business.
It's generating, you know, income profit. It's not causing financial stress. It's not encroaching on, you know, the, the, the practitioner's life, whether you are the practice owner or you're the practitioner providing services. Right. So my sort of thinking about that, you know, is really about. The practitioner wellbeing is where it all starts and ends, right?
Yes. So true. It has to be there because you can't provide, you know, good service in a sustainable way if practitioners are not happy and in a good place.
A damaged product,
Megan Walker: isn't it? They are the product. If that, they're the product that's damaged, then the whole business has nothing to sell.
Damien Adler: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I think in terms of power, I, people could jump on our website, power com and they can learn a little about us. We've got a whole bunch of blog content on there too. So, looking at, we love to, you know, go into all different areas of running practices and how things you can make things more efficient, not just based around using software, but actually [00:30:00] other areas as well.
So if you're interested, jump on there and done
Megan Walker: Thank you so much for what you do and the business that you run. Obviously you care very deeply about your clients and their success, and then the impacts that they're making in communities with positive healthcare. So thank you so much for sharing some of your golden nuggets that you've accumulated over the years, and we look forward to seeing you soon.
And, and it's power diary.com. Thank you, Damien.
Damien Adler: Thank you. [00:31:00]
