How are you handling recent changes in routine office work flow? Have you implemented any of the newer technologies available for dealing with your waiting list? What about your insurance handling? As labor costs have gone up (without reimbursements going up!), and with a chronic labor shortage in most markets, automating your practice becomes progressively more compelling to keep on top of your current demands and to maintain your profit margins.
The term “Luddite” is often used to describe people who are opposed to new technology. However, the original Luddites were industrial workers who burned factories and assassinated factory owners to stop or slow industrialization in Northern England. They were not against technology per se, but rather the ways in which wealthy industrialists were robbing them of their way of life. The Luddites wanted technology to be deployed in ways that made work more humane and gave workers more autonomy.
On the other hand, early adopters are people who are among the first to try out new products or technologies. They are opinion leaders in their communities and adopt new products early but carefully. Early adopters make up 13.5% of the total purchasers.
In hindsight, evaluating the consequences of new technologies is difficult. Although industrial machinery indisputably changed history, the benefits and costs aren’t clear cut even with 200 years of hindsight. Similarly, advances in robotics and computing are replacing low-skilled labor, and technology makes it possible to send jobs overseas to places where the cost of living is cheaper. Evaluating the consequences of this technology will be incredibly difficult, but that doesn’t stop us from having an opinion.
In a chiropractic office the Luddite mentality questions is this: We have a system that is working now, why should we change it?
The early adopter question is this: what technologies exist now that I can implement to automate and simplify my routine work flow at lower cost?
I have phrased this as an either/or proposition, but in reality it’s more like a continuum. When you are making decisions about changing anything in your office, where do you typically fall?