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November 2022 WellFemme Doctors' Bulletin

Hi everyone! With our growing team and the difficulties of getting everyone together regularly in the same forum, I will send out regular email bulletins to convey the more important things of note.

Key dates: 

 
  • November newsletter goes out this weekend. Includes registration link to the Q&A webinar, intro to Helen and Sunita, a post by Niamh and some Admin notices. You can “subscribe” at the bottom of the WF homepage if you don’t already receive them.
  • “Christmas Gift” Q&A Webinar: Wed 7th Dec at 8.30pm AEDST/ 5.30pm in Perth. Willing volunteers (or perhaps reluctant recruits) are myself, Sunita, Niamh, Alice, Rebecca and Helen (and their appropriately christmas-decorated pets!) Get festive and have fun, it will be very casual… feel free to have a tipple on hand if it helps, too ;-)
  • Christmas “Shutdown” (sort of) is between Christmas and New Years’, although Carlie and Ivee are working and will be doing some marketing projects for us in the background. We will aim to NOT be doing any scripts or appointments during that time, but let us know if and how you prefer to be notified about any “emergencies” with your patients. 
  • Kelly away/ not in contact from 19th Dec to 5 Jan. I’ll be on an internet-free tropical beach :-)
  • Your future holiday plans. Please look ahead to the first 3-4mo of 2023 and let us know any planned unavailable dates and whether you do/don’t want to work on any public holidays

 

Key Admin points:

 
  • E-Scripts, test orders and documents: make sure that you are clicked into today’s appointment date/ tab before selecting “prescription”, or else it may be generated and saved with the date of a previous appointment on it.
  • Tasks. The Admin team are setting tasks for you to check results and incoming documents. Please tick those tasks as being completed once dealt with or they remain in your list (and ours). Don’t forget to set a task for yourself after each patient about when their next review is due, so you can send them an email reminder.
  • Keep an eye on your lists. Please scoot ahead a few weeks in your schedule each week looking for any problems, and have a go at booking in with yourself for various appointment types so you know how long people are waiting to see you. If problems are evolving let Tara know so she can adjust the ratio/ timing of appointment types for you.
  • Upfront payments. Starting January we will collect a deposit upfront instead of full payment, perhaps $150 for full-priced NP’s and $50 for concessions; this is roughly equivalent to their gap payment, and the balance will be debited from their card automatically during their consultation. This does mean however that if patients don’t show up, this is the only amount you’ll receive for that timeslot. Do you agree with this amount?
  • Price rise. We discussed this in one clinical meeting and this seemed to meet with general approval. We will increase NP appointments to $275/ $160 next year, reviews to $140/ $95, 10 min short appointments to $70/$50, and Free Trials to… nah, just kidding!  Do you agree with these prices, and should eScripts should also go up in price too? Please reply to indicate approval or suggest different pricing.

Input for articles, newsletters and socials posts. Our primary means of “drumming up business” is by building trust and authority with potential patients through their screens; we need to “put ourselves out there”. This is a whole new way of conducting medical business and connecting with patients… not everyone is comfortable with it initially (myself included) but I am living proof that the more you do, the easier it gets.

I’d love to get a few video snippets from all of you, similar to those we posted as “One Minute Menopause” last year. Please film a short video introducing yourself and explaining what you love about helping patients through the menopausal transition, and 2 or 3 videos addressing questions most asked by your patients. Have a look at the types of things covered in One Minute Menopause, and also Niamh’s Instagram posts on @mymenopausedoctor to get an idea about topics. I think just 1-2 minutes is great, and they can be very informally filmed on your phone (in landscape please), but with good light and quiet background.

I would also love any written submissions about menopause-related topics too please, be they short (great for socials posts and newsletters) or long (for Blog posts). I can post these with your photo, so if you absolutely don’t want to be on video this is the next best option.

These things can be done with minimal time and effort and carry great weight with our patients, so please put aside 30-40 minutes and bang out a few videos and paragraphs by first week of December so I can schedule the posts over the holidays.