Blogs

May 15, 2012 - Wayne's World

May 15, 2012 by Marc Strode, CEO
Folks,
Wayne Allen is persistent.  Wayne Allen is an entrepreneur. An the story I'm about to tell goes to show you that timing is everything to making a good idea work.  If you don't know Wayne, he is our fearless leader in the Lab.  I remember him telling me very early on when he and I first met that, "Marc, we could be doing the labwork for just about everyone in town.....".  It was only recently that we had begun to dust that concept off and begin to run all the traps of how we get into the reference lab business and not compromise what we are doing here on the main campus.  Not only is there the operations of it all, but with lab billings, there's a lot of compliance issues with Medicare you better be sure you are dotting your I's and crossing your T's. 

Then came that thing called timing.  About 2 weeks ago to the day, Dr. Cadena stopped Wayne in the hallway and approached him and wondered if the offer was still on the table for us to do all the labwork for his clinic.  Apparently he was put out with the vendor who was providing the service and was open to change.  Well give Wayne an inch, and he's in the door!!!!

Incredibly, in just 10 days, we were able to get a great team together to meet on this concept and work with his office staff on how we were going to make this happen.  We knew we had one shot.  We had to get it right, and if you know Dr. C, he has very high expectations around execution.  If we dropped the ball someone else would take the chance and run w/ it.  So we huddled, we talked, we conspired, we dry ran and we put ourselves last Monday in a position to go after a new line of business and serving patients that really does have unlimited opportunities.  I wanted to wait a few days to tell this story until I knew it was "all systems go".

6 days into it we have seen our lab business increase about 16%.  I suspect this will grow quickly.  Plus, it's about 25-40 patients a day that get to experience the VVRMC experience.  As we stick that needle oh so gently to draw blood, we smile, we market ourselves, and we tell our story that sets us up for the next time.  And the next time.  And the next time.

We are already looking at other clinics--including ours across the street--to replicate this model.

Thanks so much to Wayne and his boss Gayla for the drive and execution.  To Mark Moore, Gilbert Tovar and Justin Seavey from IT, couldn't have done it w/o the quick hook-up.  Great service!  Ron and Elaine in admitting, well we gotta get'em registered and gotta get all of that right and doin' remote adds a little complexity.  Thanks for making it happen. 

And most importantly to the 3 that are really the face of this operation--Patricia Rodriguez in Admitting, Maricela Calvetti and Cristina Trevino in Lab who are actually drawing the blood---hip, hip, hooray 3x!  Really proud of your effort and remember, soft stick and big smile!  Use each interaction over there to tell our story and to let folks know we are here to serve them (gently!). 

Keep the Spirit,
Marc