The Profit Loop With Alisa Conner

A 15-year patient, one warm referral away from leaving. Not because she was unhappy, but because her dentist retired and nobody worked to keep the relationship warm through the transition.
In this episode, Alisa breaks down what happens to patients when a physician leaves the practice, the two communication mistakes almost every practice makes during a transition, and the practice math across four specialties: orthopedics, ophthalmology, dental, and functional medicine, showing exactly what's financially at stake. She closes with a three-step plan to protect your patient panel before, during, and after any physician transition.
In this episode:
Why patient loyalty is rarely just about the physician alone
The two communication mistakes that quietly push patients to competitors
The full practice math across four specialties, both annual and lifetime value
A three-step action plan you can start building this week
Resources:
Book your 20-minute Triage Call
Watch the YouTube Video
Read the blog

Nearly every practice Alisa talks to already suspects their technology doesn't talk to itself; they just assumed another subscription would fix it. In this episode, Alisa Conner breaks down why the technology leak is almost never a software problem, using a real example of a referral getting lost between two systems, the math behind why that gap can run over $1.1 million per physician, a 2024 physician time-use study, and a look at where online scheduling quietly loses the most patients. She closes with the three-step audit you can run on your own practice this week, no new software required.
Book your 20-minute Practice Triage Call here.

If your longest-tenured front desk person, billing specialist, or medical assistant gave notice tomorrow, what would that do to your practice?
In this episode, I break down what I call the knowledge gap, one of the most expensive and least-discussed leaks in specialty practices. It's not a hiring problem. It's what happens when the knowledge that runs your practice lives in one person's head rather than in a documented system.
In this episode, I break down:
Why replacing an employee costs 50-200% of their salary, not just their paycheck (Gallup)
The revenue that leaks out the door with them: missed calls, uncollected copays, claim denials, rising no-shows
Why the medical assistant role is the hardest in your practice to fill and keep, and what your competitors have already figured out
The full practice math: what replacing two medical assistants costs a six-physician practice
The 3-step action plan to protect your institutional knowledge before it walks
Book Your 20-Minute Triage Call Here

She loved her surgeon. She loved her results. She almost never came back anyway.
In this episode, I tell the true story of a patient who nearly left a practice she loved, not because of anything the doctor did, but because nobody called her back to schedule her second procedure, she couldn't book online, and her medication refills required her husband to physically drive to the office every single time.
Nothing about her care was ever in question. The gap was process, and it's one of the most common (and most fixable) reasons practices lose their most loyal patients.
In this episode, I break down:
Why "they like the doctor" isn't a retention strategy, and why Gen X may be the last generation with real brand loyalty
The real cost of losing existing patients to follow-up and access friction (conservatively $1.2M/year, per physician)
Why private equity-backed practices can out-market you but can't out-experience you
The 3-step audit to find and close this leak in your own practice
Resources:
Free Triage Call: https://links.alisaconner.com/widget/bookings/medical-triage-call
Referral Loss Worksheet: https://alisaconner.com/worksheet
 

There's a number most practices have never pulled a report on: how many people started the journey to become a patient and never finished it.
In this episode, Alisa Conner walks through why an ad-first growth strategy keeps failing specialty practices, the seven transition points where patients actually disappear between referral and repeat visit, and the practice math behind what an unoptimized patient journey costs a physician every month.
You'll learn the exact questions to ask about your referral process, the friction points most practices miss in scheduling, and why the entire patient experience, not just the clinical part, determines whether a patient stays or leaves.
Free resource: calculate your own numbers with the Referral Loss Worksheet here
Book a free 20-minute Triage Call here, and we'll identify the three places your practice is leaking the most revenue.

If you called your own practice right now, pretending to be a new patient, would you get a busy signal? Sit on hold? Have to fill out ten fields online before landing on a real appointment time?
In this episode, Alisa Conner walks through why an overwhelmed front desk is a process problem, not a staffing problem, and what that friction is actually costing specialty practices. She runs the math on an orthopedic surgeon losing $1.17 million a year to referral non-conversion at a conservative 20 percent rate, and a functional medicine practice losing $600,000 a year in self-referred leads who never make the schedule. She also breaks down why roughly 60 percent of patients hang up after 90 seconds on hold, and lays out the 3-step plan to redefine the front desk role in the next 30 days.
If you want the real number behind your practice's referral loss, grab the free worksheet here. Or, if you're not sure where to start, book your free 20-minute Triage Call here.

A live scheduler or a chatbot can absolutely get more calls answered. But answering the phone and actually keeping a patient in your practice are 2 different systems, and most practices only ever fix the first one.
In this episode, Alisa Conner walks through the research behind that gap, including a study showing that even a live staff phone reminder, the best-performing method tested, still leaves close to 1 in 7 patients not showing up. She breaks down why purpose-built referral navigation software only moves conversion from 63 percent to 66 percent, runs the real math on what a "successful" scheduling fix can still cost a practice in a single year, and introduces a new way to think about every tool a practice owns: front door versus full system.
If you want clarity on where your own practice is leaking revenue, book a free 20-minute Triage Call here: https://tidycal.com/alisaconner/triage-call-for-rrl

As the United States marks 250 years of independence, this episode asks a different question: how independent are you inside your own practice?
Typically, a physician owner is carrying roles they never applied for: CEO, accountant, marketing director, operations manager, compliance officer, technology shopper, and more. Each one adds decisions, and the constant switching between medicine and admin can consume up to 40% of your productive time, according to research summarized by the American Psychological Association.
In this episode, Alisa walks through:
The 11 roles physician owners carry without ever interviewing for them
Why decision fatigue and context switching are draining you faster than patient care
The $2 million marketing department that nobody inside the practice was watching
Why hiring for medical experience in business roles puts blinders on your practice
The 4 Hidden Revenue Leaks that cost practices the most: referrals, scheduling, follow-up, and trust
A 3-step Independence Plan: the hard question, one owner per role, and real monitoring
The 7 roles that need a single accountable owner in every practice
The 2-week disappearance test that reveals whether you built a practice or a job
Ready to find out where your practice is most vulnerable? Book a free 20-minute Triage Call and walk away with at least 3 specific action items: https://tidycal.com/alisaconner/triage-call-for-rrl
Read the full blog post: [blog link] Watch on YouTube: [video link]
Sources: APA, Multitasking Switching Costs: https://www.apa.org/topics/research/multitasking Sinsky et al., Annals of Internal Medicine (2016): https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M16-0961

You spent 45 minutes building a treatment plan for your patient, and during the consultation, the patient nodded, agreed with everything, and said they wanted to think it over. But then they ghosted you and never booked the treatment.
It is easy to call that price shopping. But if your plan was the best option, why didn't they just book?
In this episode, Alisa Conner walks through why specialty consults are so prone to ghosting and what to do about it. You will hear the 5 real reasons patients disappear, and why the patient who ghosts after a consult is usually the same patient who no-shows an appointment, and it's the same place referrals die, because it is 1 disengaged patient showing up at different points, not 4 separate problems.
Then we will dive into the 5 places your process quietly loses patients, plus the three changes you can make right now that get patients booked without anyone feeling like a car salesman. The episode closes with a 3-step action plan you can run this week to find your single biggest leak.
 
If you want help finding the biggest leak in your practice, book a Revenue Leak Snapshot call. It is a focused 20-minute conversation to pinpoint where your practice is losing patients you already earned.
 
Book your call here: https://tidycal.com/alisaconner/triage-call-for-rrl.

What is an empty chair in your waiting room actually costing you? In this episode of The Profit Loop, Alisa Conner digs into why specialty practices get hit harder by no-shows than almost anyone, what those missed appointments really cost, and why the standard advice to send another reminder keeps failing.
You will hear the four reasons specialty practices see higher no-show rates, why a disengaged patient checks out long before they skip the appointment, and the three points on the patient journey where you lose people without realizing it. Alisa walks through the practice math so you can calculate your own number, explains why generic reminders get deleted and blocked, and breaks down the rescheduling roadblock that quietly sends patients to the competitor down the street.
The episode closes with a three-step weekly action plan you can start immediately, no new software required: pull your numbers, audit your messaging, and call your own office to time the experience.
If you want to find out whether your practice is a fit for the small founding cohort Alisa is building, where she custom-builds your HIPAA-compliant follow-up and missed-call text-back system, book a quick fifteen to twenty minute call. You will calculate your no-show and referral leak numbers together on the call, so you walk away with real figures either way: https://tidycal.com/alisaconner/triage-call-for-rrl