Ep883 | What To Do With A Difficult Staff Clinician

What To Do With a Frustrating Employee In Your Clinic

In this episode, Doc Danny breaks down one of the hardest parts of owning a clinic: dealing with a talented but frustrating employee. You know the type. Great with patients, solid outcomes, but sloppy with systems, notes, and follow through. Danny walks through the three real options you have, why "letting it slide" destroys culture, and how to use a performance improvement plan to either turn things around or coach someone out.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• The classic pattern of the friendly, high-output clinician who struggles with systems
• Why tolerating mediocrity from one person lowers the standard for your entire team
• The three options you have with a frustrating employee (and the one most owners avoid)
• How to build and run a simple, effective performance improvement plan (PIP)
• Why leadership and standards matter more than any one hire
• How "coaching people out" protects your culture and your A-players
• Questions to ask yourself about your onboarding, training, and systems

Claire: Get Your Attention Back on Patients

Danny opens with a reminder of how fast documentation can pull your attention away from patients. As PTs, we pride ourselves on building rapport and relationships, but it is hard to do that when you spend half the session staring at a laptop.

Claire, the AI scribe built specifically for physical therapists, lets you give patients 100% of your attention while it writes your notes for you.

• No more "split attention" between EMR and patient
• Better engagement and outcomes because you are actually present
• Notes drafted for you based on the session so you can review and finalize

Try Claire free for 7 days: https://meetclaire.ai

The Talented but Frustrating Employee

Danny describes a very familiar pattern in service businesses. You hire someone you like. They are a good culture fit. Patients love them. Outcomes are strong. But behind the scenes, they:

• Drag their feet on notes and documentation
• Ignore or half-follow systems and processes
• Show up a little late, miss small details, or respond slowly to emails and Slack

They are not a disaster. They are not a clear liability. But they are not meeting the standard either. That gray area is exactly where most owners get stuck.

First, Own Your Part as the Owner

Before you blame the employee, Danny challenges you to look in the mirror. Have you:

• Actually trained them on your EMR, project management tools, and communication systems?
• Explained why those systems matter (data, tracking, meetings, outcomes, marketing)?
• Given them clear expectations, examples of "done right," and time to practice?

Most owners are busy and rush onboarding. They throw people into the deep end with a few screen-share videos and hope they figure it out. Then they get mad when the systems are not followed.

Your Three Options With a Frustrating Employee

Once you are honest about your own role, you really have three options:

1. Let it go. Accept that this person is just this way. They are good with patients, weak with systems, and you live with it.
2. Let them go. Fire them for not following processes and creating extra work for others.
3. Create a performance improvement plan. Sit down, define what needs to change, and track progress over a set period.

Danny explains why the first option is the most dangerous. When you tolerate one person ignoring standards, everyone else sees it. Your A-players start to wonder why they are working so hard. Support staff quietly resent the extra work. The real standard becomes "we say we care about systems, but we do not enforce them."

How