Until a dental practice has at least a half dozen staff or more there is no real need for designating any employee as the office manager as what a real OM does is hire, train, apprentice, correct and manage the other staff. A real OM is not answering the phone, scheduling, doing financial arrangements, etc. However an OM should be able to do all these jobs better than anyone else otherwise how can she properly train, correct and manage the other staff? A vital skill for of an OM is having the expertise to train other staff. The truth is when you...

I often talk to clients about the importance of role-playing with your dental staff but that may not be enough. Just because you showed someone how to do it once, doesn’t mean they will continue to follow the procedures you’ve shown them.  I have a client who thoroughly role-plays new staff members on their job duties until they have their procedures down to perfection but then he didn’t follow up on them until a few months later. Instead he assumed that they were doing the job the way he had shown them how to do it. After all, he was paying...

Is this a question you ask your Accounts Manager regularly? Dentists who are frantic about their profitability always seem to be bugging their staff about the collections. What’s worse, they try to “save” their way out of bad financial situations and that’s the wrong solution. Now don’t get me wrong. You should save money where you can, but the fact is that most of your expenses are fixed. Instead of asking, “What are the collections today?” you should be asking, “What percent of my collections goes to staff pay?” Why? Because the percentage of staff pay tells you what kind of...

As a consultant one of the first things I do is take on the role of being the patient. So I leave without paying. Just kidding. No, what I mean is that I try to eyeball your dental office as if I am a new patient. I stroll around the parking lot, take a seat in the lobby and view the surroundings. I visit the restroom. I sit in each of the dental chairs and look up at the ceiling. What I sometimes uncover can really be stunning: Cigarette butts in the parking lot, weeds sprouting up from the cracks, dead flies...