Contributing Writer 
Dental practice management articles on dental office hygiene departments from Cambridge Dental Consultants and guest bloggers.
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Base pay plus commission seems to be the best and most popular system. This protects the hygienist if the front desk drops the ball on the schedule, but also gives the hygienist a reason to go the extra mile. Always use adjusted production or actual collections when calculating a hygienist’s bonus because this is the amount that can actually be collected. The general rule of thumb is that any commission kicks in when production (or collection) exceeds three times the hygienist’s base pay. Also, if the day does fall apart or there's an open hour, the hygienist on base pay can...
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The industry standard for periodontal procedures is between 30-35% of hygiene production. Periodontal maintenance (D4910), of course, follows SRPs. It is not preventive. It is after-care.
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Here is a quick formula I use in my dental consulting to determine how efficient your hygienists are:
1. Take active patients and multiply by two (go back 1.5 to 2 years for active patient count).
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Dental Practice Consulting Analysis
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Our 25th Year | Grow Your Practice
There is the good, the bad and the ugly of dental practice management, but many dentists will still tell you the probability is your dental consulting will work if you and your consultant are on the same page. It stands to reason that if a dental consultant had little value, worth or benefit that consultant could not stand up to harsh economic realities for long. A veteran dental consultant is also a "personal coach" who shold bring management wisdom based on "in the trenches" experience along with systems and protocols to that have been successfully implemented in other practices. Top dental consultants talk and network with each other. They pay attention to what systems work and don't across many dental practices.
Systems
New Patient Phone Call
Insurance Processing
New Patient Experience and Patient Education
Financial Arrangements
Scheduling
Confirmation
Unscheduled Treatment
Reactivation
Daily and Weekly Checklists
General Policy Manual
Staff Accountability
What gets monitored, gets managed. It is as simple as that. The only way to monitor what gets done is with daily stats especially for your weak areas. For example, one employee should be specifically responsible for calls to patients who are unscheduled, overdue for re-care or need reactivation. Other staff can and should help in coordination with the accountable employee.
Leadership
What most practice owners are lack in knowledge is not how to book an appointment, but rather how to be an effective leader. The best systems in the world are useless if the staff do not comply. Good leaders know how to get staff to willingly follow through and comply.
Questions To Ask
Do you and/or your staff have to travel or does the consultant come to you?
Is the program mostly one on one consulting versus seminars or courses with multiple clients in attendance?There are advantages to both.
If the dental consulting is one on one who will actually deliver the consulting? I recommend knowing who your specific dental consultant will be prior to signing on the dotted line.
Is program based on a specific dental practice management system? You want to avoid cookie-cutter programs. Ensure the program will be tailor-made to fit your practice's specific needs.
The cost (including travel expenses and downtime) is certainly not the only factor, everything else being equal, it is still a major factor to consider. It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little.
Top Dental Practice Mangement Consultant
My name is Kevin Tighe. Consultant. Coach. Mentor.
My mission is to advise, recommend and help implement proven systems to grow your practice .
Before joining the Cambridge team I was in charge of setting up workshops for large nonprofits throughout the United States and Canada. During that time, I was fortunate to receive mentoring from several world-class business consultants, including a dental practice management guru, which led to a position at Cambridge as their seminar organizer. In time, I began crisscrossing the country delivering seminars myself for the better part of a decade. Subsequently, I moved up to senior consultant and eventually partner and now sole owner.
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