Contributing Writer If you prefer not to discuss fees with patients when they’re in the chair, try something like this (in a kidding fashion): “You're trying to get me in trouble! I'm just kidding, but Mary at our front desk gets mad at me when I try to discuss fees. She always tells me if I stick to dentistry, she'll stick to her front desk duties. She'll take good care of you and will answer all your questions. She knows her stuff." Kevin Tighe, Cambridge Dental Consultants, Senior Consultant, got bitten hard by the business and marketing bug during long summer days working...
Dental practice management Quick Tips from Cambridge Dental Consultants and guest bloggers.
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A dental practice is too small of a business to afford any weak links. If you want to produce at a high level of production and efficiency, you cannot afford any weak links. Poor organization is also at the heart of patient complaints. Organization of a practice is, in essence, composed of ensuring you and your staff know how to efficiently and effectively process: a. New Patients b. Returning Patients c. Emergency Patients Another action we take early on with new clients is to evaluate where the weak links are in handling new, returning and emergency patients and then systematically strengthen...
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You want to keep relations with staff friendly but professional, kind of like the idea that “high fences make good neighbors." Consider using Facebook's privacy settings as your "fences" to control what posts your staff see or not. It's very easy to do.
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During normal business hours it is vital all calls be answered within three rings and that any hold times be minimal. If this not happening, typically the reason is not enough staff or the current staff need to be trained better and/or have better discipline. If you have too many calls coming in for your front desk to handle, you need another person up front or consider hiring reputable dental specific phone overflow service. After hours or weekend calls? Google phone number/voicemail is free. Your office number can be forward to it. The voicemail has ab employee or your voice which...
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Dental Practice Consulting Analysis
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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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