Dental Practice Management

There are four front office/front desk positions/functions. Call them what you want but they basically break down as follows:   a) Receptionist  b) Scheduling Secretary  c) Accounts Manager  d) Treatment Coordinator In a small practice one employee does them all.  As a practice grows two staff handle theses jobs/functions. The natural breakdown would be to combine the four jobs/functions as follows:  a) Receptionist/Scheduling Secretary  b) Accounts Manager/Treatment Coordinator.  In a bigger practice you might have one person for each position or some other combination such as two Receptionists, a Scheduling Coordinator and a Treatment Coordinator/Accounts Manager.

The best systems in the world are useless if the staff members do not comply. An effective leader and executive knows how to get staff to willingly follow through and comply. Key systemds: 1. New patient phone call. This is the single most important function in a practice.  2. New patient experience. This includes NPs educated on how their specific insurance works so there are no surprises for the patient if they end up with a bill. 3. Insurance accurately and quickly submitted, followed up on and collected. This includes accurate accounts and on time statements. Also firm financial policy that...

There are a lot of variables, but I think you'll find these numbers close to average plus or minus a few percentage points (based on collections): Staff: 25%Rent/upkeep, cleaning, etc: 5%Lab: 5%Dental Supplies: 5%Marketing, phones, etc: 10% Typically there are not too many places to cut costs other than payroll when it comes to the management of your dental practice overhead. In general payroll is the one area where the percentages are often too high. On top of that most practices are only producing at about 60% of what they could be doing. Consider this: A $10,000.00 monthly increase equals $120,000.00 per...

1. Typically practice owners do not have or do not follow an effective hiring protocol as they are often in a hurry. Many successful practice owners follow the maxim “Hire slow, fire fast”. By doing so you increase the probabilityof hiring a “good employee”.  2. Hire for ATTITUDE is hiring Golden Rule #1. The right attitude cannot be taught. Everything else can be.   3. Interviews only give you an “outer-view”. You won’t really know if you have a winner until you see the employee in action over a period of time. If the employee does not meet expectations within 90 days, dismiss...