How your staff approaches referrals can become second nature by asking patients their opinion, and if it's positive, then asking for that all-important new patient referral.
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1. Set either a monthly or quarterly goal.2. The goal is based on what is commensurate with 25% or less payroll percentage. Example: Say your payroll is normally around $20,000. Collections must be over $80K per month for there to be any kind of bonus.3. If the goal is exceeded, a bonus is given. How much you bonus and how the bonus is split among the staff will vary from office to office. It can be an arbitrary amount of $200 to $400, or be specifically calculated on how much "bonus sum" is available, i.e., the difference between 25% and the...
1. Testing: Much of marketing involves testing, which is a fancy word for trial and error. Try different marketing actions to see what produces the best ROI. What will work in one town may not work in another. A discounted new patient exam might produce a response or not. If it does not, perhaps a teeth whitening offer will. It's all about testing.2. Practice name: Unless your name is well known and respected in your town, it's a bad marketing decision to use it for your practice's name. Instead you want a name that is memorable and clearly tells patients what type...
Comparing monthly production/collections year to year has value, especially in snowbird states, pediatric practices (August being normally quite busy,) and the hectic holiday months (Nov/Dec).Stat management tip: If you wait until the end of the month to notice that none of your plans were implemented or effective, expect your team to get upset. When it comes to coaching your team to excellence, you must be active and timely with your observations and feedback. If on the first day of the new month, you have added $1,500 in new treatment to the schedule, you need to praise your team's progress, analyze the...
What Does A Dental Consultant Do? Charge?
Many dentists will tell you dental consulting works. If dental practice management firms had no worth or benefit they could not stand up to harsh economic realities for long. What a veteran dental consultant brings to the table are systems and protocols successfully implemented in other practices that have been improved and tweaked over many years. Top dental consultants talk and network with each other. They pay attention to what works and what doesn't work across all dental practices.
Marketing & New Patients
Practice management consultants generally have little marketing training or background.
Note: Cambridge'a consultants are Certified SEO and Ad Words Specialists
Dental Office Systems
Key systems dental consultants implement:
- New Patient Phone Call
- Insurance Processing
- New Patient Experience and Patient Education
- Financial Arrangements
- Scheduling
- Confirmation
- Unscheduled Treatment Followup
- Reactivation
- Huddle
- Stat Monitoring
- Daily and Weekly Checklists
- General Policy Manual
Your Staff
You will not get much ROI from your dental consulting if your staff do not have your back. You do not beed a team of cheer leaders jumping up and down with enthusiasm, but you do need staff who are smart and take some pride and ownership in what they do. If there is more than the usual drama in your practice that needs to be sorted out before you will get any real results.
Staff Accountability
What gets monitored gets done.
The "big" obvious numbers are important to monitor, but when you look at them they are typically already "in the books". You want your team to concentrate and be accountable daily on the "small" stats that bring about the "big" stats. How many practice owners know how many calls were made to unscheduled patients each day or overdue re-care or inactive patients? Many dentists vastly underestimate how much daily "outflow" is needed to keep a schedule full. How may dentists know what % of slots were open in their hygiene schedule each day? How many know how many NP calls there were yesterday, who scheduled and if they end up showing up? More importantly how many staff know considering it's their job to do?
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 re-care or need reactivation. Other staff can and should help in coordination with the accountable employee, but that employee accountable reports daily on a spreadsheet like this: 1. # of calls or personal texts sent 2. # of contact
3. # of appointments with name and date 4. # of arrivals
It is the employee who is either making themselves valuable to you or not. If they are doing so, dismissing them will never enter your mind. On the other hand, if they are not making themselves valuable, you will be doing them and yourself a favor by giving them the opportunity to find a practice or other employment that is a better fit for them.
Leadership
What most practice owners are missing is not how to book an appointment but how to be effective leaders. 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. Agreement among all team members is key. Your written office policies should contain those agreements and should answer most questions staff come up with. Doing so will save you much time and simplify the management of your practice. Staff non compliance is a sure sign of poor leadership. The primary reason practices underperform is staff non compliance. Key traits of leaders. All it takes is discipline:
- Always keep a cool head especially when "under fire"
- Realize that all mistakes are an opportunity for you and your staff to learn.
- Set a good example.
- Always be learning.
- Take care of yourself.
- Fight the impulse to address multiple issue at the same time. Frantic activity creates spotty results.
Cost
$35.000.00 is the average fee for a one year program with dental practice management companies you are likely familiar with. For those companies that require you and your staff to travel to their facility or seminar you also need to add in the cost of travel, staff pay and lost production from time away from your practice.
Questions You Should 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.
If you do a little homework it should be fairly easy to pick a reputable consultant that is a good fit for you and your practice.