Dentist Office Ideas for October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month
by

Dentist Office Ideas for October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Hello Friends,

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month – Your dental practice choosing to support Breast Cancer Awareness month is a great way to show your patients and the community that you care.

The way we celebrate may look a little different this year due to the safety precautions we’re taking in our practices however, there are still many ways to show your support.

If you enjoy the complimentary ideas that I share each month, I would love and truly appreciate for you to please take a quick minute to leave a review/recommendation for me here on GOOGLE and/or FACEBOOK

Here are some tips and ideas for October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month

First, make a plan. Work together as a team to decide how you will promote Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Here are a few areas to consider:

  • Raise Awareness, How?
  • Collect Donations for a charity, which foundation/charity will the donations go to?
  • Office Decorations, What? Who? and from Where?
  • Social Media Sites – Use to raise awareness, discuss dental health tips, share office happenings, and contest details, etc.
  • Production & Product Sales – (Portion of sales will be donated to… )
  • Contests
  • Give-aways – (ex: pink imprinted lip balm, little pumpkins, see more gift ideas here)
  • Special in office Event (ex: Pink Day)
  • Community – Get involved with a local BCA event(s)
  • Wear Pink and encourage your patients to wear pink
  • Involve your local news media with a press release

Dental Ideas for Breast Cancer Awareness Betty Hayden Consulting

Photo Courtesy of Dr. Scott Terry & Team

Check out my Pinterest Board for more ideas: https://www.pinterest.com/BettyJHayden/dental-office-ideas-for-breast-cancer-awareness-mo/

Have you signed up to receive my complimentary dental marketing and practice management ideas that are sent right to your email inbox each month? If not, take a second and sign up. This way, you won’t miss a single idea!!

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty

Dental Coach

Tips and Ideas for October’s National Orthodontic Health Month
by

Tips and Ideas for October’s National Orthodontic Health Month

Hello Friends,

While many things look different in the world and in our offices than they did last year at this time – I am sure one thing remains the same and that is the goal to provide the very best orthodontic care and experiences for your patients.

The month of October is National Orthodontic Health Month – what a fantastic opportunity to start your final quarter for 2020 great… maybe even make it your best quarter ever.

Here are a few tips and ideas to help you and your team celebrate National Orthodontic Health Month…

Tips and Ideas for Orthodontic Offices from Dental Coach Betty Hayden

Theme:  Orthodontic Health Month!  Healthy & Beautiful Smiles!

  • Dental Hygiene with Braces – Share posts, pictures, and videos on your social media platforms and your Google My Business listing all about how to care for your teeth with braces, how to care for your clear aligners, and how to care for your retainers. (BTW October is also Dental Hygiene month)
  • Brace Friendly Candy – Share on your social media platforms what candy to avoid and what snacks/treats are brace friendly.
  • Reviews / Testimonials – Encourage patients to leave a review/testimonial on Google, Facebook, etc.
  • Invisalign – Use this as an opportunity to promote Invisalign. This time of year people are thinking about gift ideas and want to get their smile camera-ready for their end of year parties.
  • Before & Afters – All month-long feature before and after ortho photos on your social media pages.
  • Q & A Video Sessions– Use your social media platforms to post short videos of the doctors and/or team members answering frequently asked questions.
  • Special Pricing – During the month of October offer special pricing or some kind of BOGO offer which will encourage them to tell their friends about you 😉

Practice Management Ideas ~

Unscheduled Treatment Reminders – Reach out to everyone that came in for a consultation but have yet to schedule to get started. Stay in touch with them via the telephone, email, text, and your social media platforms.

FSA/HSA Reminders – Share reminders on your website and social media pages that orthodontic treatment is an allowable expense for FSA (Flexible Spending Account) and HSA (Health Savings Account) accounts. Don’t let it go to waste by not using it before the year ends. Use it or Lose it.

Community Involvement ~

Support Local Businesses – Each week feature a different local business/restaurant on your Facebook and/or Instagram pages. You can encourage your followers to comment on what they love about them business for a chance to win a gift card to that business/restaurant.

Gift Ideas for Referring Dentists and their Teams ~

World Smile Day – October 2nd   – Put together smile themed gift baskets.

Or do a team smiles photo contest. Office photo with the most FB or IG likes wins.

Cupcake Day – October 17th – Deliver cupcakes to referring offices with a note attached that says: “Your referrals take the cake” or “Thank you for your sweet referrals.”

There you have it some fun and effective tips and ideas to celebrate October’s Orthodontic Health Month.

Do you enjoy the dental leadership, management, and marketing tips and ideas that I share each month?   I would love and truly appreciate for you to please leave a review/recommendation for me here on GOOGLE and/or FACEBOOK

Have you signed up to receive my complimentary dental marketing and practice management ideas that are sent right to your email inbox each month? If not, take a second and sign up. Or send me your email address (bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com) and I will send you an invite to follow. This way, you won’t miss a single idea

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty (Dental Coach)

P.S. Please stop by and say hello to me on  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedInand Pinterest

Ten Steps to Create Healthy and Productive Fall Dental Hygiene Schedules
by

Ten Steps to Create Healthy and Productive Fall Dental Hygiene Schedules

Hello Friends,

Many dental offices are facing the potential for the weakest fall schedules they have ever experienced. For others, your schedules may look pretty good for September as you have been reappointing patients that had appts during the shutdown. It may even look better than ever. So, if you’re busy right now does it even matter what the schedule looks like for October and November? After all, there is still plenty of time to fill all those holes, right?

For numerous reasons, it matters greatly what your schedules look like for this fall and as for having plenty of time to fill those holes, well, we know what happens with time… it goes by very quickly, especially when we’re busy!

Typically, a full hygiene schedule today means a full doctor schedule tomorrow – why is that? Approximately, 75% of restorative needs are discovered during hygiene patient visits.

Unfortunately, when there is that open chair time with no production to collect on, your overhead expenses continue without letup.

This isn’t just about money though – our focus should always be on helping our patients smile healthier and happier. When Your Patients Are Healthy – The Practice Is Healthy. To help make our patients healthier we need them to schedule appointments.

how to fill holes in the dental hygiene schedule

Here are some tips and ideas that won’t require a lot of extra time or expense to help improve your schedules for this fall…

#1. Morning Huddle – At your morning huddle, review schedules for patients coming in without a future hygiene appointment scheduled, any family members due in hygiene, and patients with unscheduled treatment plans.  What is your plan to ensure that these patients leave with their next appointment scheduled.

#2. Broken Appointments – Who is tracking, and how are they tracking your broken appts? More importantly, what proactive steps are taken to reduce or eliminate broken appts in your office?  (One broken appt a day can cost a practice well over $30,000 a year in lost production. Imagine what that number looks like if you have more than one broken appt a day.)

If a patient cancels same-day be sure to get them reappointed while you’re on the phone with them. Unless of course, they are a habitual offender – poor appointment behavior doesn’t get rewarded with the privilege of reserving time on your schedule.  How to Reduce Same Day Dental Appointment Cancellations and No Shows

#3. Telephones – It is imperative that all team members are well-trained to effectively care for the patients and potential patients calling your office.  How many calls end with an appointment scheduled and how many do not? Are your office phones being answered during the times that patients and potential patients are most likely to call? How many times is the phone ringing before being answered? How often are callers being put on hold?

What about the “shopper” callers, the callers with insurance questions, the callers with questions about whether going to the dentist is safe or not, the callers asking if you’re accepting new patients, how do you know that these calls are being handled and cared for effectively? How do you know that your team members are not inadvertently keeping them from scheduling an appointment? Keeping you from welcoming them into the practice as new patients?

This may not seem like a big deal or related to what I am talking about today but how the telephone callers are cared for or not cared for has a big impact on your schedules and the growth of your practice.  Dental Office Telephone Principles

#4. Treatment Plan Presentations and Completions – Pull your unscheduled treatment plan reports. Even if you prefer to leave it to your patients to decide when they’re ready to schedule, you certainly can keep in touch with them and continue to gently plant some treatment reminder seeds of urgency, want, and need.

#5. Welcoming New Patients – What are your plans to successfully welcome more new patients into the practice? What are you willing to do differently in order to reach/exceed your monthly new patient goals?

#6. Community – What are some things you can do to get your name out there in the community?  If you’re not already, now is an awesome time to become the “go-to” dentist in your city/town.

What can you and your team do to give back to the community? Hint: I share ideas with you each month to do just that. Are you following my monthly emails? Dental Office Marketing, Leadership, and Management Tips and Ideas for September 2020

#7. Reviews & Recommendations – This one is super easy! Let your patients do some of the work, invite them to do the talking for you. Give them something good to talk about and spread to their friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers. How? Consistently deliver excellent experiences via the telephone and in-person at their appointments. Make it easy for them to leave a review on Facebook and Google My Business.

Please do not underestimate the power of “fresh” online reviews and recommendations to grow your practice.

#8. Insured Patients – Mid September, early October start your end of year insurance “use it or lose it” reminders and campaigns.  Patients tend to wait until the last minute to try and squeeze in a dental appointment to use their remaining benefits – strongly encourage them to beat the end of the year rush.

#9. In-Office Savings Plan –   If your office offers an in-office savings plan, create some campaigns to let more uninsured people and local small businesses know about your awesome and affordable in-office savings plan.

This is especially important right now as many of your patients may have lost their dental insurance coverage – or they know someone that does not have insurance and can refer them to you.

#10. Continuing Education and Team Building – The fall season may be the perfect time to schedule some in-office continuing education and training. As well as some fun team building activities.

Bonus Tip: Celebrate your Success! –  This is going to require a team effort to enjoy productive and healthy schedules for the rest of this year and beyond so please be sure to find ways to celebrate your success. Reward the behavior that you want to see more of! 🙂

Wishing you all the healthiest and happiest schedules for this Fall!

Doctors, if you would like to grow and improve your dental practice and have wondered what it might be like to work with me and what coaching is all about… please feel free to reach out to me to schedule a complimentary, no-obligation coaching call at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com.

Are you receiving my complimentary Dental Practice Management and Marketing Ideas via your email each month? If not, please follow today or send me (bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com) your email address and I will send you an invitation to follow. This way, you won’t miss a single idea. 

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty – Dental Coach

 

 

Dental Office Marketing, Leadership, and Management Tips and Ideas for September 2020
by

Dental Office Marketing, Leadership, and Management Tips and Ideas for September 2020

Hello Friends,

“What does the month of September typically look like in your office? Do you struggle to fill the schedule? Or do you find that it is a productive month for you?”

Those are the questions I asked you all last year because I always encourage my dental office teams to be proactive by taking steps to create/design what they want their schedules, production, collections, and patient growth to look like for each month. Why wait until the end of the month to say “wow, that month was awful” or “wow, that was a great month”… and wonder, how did we do that?

Little did we know that the year 2020 would bring so many changes to our world and negatively impact the schedules in ways we could have never anticipated.

Now, here in August 2020, many offices are facing the potential for the weakest fall schedules they have ever experienced. Your schedules may actually look pretty good for September as you have been reappointing patients that had appts during the shut down. It may even look better than ever. So if you’re busy right now does it even matter what the schedule looks like for October and November? After all, there is still plenty of time to fill all of those holes, right?

For numerous reasons, it matters greatly what your schedules look like for this fall and as for having plenty of time to fill those holes, well, we know what happens with time… it goes by very quickly, especially when we’re busy!

Typically, a full hygiene schedule today means a full doctor schedule tomorrow – why is that? Approximately, 75% of restorative needs are discovered during hygiene patient visits.

Unfortunately, when there is that open chair time with no production to collect on, your overhead expenses continue without letup.

This isn’t just about money though – our focus should always be on helping our patients smile healthier and happier. When Your Patients Are Healthy – The Practice Is Healthy. To help make our patients healthier we need them to schedule appointments.

The ideas that I am sharing with you for September will help you reactivate and reappoint patients, attract more new patients, build relationships within the community, as well as exceed your current patients’ expectations.

Dental Office Leadership, Management, and Marketing Tips and Ideas for September 2020

dental coach betty hayden fall dental schedule tips

Leadership Tips & Ideas:

“Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.” -John Maxwell

Empower your team to focus on the possibilities of what a healthy fall schedule can look like and how that is a benefit not only to your patients but to your employees as well. Think beyond what you’ve always done to get by or your current perceived limitations– get creative with your methods for staying in touch with your current patients, reaching out to inactive patients, welcoming more new patients, and learning new things as a team to keep things fresh and motivating.

Employee Appreciation Idea – September is Self-Care Awareness Month – Self-Care has never been more important than it is right now! Give a small gift of appreciation to your employees that encourages self-care.  It could be a gift card or actual gifts. (ie: spa products, chocolate, books, essential oils, teas, waterbottle, etc.)

Practice Management Tips & Ideas:

Unscheduled Treatment Plans & Hygiene Continuing Care – Reach out to all your patients with incomplete treatment plans or that are past-due in hygiene. Encourage them to schedule their appointment during the months of September, October, and November.

Insurance Renewal Letters – Send out your “Use it or Lose it reminder texts, emails, and letters.

Betty Hayden Dental Coach End of Year Insurance Renewal Reminders

Friends, do you know what your schedules look like for the fall months? Do you know how many of your active patients have a future appointment and how many do not? Do you know how many new patients you are welcoming into the practice AND how many patients you’re losing each month?  To help you get that data quickly, like within minutes – if your PMS is either Dentrix, Eaglesoft, or Open Dental you can request a complimentary, no-obligation practice data snapshot here: Game-Changing Awareness from Dental Intelligence  – Within minutes we’ll identify your practice’s strengths and uncover hidden opportunities.  I am happy to assist you with this at no charge and with absolutely no obligation to do anything further with me. 

Marketing Tips and Ideas: (Exceed Expectations for your current patients and the potential new patients that you engage with in your community.):

Theme: Fall in Love with a Beautiful & Healthy Smile

Focus: Preventive & Cosmetic Services

Giving-Away – Drawing for a Fall Themed Gift Basket / Patients can enter the drawing by leaving a review on Google and/or Facebook, referring their friends & family, and for coming in for their appts in September.

dental coach betty hayden fall marketing ideas for September

Local Business Marketing Opportunity: 

September is National Honey Month: Give away little jars of honey with a label or tag that says, for example, “Thank you for Bee-ing an Awesome Neighbor!” or “Our Nurses are Sweet as Honey!”  OR  to your referring offices you can say” Your Referrals Are Sweet As Honey – Thank you!”

Patient & Community Educational Idea:

September 1st – 7th is National Nutrition Week – You could do a quick Facebook live video and/or post content to your social media platforms all about Nutritious School Snack Options. Perhaps, you could even create a cute, simple hand-out for your patients with a list of nutritious snack options and the surprisingly unhealthy snacks.

Social Media Post Ideas to Improve Engagement during the month of September:

World Alzheimer’s Month

National Fruit & Veggie Month

Sweet Corn Week: 3rd – 7th 

Random Acts of Kindness Day: 1st

dental coach betty hayden kindness

Be Late for Something Day: 5th / But not your dental appointment! Here is why it’s so important for you to arrive on time for your appointments…

Mouthguard Day: 7th

Dental Office Tips and Ideas Sports Safety

Grandparents Day: 13th

World Heart Day: 29th

Do you enjoy the complimentary ideas that I share each month?  I would love and truly appreciate for you to please leave me a review/recommendation here on GOOGLE and/or FACEBOOK . Thank you! 🙂

Wishing you all the healthiest and happiest September!

Doctors, if you would like to grow and improve your dental practice and have wondered what it might be like to work with me and what coaching is all about… please feel free to reach out to me to schedule a complimentary, no-obligation coaching call at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com.

Are you receiving my complimentary Dental Practice Management and Marketing Ideas via your email each month? If not, please follow today or send me (bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com) your email address and I will send you an invitation to follow. This way, you won’t miss a single idea. 

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty – Dental Coach