December 31, 2020 by bettyhayden

Betty’s Top Ten FREE Dental Practice Improvement Tips for 2021

Hello Friends,

Here you will find my Top Ten FREE Dental Practice Improvement Tips for 2021. They’re not just free to read, they’re free to implement. How awesome is that?! Ideas that when implemented, WILL help you increase production, attract more new patients, build relationships within the community, have more fun as a team, as well as exceed your established patients’ expectations.

#1 – Mission, Vision, Core Values – Knowing why you show up every morning will help to create a culture of happiness and excellence.

Mission – A clear definition of the purpose and focus of the practice today.

Vision – It is about what you want your practice to be in the future. It is the outcome/result of your mission.

Core Values – Core Values represent the beliefs and principles that define your practice, your team, and the patient experience you aim for in your dental practice.

Involve the entire team in your vision, mission, and goals for the practice. Involving your team will help to keep everyone on the same page, working together for the greater good of the practice. Encourage and empower your team to not only come up with new ideas and solutions to problems but to implement these ideas and solutions.

#2 – Lead by Example – “Treat your employees how you would like them to treat your best patient! “

If you want to see a positive change in your practice, you must consistently lead by example… be the change. It starts at the top. You set the tone for the day, make certain that it’s a happy & productive one. This includes any employee in a management position – if you have employees complaining about your office manager, take it seriously. A toxic office manager will destroy your practice over time, at the very least, cause a staff turnover nightmare. In fact, any employee that is toxic to your vision, to your team, and/or your patients…needs to go. It’s not easy to make the decision to terminate someone’s employment, yet absolutely necessary if you want to improve your practice. It’s been said that “what you allow you encourage.” Once you make the decision to no longer tolerate or allow the poor behavior and attitudes in your practice, you’ll breathe a huge sigh of relief.

#3 – Communication – “The art of communication is the language of leadership.”

Job Expectations & Job Responsibilities – What are the performance expectations for your team? Does each employee clearly understand their role in the practice? Have every team member write down a detailed list of all their job responsibilities. This is VERY helpful in determining more effective ways of doing things as well as finding out what is NOT being done.
Morning Huddles – See: https://bettyhaydenconsulting.com/2019/04/30/dental-office-morning-huddle-tips-and-ideas/
Monthly Team Meetings – See: https://bettyhaydenconsulting.com/2019/12/27/tips-and-ideas-for-successful-monthly-dental-team-meetings/
Quarterly Employee Check-ins (AKA Performance Evaluations)
Hello, Good Morning! – Make it a point to greet your fellow team members every morning. Let people know that you see them and acknowledge them with a hello.
Thank you – Express your appreciation. Saying thank you improves your office, your health, and the patient’s experience.
Commendation – Commend your employees when you catch them doing something “right”. Commendation boosts morale. Applaud & reward the behavior and actions that you want to see more of. Simply thanking your team at the end of the day goes a long way in making them feel appreciated. Little surprise treats and gifts every now and then are also much appreciated.

#4 – Know your Numbers – “If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going.” – Maya Angelou

Knowing your practice numbers and doing something with what you know about those numbers is key to growing and improving your practice. Numbers tell a story. Numbers tell you if your practice is healthy or unhealthy.

Get a baseline of where you’re at in order to make a goal for where you want to go. For example,

Overhead – Evaluate your true costs of doing business. What does it cost you per hour to keep the practice running?
Supplies – What is your supply budget vs what you are actually spending?
Payroll – What is your payroll percentage? Are you hygienists producing 3.3 times their salary?
Collections – Are you collecting what you produce and how long is it taking to collect your money?
Adjustments/Write-Offs – Are you closely monitoring your adjustments and write-offs?
Production – What are your hourly, daily, monthly, and yearly restorative and hygiene production goals?
New Patients – How many new patients do you want per month? What are you doing to welcome more new patients each month?
Attrition – How many patients are you losing each month and why?
Treatment Acceptance Vs Diagnosis – How many of your patients are saying yes to your best care? How are you keeping track of your unscheduled treatment plans?

If your numbers reveal unhealthiness be quick to act and get help to restore your practice to health and happiness.

Friends, 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.

#5 – Declutter – “Clutter in your physical surroundings will clutter your mind and spirit.”

Clutter represents indecision. Decide to get rid of the clutter! That includes any sticky notes attached to computer monitors, coats/sweaters hanging on the backs of chairs, and fast-food drink containers sitting out on the counters. Along with unnecessary things sitting on treatment room counters. What about your sterilization area? Does it look clean and sterile? Or cluttered and unclean?

Make a cleaning schedule – including the who, what & when. When will the parking lot, restrooms & reception room be checked & cleaned? This should be done several times throughout the day. Do not wait for the “cleaning person” to take care of those areas. If the flooring needs to be vacuumed… vacuum it. If the glass on the windows/doors have fingerprints…clean them. If the restroom toilet and sink are dirty… clean them. Make a promise as a team that if you see it (and you know you do) clean it.

SEE https://bettyhaydenconsulting.com/2019/12/03/are-you-past-due-for-your-office-cleaning/

#6 – Stay on Time – “Time has a wonderful way of showing us what really matters.”

If you’re often running behind schedule, investigate the reason(s) why. If you know the why… change whatever it is causing you to stray from the schedule. Running behind schedule sends a message to your patients and your team that you don’t respect their time. Respect your team by sticking to the scheduled work hours. Be sure that they are not habitually working through their lunch or having to work late. They need breaks to refresh and refuel. Give them that. They have a life outside of work and making them work past their scheduled end time is a real drag. I understand that sometimes unexpected events may occur so they might be asked to work late or into a lunch hour but this should be a rare occasion, not a daily or even occurrence.

Arriving at the office with plenty of time before the first scheduled patient, expecting your patients to arrive on time, never wait on hygiene exams, calculate the actual amount of time it takes to do procedures, control the schedules, these things will help you stay on time.

#7 – Show you Care – “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” – Theodore Roosevelt

Post-Op Calls – Doctors and Hygienists, call your patients at the end of the day to see how well they are doing. (Tip: Call all patients that received an extraction, perio treatment, difficult procedure, were fearful or new to the office.)
Pre-Op Calls – Doctors and Hygienists start building your relationship with a new patient before they step foot in the practice. Call and give a warm welcome, let them know you are looking forward to meeting them at their appointment. It’s unexpected, takes only a few minutes, and will really make your new patient feel special.

Say My Name – Everyone likes to hear his or her name. Greet your patient’s by name. Use their name during treatment. Thank them by name for coming in or calling.

Memorable Goodbyes – Make a great last impression with a friendly goodbye…be sure to use the patient’s name. Give them something good to talk about.

Thank you’s – Send handwritten thank you cards to your new patients and to your new patient referral sources.

#8 – Reappointments & Reactivation – “Do what matters, now.”

Reappointment – The best way to keep your patients active is to be sure to reappoint them for their next hygiene visit when they are there at the office. Also, help more of your patients say yes to your treatment recommendations and have them reserve their appointment at the time of treatment presentation.

Reactivation – Stay in touch with your unscheduled and/or inactive patients.

#9 – Online Presence – “You never get a second chance to make a great first impression.”

How are you presenting your dental practice, your services, your care, yourself, and your team online? Are you attracting potential new patients or turning them away? Consider briefly these four important areas…

Website – Your website should reflect the culture and personality of the practice and the team. The content should be fresh and relevant. The photos should be attractive and current. Think about this, when people visit your website are you welcoming them with warm and helpful messaging or inadvertently turning them away with poor messaging and unattractive pages?
Social Media – Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Blogs, Online Community News Pages, YouTube, and more help to build your dental practice. Even if you’re not a fan of social media, please remember that most likely many of your patients and potential patients are using these platforms regularly.
Google My Business – Are you consistently posting fresh content to your Google business page? If not, you should. It’s free, easy to do and people visiting your listing like to see fresh content.
Reviews & Recommendations – Ask your patients to please review your office on Google and recommend you on Facebook. Don’t simply rely on third party companies to do this for you. It’s so simple (& free) to invite your patients to do this for you.

#10 – Training – “There is no way the quality of your patient care and experiences will exceed the quality of the people who provide it.”

Don’t hold back in this area! Invest in your team. Thoroughly train any new employees on your practice goals, systems, software, telephone skills, dental procedures, protocols, etc. However, training isn’t just for your new employees, everyone in the office needs regular training.

Is there a chance you might have some new dental equipment or training manuals just sitting on the shelf, collecting dust? It’s most likely because your team didn’t understand or appreciate the why and the how. Knowing why and how this new idea, technique, equipment, or procedure works, benefits the patient, the team, and the office is critical to enthused implementation.

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.

Wishing you all a healthy and happy start to 2021!

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!

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

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty (Dental Coach)

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

March 16, 2020 by bettyhayden

Dental Office Tips and Suggestions Regarding COVID-19

Hello Friends,

With the Government guidelines and regulations regarding COVID-19 rapidly changing, it has been especially challenging for dental practices to know what the best way is to care for and protect their employees and their patients.

Earlier today I shared some suggestions, tips, and advice regarding COVID-19 with my coaching clients via emails and calls but I thought you all might find the information helpful as well so I am sharing here too.

While we don’t want to contribute to the panic that is happening all around us or create more fear in our patients’ lives – we need to be able to effectively communicate how we are following recommendations to keep employees and patients safe and healthy.

My biggest recommendation to you is to take a deep breath, remain calm and think before you act and make any decisions for yourself, the office, your employees, and your patients.

Some offices are choosing to remain open while others are closed due to State-mandated closures and/or strongly recommended suspension of nonessential and nonurgent dental care for 14 days.

UPDATE: I know that many dental offices have made the decision to close the practice to all non-emergency appointments. Several have reached out to me asking what they can do to still be productive during this time to help grow and improve the practice. If you would like a list of recommended and suggested tasks and things to do during this “downtime” – please send me an email at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com and I will get that out to you.

Here are some questions, tips, and suggestions to consider whether you remain open, are at a reduced schedule, or are closed…

If you Remain Open:

Who can work and when?
Will you continue seeing hygiene patients?
Will you reduce the hours or days worked?
Will you
What will you say to patients calling with concerns?
How will you care for emergencies?
What is a true dental emergency?
What happens if an employee or the doctor gets sick?
What happens if a patient comes in for their appt and you suspect they are sick?
Do you have the supplies necessary to care for your scheduled patients?
Be sure that you hold times in the schedule to accommodate reschedules, emergencies, and NP’s
What happens if you need to close the office? Do you have a written protocol?
Do your automated electronic appointment reminders need to be adjusted?

If you Close the Office:

Who is responsible for rescheduling appointments? And what is the scripting?
Where will you reappoint the patients?
Do you need to pause your automated electronic appointment reminder system?
When will you reopen?
Who will answer the office telephone calls?
Do some employees still work in the office? Who and what are their tasks?
Who will collect the mail? Who will post checks?
How will your employees be paid?

Patient Communication

Write down what to say regarding:

Rescheduling Patients Appts
Patients Calling to Cancel/Reschedule
Patient Safety Protocols
Patients in the office with symptoms of illness
Patients that want to delay treatment
Office Closures
What is a dental emergency?
Preventive dental health home-care tips

The biggest thing to remember when communicating with your patients – is to reassure them that their safety and the safety of your employees is of utmost importance. By now, they all know what is going on and it’s no secret that big adjustments are being made all over. If any appointments need to be rescheduled, assure them you are making arrangements so they won’t have to wait too long for an appointment. Be real with them but don’t cause any unnecessary panic. It’s best to keep messages simple and helpful.

In-Office Appointments

Patients should not come to the office if they have any cold/flu-like symptoms.
Request that patients call or text from their car when they’ve arrived for their appt.
Advise patients to not bring in anyone else with them to their appt.
Remove from the reception room any difficult to clean items (books, magazines, toys, beverage station items, etc).
To minimize exposure, avoid having patients stop at the front desk at appointment arrival and dismissal. Rather, do all that you can from the treatment room (ie: Scheduling and Collecting Payments).
Make the most of each appointment – Continue to provide the very best experiences for every patient. If you can care for any diagnosed treatment needs while they’re there instead of reappointing them that would be great.

Stay in Touch

Patients with scheduled appts – reach out to your scheduled patients with what you’re doing to help keep them safe at their appt.
Older Patients – Check in on your elderly patients to see how they are doing.
Appointments – Keep careful track of all cancelations, broken appts, and reschedules! We don’t want any patients slipping through any cracks
Social Media – Use your social media platforms to stay in touch with your patients as well as with potential patients. SEE Dental Practice Social Media Platform Tips and Content Ideas.
Create short Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram videos with at-home preventive dental care tips and a video or post(s) to answer the questions: what is a dental emergency?/ what to do in a dental emergency?

During Downtime or Office Closures

External and Internal Marketing Plans (critically important for the growth of the practice especially in times like this) – Create your plan to exceed current patients’ expectations, welcome more new patients, retain and reactivate patients, as well as build relationships within the community. SEE Dentist Office Leadership, Practice Management, and Marketing Tips and Ideas for April 2020
Office Cleaning and Organization – SEE Is Your Dental Office Pastdue For A Cleaning?
Continuing Education and Training – spend some time together as a team to watch dental education webinars and on-line courses, team role-play, and create and refine new office protocols, and systems.

Employee Illness Policy

Employees experiencing influenza-like-illness (ILI) (fever with either cough or sore throat, muscle aches) should not report to work.

What is your policy for employees who become ill?

Who will cover for that employee and how?

Doctor Illness

If the doctor is diagnosed with COVID-19 (or any illness suspected of possibly being COVID-19) what is your plan for patient care?

Temp Employment Agencies

Even if you don’t have a need right now to use a temp agency you may need one soon. Who do you call? How do they work? It would be wise for you to create detailed job descriptions and protocols for each department should you need to bring someone in temporarily.

Supplies

Do you have the necessary supplies to care for your scheduled patients? If not, are you able to obtain the supplies in time?

Remote Computer Access

Should the office be closed, are you prepared to access your PMS at home? Who can access this information?

Employees working from home

What is expected of the team over the period working from home?

Which jobs and tasks are essential, and which can wait?

Overhead

Now is a good time to review all overhead expenses. Evaluate all categories for any possible reduction opportunities. If you don’t know your overhead percentages or recommended benchmarks I strongly encourage you to learn this information.

Review your business interruption coverage

Do you know the details of your insurance policies? Immediately speak to your insurance expert and get detailed information about your business interruption coverage. What is covered? What is the amount of coverage? What is the deductible? When does it kick in? A 14-day interruption for self-quarantine might not be covered.

I understand that this most likely doesn’t answer all of your questions and concerns but I hope it does help some.

Don’t miss out on any of the ideas that I share each month! Are you receiving my complimentary Practice Management and Marketing Ideas in your email each month? If not, please start following us today. If you prefer, send me your email address (to bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com) and I will send you an invitation to follow my blog.

Sending you wishes for health, safety, and much happiness!

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty – Dental Coach

December 27, 2019 by bettyhayden

Tips and Ideas for Successful Monthly Dental Team Meetings

Hello Friends,

How do you feel about monthly team meetings? Do you avoid them? Do you feel like they’re a waste of time? If you do, you’re not alone. In fact, I may have heard a few doctors say they’d rather… go to the dentist than conduct a team meeting. 😉 Sorry, that was bad. It is true though that many people have had enough bad meetings that they dread team meetings to the point of not having them at all.

Why are regular team meetings so important? Because when conducted effectively they help to keep the team all on the same page and working toward the same goals and mission which leads to success. Isn’t that what we all want?

Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance

Which reminds me – in addition to monthly team meetings, daily huddles are critical to having more productive, happier, and less stressful work-days. If you’re not holding daily huddles or if you need some ideas to help them be more effective please visit here: Dental Office Morning Huddle Agenda Tips and Ideas

Some offices choose to conduct more frequent team meetings and/or weekly department meetings and that is totally fine but knowing that so many offices are not regularly conducting monthly meetings or not even yearly meetings – we’re taking baby steps here by recommending they get started with monthly team meetings.

Here are some tips and ideas to help you conduct effective monthly meetings.

Schedule – Schedule your monthly team meetings well in advance. If we don’t reserve some time each month for the meetings life tends to get in the way and crowd out any opportunities to meet as a team.

How much time should you reserve? Ideally, one and a half to a two-hour block of time but if you can’t spare that much time to start, reserve one hour.

Assigned Leader – Rotate who leads the monthly meetings so it isn’t always the same person. There is no reason for the meetings to only be conducted by the doctor or the office manager. Give everyone on the team the opportunity to take the lead on this.

Preparation – Post the date of the next team meeting as well as an agenda sheet. Encourage the team to add to the agenda. All team members should arrive at the meeting on time and prepared to contribute.

At the start of the meeting record:

Today’s Date:
Team Member’s Present:
The meeting note-taker is:
Meeting time-keeper is:
Who will pass notes to team members not present:
Next months meeting will be conducted by:

TO BE CONSIDERED

Open with Positive Comments & Commendation (2-5 minutes)

Each employee must contribute a positive comment/experience about someone or something in the office.

Role Play / Training (5 minutes) – Topic Suggestions: Telephones, Treatment Plans, Financial Presentations, Hand-Off, New Product/Service, Etc.

Agenda Items (15 minutes) Topic, Name of Person, the Estimated time needed to discuss

Note: If you see that there is an agenda item written down to be discussed at your next team meeting and it is something that can be handled prior to the meeting or it is something that needs to be addressed with an individual employee please don’t save it for the team meeting – take care of it now.

Growth – Ideas for Improvement (5 minutes)

Potential Stumbling Blocks – Concerns (remember to bring a solution with your concern) (5 minutes)

Numbers – Goals Vs How We’re Doing (5 minutes)

Production
Production Per Visit
Collections
Pre Appointment Percentage
Reviews
New Patients
Daily Open Chair Time

What’s Going On – Office News/ Office Happenings (2 minutes)

Marketing & Relationship Building – Marketing Status & Upcoming Plans (5 minutes)

Action Items – What? Who? When? What is the Action Item? Who is responsible for making sure it happens? When will it be completed or is it ongoing?

Have you ever decided to implement a new idea and nothing ever happens with it? Most often this is because the expectations weren’t clearly defined and no one was assigned to see it through to completion. We must work together to gently hold each other accountable for accomplishing the action items.

Meeting Conclusion – Closing Commendation & Positive/Happy Video or Quote – each month a different team member is assigned to contribute the next meeting’s positive/happy quote or video.

A few more tips and ideas…

Atmosphere – The atmosphere for these meetings should be warm and welcoming. This is a safe space where team members aren’t afraid to share their thoughts and ideas.

Stay in Control and on Topic – If you find that the team is going off-topic or a subject is taking longer to discuss than planned, please either bring everyone back on track and/or move that subject/topic to be discussed at a later date. It is all too easy to lose control if we are over-discussing a topic because we don’t have 100% agreement from all team members… that’s not likely to happen so make a decision and move on.

Employee Conduct – Everyone not only arrives at the meeting on time, but they are also prepared to contribute. Cell phones should be put on silent and away. We respect the person talking by not talking over them, not interrupting them or whispering to another employee. Oh, and this isn’t the time to catch a quick nap.

The start of the new year is the perfect time to create a new habit for the team – regular monthly team meetings! If you have questions or concerns about monthly team meetings – please reach out to me. I’m happy to help.

What are your practice goals for 2020? I would love the opportunity to work along with you and your team to help you set and exceed your practice goals. If you would like to schedule a complimentary telephone consultation to learn how our coaching program works, please email me at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com.

Are you receiving my free Dental Leadership, Practice Management, and Marketing Ideas in your email inbox 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

September 2, 2019 by bettyhayden

Dental Insurance Benefits (Use it or Lose it) Reminders, Tips, and Ideas

Hello Friends,

It’s that time of year when we should start sending out dental insurance use it or lose it reminder letters regardless if your patients are ready to hear that or not.

The month of September is a great month to get started on your “Use it or Lose it!” letters and emails out to your patients. This is for all of your patients that have dental benefits that renew on January 1^stand/or patients with FSA or HSA dollars that expire at the end of the year.

Especially helpful for your patients that are /pastdue/due/or due this year for their hygiene visit and/or with treatment that is yet to be started or needs to be completed and their remaining dental insurance maximums are getting ready to expire.

Time to remind them to Use it or Lose it! – Get your letters, emails and text messages out to your patients reminding them to use any insurance benefits they have remaining for the year to complete any needed treatment or for their continuing care hygiene appointment before they lose them.

Remember, the closer it gets to the end of the year the more difficult it becomes to get them to schedule and you may not even have room in your schedule to accommodate them.

Your goal is to get them from the filing cabinet/computer to the schedule!

Personalize – When mailing out remaining maximum letters, be sure to customize for each patient according to their treatment plan. This will help to re-create the urgency and value for treatment. For some patients, it will take some type of additional incentive to get them to act. Perhaps, include a gift certificate for $ off of their treatment if it’s completed and paid for by December 31st. Not redeemable for cash. Or the opportunity to enter a raffle for a really great prize!

Need ideas for what to include in the reminder letter? Feel free to email me at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com and I will send you a sample letter that you can customize for your office.

Take this opportunity to add a P.S. message to the end of your letter, telling your patients all about your specials on teeth whitening. Many people at this time of year are looking to whiten their teeth for their end of year celebration family photos, or to buy gifts for family and friends.

For example…

P.S. Now is a great time to whiten & brighten your smile for your end of year celebration photos. We have some fantastic whitening specials! Teeth whitening gift cards also make a wonderful gift.

P.P.S. Did you know we are on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter? “Like” us on Facebook at … and “follow” us on Instagram, and Twitter at … / This way you can stay up to date with all our office events & news plus have a chance at exclusive offers & contests.

Mailing Tip – Use a bright-colored envelope and neatly hand-write the name and address. Use a “live” stamp. This will take a little more time to do but your patients are more likely to open an envelope that looks like it’s from a friend and not their dentist.

Phone Calls – About a week after you mail out your letters, go ahead and start calling them to see if they received the letter and to schedule them an appointment.

Document – Be sure to document that a letter was mailed, phone calls were made and what type of response you received from each patient.

Important Reminder – Before sending out these letters and making calls to your patients be sure to review your upcoming appointment schedule… Where is your open chair time? Will pre-blocking some open time be helpful? Also, before scheduling last-minute appointments that require lab work at the end of the year be sure to communicate with your lab guy/gal that they can, in fact, get these cases back to you in time.

Social Media – Use your social media platforms to remind your patients to use their dental benefits before the end of the year.

Wishing you all a full schedule for the end of the year!

If you enjoy the complimentary ideas that I share each month, I would love and truly appreciate for you to please leave a review/recommendation for me on Google or Facebook here are the links GOOGLE and/orFACEBOOK

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 and I will send you an invite to follow. This way, you won’t miss a single idea!

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty

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