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Dental Practice Management Tips and Ideas for February 2021
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Dental Practice Management Tips and Ideas for February 2021

Hello Friends,

How is your first quarter looking so far? What are you doing to ensure this is a healthy and productive year for you, your office, and your team?

“Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal.” – Walt Disney

Here are a few Practice Management and Leadership Tips and Ideas for February.

February is National Time Management Month: When was the last time you reviewed all your office systems and protocols to ensure that you’re using your time efficiently and effectively?

If you’re often running behind schedule, investigate as to the reason(s) why. If you know the why… change whatever it is causing you to stray from the schedule.

“You get to decide where your time goes. You can either spend it moving forward, or you can spend it putting out fires. You decide. And if you don’t decide, others will decide for you.” – Tony Morgan

Arrive at the office with plenty of time before the first scheduled patient, expect 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.

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.

Reappointments and Reactivation – Now is a great time to reach out to your unscheduled patients both active and inactive patients.

Rather than just calling to ask if they would like to schedule an appointment, use this occasion to simply check in to see how they’re doing and let them know you’re thinking about them. This is about building and strengthening relationships. 

Take advantage of the different methods to reach them – telephone, text, email, letter/care, and your social media pages.  You’re planting little reminder seeds that you are still here for them during these crazy times.

Here is an idea: February 24th is Forget Me Not Day – This is a day to remember family, friends, loved ones, and unscheduled patients.

Remind your patients to not forget to schedule their all-important dental cleaning, examination, and oral cancer screening!

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. 

Telephones – As a team, create your Telephone Principles (scripting guidelines) which include your goals & expectations for each call.

Practice, Practice, Practice how to effectively handle different types of calls and questions until you feel comfortable. A few tips:

  • Answer the phone during hours/days that patients are most likely to call.
  • Avoid putting callers on hold – first, find out who it is and how you can help them.
  • Call Steps: Smile, Reassure, Get Name, Discovery, Relationship Building & Scheduling.
  • NP’s – Always get their referral source. Also, ask if they have any other family members that they would like to schedule an appointment for.

To learn more, see: https://bettyhaydenconsulting.com/2020/01/30/dental-office-telephone-principles/

Insurance Claims – Send out clean claims with the correct information, provider, date of service, xrays, attachments, documentation.  Your goal is to not have any unpaid claims sitting out there past 30-60 days.  What does your insurance aging report look like? (Did you know that your collection percentage drops significantly after 90 days past due? Over 120 days past due it drops to about 30% – you lose a lot of your money the longer these claims sit out there.)

For Dental Marketing Tips and Ideas for February visit here: https://bettyhaydenconsulting.com/2021/01/05/dental-office-marketing-tips-and-ideas-for-february-2021/

As always, wishing you the very best!

I would love and truly appreciate for you to please leave a review/recommendation for me here on GOOGLE and/or FACEBOOK.

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 inbox each month? If not, please start following us today. If you prefer, send me your email address at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com and I will send you an invitation to follow my blog.

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty

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

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Dental Marketing and Practice Management Ideas for January

Hello Friends,

Now is the time to think seriously about any troubles, concerns and problems that occurred during the year that you do not want to repeat in the new year. What problems would you like to see solved? Take steps to make any needed changes or improvements. For more ideas to get you started visit here: Improve your Office – Make a change!

Also, think about all of the things that worked well and how you can repeat them or even improve upon them in the new year. Celebrate your successes!!

Do not delay, put down on paper all of your thoughts and plans to make 2017 a better year for you and your practice. Do include your team in this plan, ask them what their ideas are to make 2017 a more productive and happier year for all.

Now, here are some Marketing & Practice Management Ideas to help make January your Best Month Ever!

dental marketing ideas for winter betty hayden

Practice Management Ideas ~

Let’s start with your existing patients active and inactive…

Hygiene Continuing Care & Incomplete Treatment:

Insurance Maximums: Many of your patient’s dental insurance maximums renew on January 1. Phone, email or text your patients with a friendly reminder of their renewed benefits and make a reservation for them to come in for their hygiene visit or incomplete treatment with the doctor.

Inactive Patients: It doesn’t help anyone to have a file cabinet or computer full of inactive patients – Get them on the schedule. January is a great time to send We Miss You Reactivation Letters to your patients. For a sample letter visit this post: Reactivation Letter

Hygiene Patients: Are you pre-appointing hygiene visits? If not, January is a good time to make this a goal for the office. While you have the hygiene patient in the office, schedule their next 3, 4 or 6-month visit. Avoid saying “would you like to schedule your next appointment?” Many will say no. Instead, say this: “Let’s go ahead and schedule your next visit.” Assume they want to schedule their next visit. By the way, your entire team needs to be on board with pre-appointing your patients. It can be done!🙂

National Clean Off Your Desk Day: 9 (2nd Monday)  Clutter represents indecision. Make a decision 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.

Fun at Work Day: 27 (Last Friday)  You’ll find many ideas here on how to have fun at work.

Next, we have few internal and external marketing ideas, some are educational and some are just for fun. All are presented to exceed your patients expectations, help to create value for better dental health and get people talking about you to their friends, family members, co-workers, and neighbors.

Dental Marketing Ideas

External Marketing to Local Businesses:

Send a coffee truck to local businesses/schools – What a great surprise and welcome treat for many local businesses. Be sure to take pictures that can be shared on your social media sites. 

January is Be Kind to Food Servers Month –  Visit some local restaurants and present servers with a “We Appreciate You” gift. Gift Ideas: Toothbrush bag, lip balm , pens, etc. All items should be imprinted. Consider a drawing they can enter to win free teeth whitening.

Internal Marketing Ideas

January is National Hot Tea Month –

Educational & Service Opportunity:

Drinking teas such as green tea can be very good for one’s dental health.

Does Tooth Sensitivity hold some of your patient’s back from enjoying their favorite hot beverage? Show them how you can help relieve/eliminate tooth sensitivity. This will give a nice boost to your production too!

If you are interested in having me help your office create a custom “National Hot Tea Month” (or different themed) campaign that includes ideas for special offers, patient give-aways/drawings, community involvement, cross marketing with local businesses and recare/incomplete treatment scripting, please contact me today at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com

Social Media Post Ideas to Improve Engagement:

Sugar Awareness Week – 16-20

National Motivation and Inspiration Day: 2

Dress Up Your Pet Day: 14

Popcorn Day: 19

National Pie Day: 23

Dental Drill Appreciation Day: 26

Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day: 30

So there you have it, a few dental marketing ideas for January. Please be sure to comment below with any other ideas or reminders you have for the month of January. I LOVE hearing from you!

If you have not yet subscribed to receive my Free Dental Marketing Ideas each month, please do so today.

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty

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

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Ten Ways to Stay in Touch with your Dental Patients

Hello Friends,

How do you encourage referrals and build relationships with your patients when the average dental patient comes in only 2 times per year for their continuing care hygiene appointment? Think about this, you get to spend 2-3 hours out of 8,760 hours per year with those patients. With all of life’s distractions and responsibilities, how can you ensure that they don’t forget about you in between appointments? Stay In Touch. Keep your name in front of them by planting little reminder seeds.

Today, I’m going to share with you 10 Ways to Stay In Touch With Your Patients. Ten easy & effective ways you can stay in touch by planting “reminder seeds”.

how to build relationships and encourage referrals betty hayden consulting dental

  1. Social Media – Active Social Media pages are a must. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & Pinterest are excellent ways to engage  and build lasting relationships with your patients. If you struggle with what to post on your pages, visit here for social media content ideas.                                                                                                     
  2. Freebies –  Give away free items imprinted with your office name, website and phone number to each patient at their appointment. Such as; toothbrushes, magnets, calendars, pens and lip balm. ( If you’re wondering where you can order some quality imprinted items, check out Bizarre Marketing.  I share this particular company with you because their customer service is awesome!)                                                                             
  1. Cards – Send cards to your patients, Just Because, Thank you for your referral and/or Special Occasion cards. People appreciate getting an “old fashioned” hand written greeting card via snail mail.   Make it convenient by keeping a variety of greeting cards on hand.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
  2. Telephone – Pick up the telephone and call your patients. Here are a few reasons you may have to call: Continuing care appointment reminders, Thank you for your referral, Post-op (just checking in to see how well you’re doing), Refill reminders (due for a refill on whitening gel, toothpaste, electric toothbrush head replacement, etc), and Special Occasions.                                                                     
  3. Letters – Send out letters for incomplete treatment, congratulations on completed treatment, welcome to our practice and thank you for your referral. Tip: providers and team members should personally sign their letters. Include a  brief note or comment if appropriate.  In addition to letters, send continuing care appointment reminder postcards and text messages.                                                                                                                                                          
  4. Newsletter – Send newsletters out to your patients. Include sharable content, dental health tips, recipes, community news, office happenings, dental education and special offers.                                                                                                        
  5. Emails – Dental Hygiene Tips, Office Happenings, Continuing Care Reminders and Special Offers. Be sure to ask and record email addresses of your patients. Email communication is inexpensive, easy and effective. Just don’t spam your patients with too many emails.                                                                                                   
  6. Website – Keep your website fresh, easy to navigate and attractive. Include videos, info & pictures about the doctor(s) and team, community events, special offers, ability to schedule appts online, FAQ, dental services and education, office hours, directions, social media pages, contact information, etc.                                                                                                                                                                  
  7. Patient Appreciation Events – Host a fun event for your patients – In-office Patient Appreciation Days and Open House events. See Open House ideas. Out of office events, such as; Roller Skating, Indoor Bounce/Trampoline, Movie Theater, Public Pool, Bowling, Local Park, etc. Invite your patients to bring a friend. Be sure to have imprinted giveaways and information about your office at these events. Encourage all attendees to visit and like your social media pages.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
  8. Community Involvement – Be involved in local health fairs, charity events, sponsor local sports teams, etc. Just a thought, when you and your team are out participating in community events, consider wearing t-shirts that clearly identify (advertise) your office and give away a lot of imprinted gifts.

There you have it, 10 ways to stay in touch with your dental patients. Doing some or all of these things will help to build lasting relationships with your patients and encourage referrals.

Of course, the very best way to ensure your patients remember to come back and to refer their friends, family members, neighbors and co-workers is to get them talking about their experience after they leave your office. How do you that? Be consistently great! Consistently exceed expectations! Plan to make sure that each and every appointment is great from the initial greeting at arrival, during their appointment, and when you say your thank you and goodbyes as they leave. (See Earn The Privilege To Serve Again)

At your next team meeting, discuss what you are currently doing to stay in touch with your patients and how you can improve in planting more reminder seeds.

Are you receiving my complimentary Practice Management and Marketing Ideas in your email inbox each month? If not, please subscribe today. Feel free to tell your dental friends all about us so they can start benefiting from these dental ideas too. If you liked these ideas, please let me know by hitting the “like” button. Thank you!!

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty

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

 

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Dental Marketing to Seniors

Hello Friends,

Marketing to seniors typically isn’t a priority for most dentists. However, since advancing age doesn’t mean seniors cannot keep their teeth for a lifetime, why not take advantage of the opportunity to reach out to this generation? Help them to see they’re not destined to lose their teeth.

dental marketing to senior citizens

A few ways to reach out to Senior Citizens:

Senior Appreciation Day (In-office)

Senior Health & Wellness Expo

Direct Mail Marketing to Senior Living Communities

Website & Social Media Sites

Today, I’m going to focus on ideas for you to use at a community senior health & wellness fair/expo. However, many of the ideas for talking points, presentation and giveaways may be used in the other forms of marketing mentioned above.

Health Fair settings can be challenging for a couple of different reasons.

One, there are a lot of vendors and booths/displays so you’re going to want to make sure that your display table stands out. That it draws the attention of the guests.

Two, most people are there for something free. No problem for you,  because they won’t leave your display empty-handed.

Many wonder what they should talk about and what sort of items should they give away?

How about these ideas…

Service Talking Points ~

– Denture/Partial Maintenance & Repair
– Bad Breath
– Dry Mouth
– Teeth Whitening
– Orthodontics
– Implants
– Oral Cancer (On-site screenings)
– The mouth-body connection
– Smile Makeover

Presentation / Demonstration ~

– Power Point/Video presentation on a laptop/tablet/LARGE monitor with before and after photos and/or information about your services.
– How To Demonstrations: Proper Brushing & Flossing Techniques

Display ~

– Table Cloth
– Banner (Office Name and Website address)
– Brochures
– Business Cards
– Use nice baskets, containers and frames to display your items.

Keep your table neat but attractive – too much information and “stuff” will be overwhelming in that setting.

Include a Big Call to Action with a deadline: You could hand out a sheet of paper that has a special offer on it: Complimentary Oral Cancer Screening, New Patient Special or Teeth Whitening Offer. On that sheet include some of the other services you offer. Also, include your social media sites and of course all your office contact info.

Make certain that you’ll have the ability to schedule complimentary consultations and New Patient Hygiene visits right there on the spot. (Access to your schedule…at the very least a copy of the schedule for the next 2 weeks.)

Very Important:  Your display table must include friendly, smiling, approachable and outgoing team members (also wearing, professional & clean attire).

Other things you can do to attract people to your table…

– Prize Wheel

–  Gift Basket Drawing/Raffle
Lots of FREE stuff! Which brings us to…

Giveaways ~

– Bottled Water
– Healthy Snacks
– Xylitol Products- Gum/Mints

– Sample dental health products with sticker or tag attached showing that a “refill” may be purchased at your office.
– Imprinted Toothbrushes
– Toothpaste
– Floss / Imprinted Floss Cards
– Imprinted Pens
– Magnets
– My favorite idea for a quick & inexpensive freebie is Lip Balm- (my go to; http://www.lipbalmexpress)
– Reusable Bags with your Office Information on them is a handy giveaway, one that allows them to carry their free gifts in and advertise your office for you.

If you’re not looking to spend a lot of money on bags, please consider using small imprinted plastic bags so no one is fumbling with their gifts.

(If you’re wondering where you can order some of the imprinted items listed above and many others not listed, check out Bizarre Marketing.  I share this particular company with you because their customer service is awesome.)

Raffle / Drawing ~

– Electric Toothbrush
– Whitening Pen
– Gift Cards
– Gift Baskets ( Themes: Dental, Gardening, Seasonal items, Spa – don’t hesitate to team up with local businesses for basket items)
– Free Teeth Whitening and or $ off Dental Treatment ( NOTE: they can either check the box for which one or all that they are hoping to win. Use a full sheet of paper with prize options and large space for them to fill out their name, email, address & phone (to be used later to send nice to meet you cards).

Should you decide to use a Prize Wheel instead of Raffle/Drawing be sure to find another way to capture their information so you can follow-up with a “pleasure to meet you” thank you card after the event.

Encourage attendees to “like” your office Facebook page and “follow” your office on Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Perhaps you can offer some type of incentive/reward for visiting your social media sites.

Take a few minutes before and after the event to briefly introduce yourself to the other vendors and businesses at the expo. Give them a bag with some of your office freebies. This is a great opportunity to build relationships within your community.

So many ways for you to have a fun and successful senior health and wellness fair. Do you have any other ideas that have worked well for you? Please, share them with me.

If you do not already subscribe to receive our free dental marketing and practice management ideas right to your inbox each month, please do so today. Feel free to tell your dental friends about Hayden Consulting. ~Thank you!

We welcome your comments, questions, and likes.

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty

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