September 2022 Dental Office Management and Leadership Ideas

September 2022 Dental Office Management and Leadership Ideas

Hello Friends,

How is the month of September looking for your office? I hope that it is looking healthy and productive. If it is looking a little weak – I have some office management and leadership ideas that when implemented, will help strengthen it.

Leadership and Employee Appreciation Ideas

Bring Your Manners To Work Day: 1st 

Good manners are cost-effective. They not only increase the quality of life in the workplace, they contribute to employee morale, embellish the company image, and play a major role in generating profit.” – Letitia Baldrige

Say please and thank you. Make it a habit to say please every time you ask for something. Saying thank you improves your office, your health, and boosts morale.

Use your Body language Manners – 75-80% of how we interpret what others are (or aren’t) saying is through their body language. Remember, smile more, make eye contact, be attentive and demonstrate that you are listening.

Employee Appreciation Ideas

International Chocolate Day: 13th -Bring in chocolate for the team.
National Coffee Day: 29th  – Starbucks or Coffee Gift Cards or Bring in a special coffee/tea drink for the team.

A gentle reminder (idea) for the team…

Hug Your Boss Day: 8th  – Don’t forget to show appreciation for your boss! They want to hear & feel that they’re appreciated too.

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 looking for fun & effective marketing and practice growth ideas for September? Check these out: Practice Growth Tips for September 2022

Practice Management tips and reminders for September

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

It is important to stay in touch with these “unhealthy” patients even IF you have crazy full schedules. They need to know you haven’t forgotten about them and that you care about their health.

Morning Huddle and Chart Reviews –   Look for unscheduled treatment, family members due, unscheduled hygiene patients, etc.  Look for opportunities to help more of your patients smile healthier.

Insurance Renewal Letters – Send out your Insurance and HSA/FSA “Use it or Lose it” reminder texts, emails, and letters. If you would like a sample letter please email me at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com

Dental Service Special Feature/Mouthguards – September 5th is Mouthguard day. Consider, offering special pricing for custom mouthguards during the month of September.

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!!

Wishing you a productive, fun, and stress-free September!

Yours for Greater Success,

Betty – Dental Coach

P.S. Please stop by and say hello to me on FacebookTwitterInstagramLinkedIn, and Pinterest

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October National Dental Hygiene Month Tips and Ideas

October National Dental Hygiene Month Tips and Ideas

Hello Friends,

October is National Dental Hygiene Month – This is the time of the year where we celebrate the work our awesome dental hygienists do (which is way more than just “clean teeth”), and we help raise awareness on the importance of good oral health.

Hygienist Appreciation Spotlight

During the month of October introduce your hygienist(s) on your social media platforms. Share a photo and some fun facts.

Celebrate your amazing hygienists all month long (they deserve it!).

The Daily 4 – Talk to your patients about the importance of practicing The Daily 4

Four steps that lead to a healthy smile:

  1. Brush: Using a soft toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste – Brush your teeth for two minutes at least twice a day.
  2. Floss: Floss between your teeth once a day to remove plaque that brushing your teeth fails to remove.
  3. Rinse: Rinsing with an antimicrobial mouthwash helps to reach the bacteria that brushing, and flossing cannot.
  4. Chew: Chewing sugar-free gum after a meal will help produce saliva, which fights cavities, neutralizes plaque, strengthens enamel, and cleans food debri from teeth.

Social Media Post Content Ideas to Boost Engagement During October

All month-long share posts and short videos on your social media platforms regarding the importance of regular preventive dental visits to the dentist.  

Video Topic Ideas:

  • Proper Brushing Techniques
  • How to Floss
  • Benefits of Sealants
  • How to choose toothpaste, mouthwash, etc.
  • Good Snacks Bad Snacks
  • How Fluoride treatments benefit children and adults!
  • What do to about bad breath

World Smile Day: 1st – Invite your patients to share pictures of themselves, their family, and/or their pets smiling on your Facebook page to be entered into a drawing to win a prize.  Goal: fill FB newsfeed with happy smiles!

Photo Backdrop & Smiley Props – Set up a photo area for your team and patients to take pictures to celebrate world smile day. Share to Google My Business, Facebook, and Instagram

National Kick Butt Day: 11 

International Kissing Day: 20-21 

For other social media content and marketing ideas for October visit here:  October Marketing (Growth) Tips & Ideas

Kids’ Goal Setting Week: 3rd – 9th – Share ideas for dental hygiene goals for children.  For example, for your young patients, design a hand-out that includes a toothbrushing chart to track their daily brushing progress. You could even have a fun gift that they can enter to win by turning in their completed brushing chart to the office at the end of the month.

National Orthodontic Health Month – See ideas here: Orthodontic Health Month Tips & Ideas

Ideas of Special Offers during the month of October

Complimentary Adult Fluoride Treatments

Free Electric Toothbrush for your New Patients seen in Hygiene

Gift Of Health Certificates (for your patients to share with a friend, neighbor, co-worker, or family member.)

Hygiene Department Management Tips & Ideas

Hygiene Re-Appointments – The best way to keep your patients active is to be sure to reappoint them for their next hygiene continuing care visit when they are there at the office and still in the treatment room.

Also, help more of your patients say yes to your treatment recommendations and have them reserve their appointment at the time treatment is diagnosed and presented to them. 

You should be tracking both your pre-appointments and your re-appointments.  This is important if you want to reduce patient attrition and reduce the amount of money and time spent trying to reach these patients later on down the road.

Reduce holes in the hygiene schedule – See tips & ideas here: How to Reduce Broken Appointments

If 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 take a second and share a review/recommendation for me on GOOGLE and/or FACEBOOK Thank you very much!!!

Wishing you all a wonderful dental hygiene month!

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  FacebookTwitterInstagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest

Tips and Ideas to Improve Dental Office Collections

Hello Friends,

Would you like to see more patients not only accept treatment but pay for it before or at the time of service?  Would you like to see an increase in production and office collections?  Would you like to decrease the amount of time and money being spent on making collection calls and sending patient statements/letters? Great news, I can help you!

Fear of cost moves many people to put off visiting the dentist or to cancel their appointments for scheduled treatment. Fear of presenting fees causes many team members to dread or avoid presenting treatment plans/financial expectations and asking for payment. These fears do not help the patient or the office.

I know this is true because as I coach dental office teams, during my in-office visits we quickly discover that in most cases solid collection protocols are lacking.

Today, I’ll share with you a few tips to help you increase and improve office collections. make that happen.

  1. See the true value of dentistry – With each day and each patient you and your team have the privilege and opportunity to potentially change someone’s life or at the very least, help them smile healthier. A healthy smile is part of a healthy body, healthy smiles and bodies create healthy communities.  The entire team must believe this. The entire team must also wholly believe that you’re providing the best quality care. Having full confidence in the doctors and hygienists’ ability to provide quality care and to create beautiful and healthy smiles is a must. Give every patient the opportunity to say yes or no to your very best care!
  2. Be confident with fees – The entire team should role play presenting small and large treatment plans and financial arrangements until everyone is comfortable saying the dollar amounts out loud and with pride.
  3. Financial Guidelines & Expectations – Have written financial guidelines that is kindly reviewed with the patient at their first appt. Have them sign and take a copy with them. For your existing patients, review with them any changes to your financial expectations, have them sign and give them a copy to take home.
  4. Avoid assumptions and judgment – Don’t make decisions for the patient as to whether they can afford the treatment based on your assumptions or reality.  Always offer the best treatment and flexible payment options and allow the patient to decide what they want to accept or not.
  5. No surprises! – Present the patient’s treatment plan and estimated financial portion before treatment is started. If you accept and/or participate with their insurance, have up to date eligibility, a breakdown of benefits and the insurance fee schedule on file for the patient and enter into your practice management software.
  6. Payment due before or on the day of service – No billing the patient for co-pays or payment for services. (Hint: Collecting prior to appt. will reduce cancellations and no-shows. Another Hint: If you didn’t collect at the time of scheduling, collect their portion before the patient goes back for treatment, especially if they’re having a lengthy or difficult appt.
  7. Make it easy for them to pay – In addition to accepting cash, check, and charge cards, offer third-party financing. Avoid in-office payment plans!
  8. Incentives – Offer incentives for patients to pay when they make the reservation.
  9. Dealing with forgetful patients – When a patient says they forgot to bring money…they can either call the payment in over the phone when they get home or give them an envelope with payment due date for them to mail in a check. Call the patient if payment isn’t received by the due date.
  10. When Insurance is involved – Always give the full treatment fee, the estimated insurance amount and the patient’s estimated portion that is due today. Let the patient know you’ll send in the claim and inform them if anything changes with the estimated insurance portion. Watch your insurance aging report closely. Promptly follow up on any unpaid claims, insurance rejections, and requests for add’l information.

There you have it, 10 tips to successfully collect payment before or at the time of service.

Once you plan to consistently collect payments before or at the time of service and hold your team accountable to follow through with that plan, you’ll wish you started it sooner.

Do you know what your accounts receivable totals look like? Do you know how many insurance claims are over 60+ days old? Do you know how many of your patients have made a payment within the last 30 days and how many are past-due? If you do not know what your office numbers look like, please examine, record, and measure these and other important key practice indicators. You need to know where you’re at currently to know how to best care for your patients and what your potential for increasing collections looks like. 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.

Here are a few more tips to help make this a true success for you.

  • Daily, Weekly and Monthly, monitor your patient and insurance accounts receivables, collection and credit reports.  (Carefully review write-off’s, discounts, credits, charges, and payments.)
  • Avoid “Statement Groundhog Day” – Stop sending statement after statement to patients that are past due on making a payment. They ignore them and it costs you a lot of money. Get collection letters out and make some calls.
  • ALWAYS send out clean insurance claims! If your administrative team needs any training in this ever-changing insurance world with how to estimate co-pays, send out claims (daily), post insurance payments and adjustments…get them the proper training asap!
  • Insurance Claims Aging Report – Run your insurance aging report and start from the oldest and work down to the current claims… how old are some of those claims? What is the status of the claims? Where is your money? Now is a great time to clean up that report.
  • Don’t assume… know by who, when, what and how your money is being handled. It’s important for the entire team to understand why this information is necessary.
  • Set goals, share with your team what your production and collection goals are and how it benefits them to all work together as a team to reach or exceed these goals. Consider offering a small bonus or incentive when these goals are reached.

Print out these tips and suggestions and review them at your next team meeting.

If you appreciated these complimentary ideas I  would love for you to please leave me a review/recommendation here on GOOGLE and/or FACEBOOK.

Friends, if your office is struggling with collections or out-of-control accounts receivables please don’t wait to seek help. The longer that money sits out there the less you collect.  You deserve to be paid for the amazing dental care you provide.

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.

Yours for Greater Success,

~Betty – Dental Coach

Dental Office Marketing Tips and Ideas for August 2021

Dental Office Marketing Tips and Ideas for August 2021

Hello Friends,

To help you enjoy a fun and productive summer with you and your team I have some dental marketing (growth) tips and ideas for you for the month of August.

With some planning, enthusiasm, and implementation you have the chance to really set yourselves apart from the other offices in the community, welcome more new patients, exceed your current patients’ expectations have less stress, and more fun as a team. We all need more of that.

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.

Dental Office Marketing (Growth) Tips and Ideas for the month of August…

For many parents with school-aged children, August and September can be hectic months preparing for and getting back into the school routine. Here are some ideas to help make the back-to-school season fun (& healthy) for the community and profitable for your dental office.

Theme:  Back-to-School with Healthy Smiles!

Target Audience: Teachers and school-aged children.

Focus: Preventive Dental Services.

What: Education, Community Involvement, and Special Offers

  • Send a press release to local papers and news stations with “Children’s Dental Health Tips for Parents,” such as healthy snack and beverage ideas, when to visit the dentist, what-to-do in a dental emergency, brushing and flossing tips, mouthguard information, sealants information, and more.
  • Facebook (live) videos sharing the aforementioned tips and ideas.
  • Share social media and blog posts with dental health tips for children.
  • Promote special offers just for teachers and students during August.
  • August is Get Ready for Kindergarten Month – Send out a press release and promote social media posts that focus on kindergarten-aged children.
  • Send treats/snacks to your local schools along with some imprinted office items such as toothbrushes.

Donations – Use your office as a community donation site for school supplies or new & gently used books to be donated to local children and/or schools in need. Advertise in office, on your social media sites, to local businesses and the news media via press release that your office is collecting donations for school supplies or books.

This is a GREAT way to bring in potential new patients… when folks come into the office to drop off their donations, be sure to warmly welcome them, give a brief tour of the office, hand out small thank you gifts that are imprinted with your office information or have a raffle they can enter to win a prize.

Or you could do this…

August is “Happiness Happens Month” – Theme: Happiness & Healthy Smiles

Throughout the years, studies have shown that there is a connection between happiness and dental health. That means maintaining your dental health will lead you and your children, friends, and family, to a healthier, happier life down the line.

Patient Appreciation Gift Idea

S’Mores Day is Aug. 10th – Give away little s’more ingredient kits with a note that says: We Need S’More Patients Like You. Thank you for your Referrals!

See this Pinterest Board for S’more Ideas

Social Media Post Ideas to Improve Engagement during the month of August

dental social media content ideas from Betty Hayden Consulting

Happiness Happens Month 
Sister’s Day: 1 (First Sunday)
National Fresh Breath (Halitosis)  Day: 6
Book Lovers Day: 9  
Kiss and Make Up Day: 25
Just Because Day: 27
More Herbs, Less Salt Day: 29

Hope you enjoy these ideas and are able to use some of them to help make the month of August a fantastic one for you, your team, your patients, and the community.

It truly brightens my day to hear from you! If you appreciated these complimentary ideas I  would love for you to please take a minute to leave me a review/recommendation here on GOOGLE and/or FACEBOOK.  Thank you!!

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.

Yours for Greater Success,
~Betty

P.S. Please stop by and say hello to me on FacebookTwitterInstagramLinkedIn, and Pinterest