dental-mgmt-secrets

Someone Getting Fired Should Never be Surprised

Wed, 12 May 2021 16:12:24 GMT

Have you ever terminated an employee and they were shocked?

If so, the situation was not handled correctly.

If someone is not up to scratch, it should have been pointed out to them earlier.

You need to decide if it is an issue of a poor fit for the position, inability to do the job, a lack of training or a refusal to do it. This last one also includes the general area of bad attitude overall.

Most people who are genuinely trying to do their best should be given more chances and more training or a reassignment to a new role, and this usually can solve the problem.

The ones that should get fired are generally those who understand what they are doing wrong or what they are not doing that they are supposed to be doing and just don’t care.

At some point before they are fired, they should have heard something along these lines:

Do you want to work here? If so, you do realize that you are (not) doing this and that is unacceptable. In fact, you are so out of line that I really am justified in terminating you right now. (You probably aren’t, but they should at least get the message that this was a close call.)

And finish with saying that if this happens again, that you will have no choice but to let them go.

A month later when they do the same thing and you bring them in and say good-bye, they may not be happy but they should not be surprised. If they are not willing to comply, they need to go, for the sake of the entire office.

As one of my mentors once said, “they make their own bed so they have to sleep in it”.

Don’t feel bad terminating people like this who misbehave, disrupt the office or don’t do their job.

The other staff will see what has happened and be thankful that you got rid of the problem.

All for now,

Dr Dave

Are you a Mailman or a Highly Trained Up to Date Professional?

Wed, 12 May 2021 15:58:47 GMT

A Mailman, or Mailwoman for that matter, is shown how to do their work, and basically goes about their work for the next 25 years doing exactly the same thing every day.

It reminds me of a dentist I know who have been practicing 30 years, but he does not have 30 years experience. He has one year of experience repeated 30 times. Kind of like a mailman.

If you had cancer, who would you like to treat you?

Someone 90 years old who still believes in leeches and bloodletting? Or someone who learned one way to treat cancer 30 years ago and still works that way because ‘I have had some good results with this”.

Or would you want someone state of the art? Maybe they check your genes and see where the weakness is and correct that. Or create a specific protein that activates your own immune system to fight the cancer. Or use the newest methods that optimize the doses of chemo and radiation for maximum results with minimal side effects.

Well, what do you think our patients are looking for? They want the best, up to date clinical methods.

And most dentists are doing pretty well in this area.

And guess what, there are also state of the art ways to manage your practice. And in this case, the only one you hurt by not being up to date is yourself.

If you are not highly automated, with systems to save time and minimize unnecessary staff procedures you are leaving a lot of money on the table.

Do yourself a favor and get as up to date on your management skills as you are with your clinical skills.

All for now.

Dr Dave

Can you guess the problem?

Mon, 10 May 2021 17:22:27 GMT

Last week I received a frantic email from a dentist asking for help.

It was from a dentist who said he needed help finding a decent treatment coordinator who can do dental case presentations and also advice on what to do about high staff turnover.

So I set aside time to speak to him later that week.

Well, he never called. No email to cancel or re-schedule and no apology.

But that’s okay. I know what the problem is.

Can you guess?

This is all the information I have but I am sure that I know his problem.

This is a person who either does not care about his patients and staff, or at least creates the impression that he does not care about them.

It could be a great person with poor communication skills but more likely it is someone who thinks his agenda is more important than anyone else’s. (Did not call when scheduled)

This is probably the reason that people don’t like to work for him. (High turnover)

And patients are not accepting his treatment plans. (Needs someone else to ‘sell’ his services.)

Let’s face it, the dentist’s role and work is arguably the most important in the office. But that does not mean the world revolves around the dentist.

Because every job in the office is important. As dentists we need to make sure that everyone feels a part of a team, and that their role is valuable.

And patients need to feel like we heard THEIR ideas of what should be done. If they don’t feel listened to, no treatment coordinator can come in later and sell them something.

And no one respects someone that does not do what they say they are going to do.

As the dental office leader, dentists need to be careful what they agree to or promise and to come through 100% of the time when they do make a commitment.

Start to listen to your staff and patients. Be receptive to them and they will respond well to you.

Did you guess correctly?

It is a good sign if you did. Because lots of courses and having great technical skills will not overcome the damage to your practice that a bad attitude will do.

All for now,

Dr Dave

In case you missed it…….

Mon, 10 May 2021 16:28:29 GMT

Yes, Craig is making his expertise available to everyone in a convenient (view from home), affordable (only $199) and interactive (live on Zoom with questions from the audience) format.

Make no mistake, dentistry is competitive. As one of my friends told me, his wife switched dentists because something happened in the office that she did not like and why stay with him when there is a dentist on every corner?

One of the key mistakes dentists make that hurt their practice is focusing on doing great dentistry and not knowing how your staff is treating your patients when you are not looking.

Often, they drive patients away thinking that they are doing their job and following the office “policy” instead of helping the patient get what they want.

Learn how to keep every patient you get because each one is like gold.

That Sounds Ridiculous!

Mon, 10 May 2021 16:24:19 GMT

The last time I spoke at a live seminar, I was discussing how I could squeeze in a molar endo for a patient in acute distress with minimal disruption to my schedule.

Of course, one of the staff members in the crowd said they would never try that as they would get too far behind, blah, blah, blah. She thought the entire concept was ridiculous.

What I was explaining was how I actually did it, without getting too far behind.

Yet she had already decided that this was impossible.

As the old saying goes, “if someone else has done it, it might be possible”.

She lost sight of the fact that her team was there to learn some new things and how to get better. They were not there to tell me how they do it. They were supposedly there to hear how I did things.

Is squeezing in an endo easy? No. Is it possible? Yes. Can you do it without changes to how you currently operate?

Probably not.

So, is it worth it?

What are some of the advantages of trying this?

Perhaps $1000 or more added to your daily billings.

An extremely grateful patient who becomes an ambassador for how well you looked after them and bonds to you and your practice for life. They bring their whole family and refer their friends when they are impressed.

More money is available for office improvements and staff pay increases.

You kept the emergency patient in your practice because if you could not help them today, they usually keep looking for someone who will and you lose the patient.

All for now,

Dr Dave

PS For all the reasons above, if it was humanly impossible to solve their problem, I would freeze them up and then stay late and treat them. That is the next best thing.

Wear a Button

Mon, 10 May 2021 16:19:32 GMT

Dentists have hidden behind masks for years, so that is nothing new to our profession.

What is new, however, is that between procedures, or for discussing treatment options, the mask used to come off.

Now, the masks stay on for most practitioners from the time they enter the office until they leave.

The problem this creates is a lack of personal connection with our patients. It is much harder to connect with someone behind a face shield, mask, eye protection, surgical cap and full body gown.

To patients it must look like we are cleaning up a nuclear spill.

One easy way to help this situation is to wear a button on the front of your gown with your photo on it.

This seems a little trivial, but it reminds your patients that there is a real person behind all that PPE.

This is a low-cost tip that can help your patients relate to you.

Since patient trust and bonding is the key to our success as dentists, anything that can improve that is definitely worth doing.

All for now,

Dr Dave

I Was Too Busy Talking To Hear

Mon, 10 May 2021 16:09:36 GMT

Song writers Joseph Davis Kirkland, Mathew Tyer Musto & Jurek Reunamaki wrote a song titled “One Sided Love” . The first line in the song speaks to poor patient service that so many of us are guilty of “you’re too busy talking over me to hear what I’m saying”. The chorus has another applicable line “And you don’t even notice, do you?” Here is my word of advice; wait till the person speaking completely finishes their sentence, then respond to what was actually said; not what you anticipated. True but not funny I heard an example of this just now, which is why I am creating this module. We’ve just had a record-breaking snowstorm here in Chestermere where I live and work. Here is the conversation between the patient and our Treatment Coordinator (TC).

TC: Wow that was some kind of snowfall last night

Patient: Sure was, it has really kept me busy

TC: Oh (pause) how so

Patient: I have been busy digging (TC speaks over patient)

TC: Yes, it’s impossible to get out of the driveways

Patient: No what we do is dig out (TC speaks over patient)

TC: Cars they are stuck everywhere

Patient: No, we are digging out Fire hydrants

TC: Oh

Patient: They are hard to find too, we have to (TC speaks over patient)

TC: Look on every corner or do you have a map?

Patient: I was going to say use a metal detector

TC: (sounding uninterested) Oh, I guess we should be booking your next appointment

You can only guess how long it took to book the appointment. What should have been a few minutes was dragged out (forever).

TC: When would you like to book the appointment?

Patient: I prefer after (TC speaks over patient)

TC: Afternoons

Patient: I was thinking after 2:00 on Thurs (TC speaks over patient)

TC: How would next Tuesday be?

Patient: Anything on Thursday

TC: You bet how about 10:00 AM

Patient: Nothing around (TC speaks over patient)

TC: Oh yeah you like afternoons

Patient: Yes after 2 (TC speaks over patient)

TC: How does 1:00 sound

Patient: Sound like before 2:00 is that all you have

TC: How about 2:30

Patient: Thanks

Every statement the patient said after this was reduced to one word. I am guessing he felt like I did: no point. It did get interesting when they were saying goodbye. During the (long) conversation the TC mentioned that she would not be here at the booked appointment. When the conversation was coming going to an end, the TC said. Thanks, I will see you on the 22nd. The patient replied I thought you were not going to be here. Oh, I will not, the TC laughed. This patient was booking a Three-Thousand-dollar Implant.

Unfortunately, this is not a made-up story, but the sad truth. This exchange caused me to listen actively listen. TC and patient exchange at the end of each appointment was more than doubled, simply by us being too busy talking to hear. I could not help but think of all the productive things we could be doing rather than doubling our exiting times.

Time to train the team on listening skills!!

And by the way that patient, I will call him this afternoon to confirm his appointment. In our conversation I will let him know I am listening and that we will listen.

This and so much more is addressed in our Customer Excellence seminars. Join us online on February XXXX.

You Should Plan to Live Past 100

Mon, 10 May 2021 16:02:34 GMT

We can’t predict the future, but life spans are increasing. Since the 1940’s, life expectancy has increased by almost 7 years to 84. And that’s the average. If you are healthy, you’ll blow by that. And biotechnology and medicine are exploding with new ways to keep us healthy even longer.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is, if you retire at 60, you are going to need money for a long time. Governments are broke and all the promises they have made about supporting everyone are going to have to collapse at some point, leaving you on your own.

And dentists don’t have cushy indexed pension plans like government workers do.

We are on our own.

So, if you are the altruistic dentist who says I don’t care about money, I just want to help my patients, hopefully someone else is thinking that way about you if you run out. Because if you are 90 and you’re broke, you’re kind of stuck. No one is hiring you. Not even MacDonald’s.

This sounds harsh, I know. But life is harsh if you can’t afford to support yourself.

If your practice is not generating enough to enable you to retire comfortably for 40 years, it’s something to think about.

Sorry to present a downer today, but I believe to hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

All for now,

Dr Dave

Dentist or CEO Part 2

Sat, 08 May 2021 18:45:48 GMT

My last post seemed to create a bit of confusion. If you didn’t get to read “Dentist or CEO?”, you can see it here:

Some people thought that I was implying that just being a great dentist is not important.

Not so at all. In fact I still practice 2 days a week and during my time in the office it is extremely important to me to be the best dentist in the city. In fact, in spite of the recession, I just had my best month ever in terms of dental productivity. I only work 2 days a week now, and this month I hit $100,000 in production not including any hygiene. This bests anything I ever produced while working even full time (although that is quite a while ago).

But my point is being a great, productive dentist is VERY important. My first two home study programs are devoted entirely to all the things I try to do to make patients happy, do great dentistry and be very productive.

The reason I had such a great month is because I did a lot of major cases; full arch crown and bridge, etc. But the reason I did a lot of major cases this month is:

A) I can do them

B) I present the options available to patients very well.

If you want to learn how to do these things very well to boost YOUR dental productivity, you need my Home Study Program, Dental Productivity Secrets. You can get it here;

In this program you will learn all the secrets I use daily to help me become a better dentist. I also use them to help my 11 associates also become better dentists.

If you can’t pay off what I charge for it in one week I’ll give you your money back.

But the point I was trying to make in my CEO or Dentist blog is that dentists are ALSO CEO’s if they own a practice. Those skills are just as important, and probably more important to your take home pay.

That’s why I have a totally separate program on Dental Management. I call it A Dream Practice for Dentists; The Practice of the Future, because I believe my type of practice is the practice of the future.

The lessons in this one are totally different from being a great dentist; they are all about being a great owner/leader/manager/businessperson.

But the dentist who is profitable, loves his/her work, has lots of time off and loves their life, invariably is good at both.

How convenient that I have a discounted package deal where you can get both:

Let’s face it, if you have a practice you are in the game, so why not try to win?

Is someone offered you a program to improve in whatever game you like to play with a 100% refund if it didn’t work, you’d probably give it a try.

That is what I am offering; 100% refund if you are not happy with the programs no questions asked.

I have only had two people ever ask for a refund, and one of the two phoned me a month later looking for free advice! So take a risk, even if it is no risk and give it a try.

All the best,

Dr. Dave

PS Today is the cutoff for the Dental Cruise at the rates I quoted. I still have one spot left.

Info on the cruise is here:

Dentist or CEO?

Sat, 08 May 2021 17:27:43 GMT

Every now and then I run across an article on my computer that I have written and forgotten about.

Today I stumbled across this one and I thought I would post it:

Dentist or CEO?

It’s time to decide.

So what are you? Dentist or CEO?

A dentist is someone who fixes teeth.

An associate is a dentist. They come to work every day, fix teeth and go home.

If you own a practice, it means that at some point you decided to stop being a dentist and become a CEO.

A CEO runs a business.

A CEO’s primary role is to maximize shareholder value. In other words to maximize profit, cash flow and the value of the business.

A CEO’s primary activity is creating and communicating a strong vision for the business.

A CEO is keenly interested in the effective marketing of the business.

A CEO is always looking to leverage the strengths of the business into new markets or to do more business in the existing market.

A CEO manages the culture of the business by promoting the most deeply held values and beliefs of the organization.

A CEO looks at the big picture.

A CEO does not micro manage.

A CEO delegates to a carefully chosen team.

If a court of law accused you of being a CEO would they have enough evidence to convict you?

If you think your role is to be nice to patients and staff and give painless injections then you are a dentist not a CEO.

That may be okay as long as a real CEO doesn’t move in next door and begin to compete.

Dental practice management is not a game; it is real life with real consequences; good or bad.

Improve YOUR Dental management skills here: www.dentalmanagementsecrets.com

I have a couple of rooms for the dental cruise event reserved for a few more days.

After that it is on an availablility only basis.

You can get info here: https://dentalmanagementsecrets.com/index.php/dental-cruise

All the best.

Dr. Dave

Dickerson Is Wrong

Sat, 08 May 2021 17:25:51 GMT

Anyone who has been reading my material knows that I am skeptical about the odds of success in setting up a high end practice with high fees, fee for service paid up front doing major cosmetic cases all day long.

Sure, if you can pull it off, it will be great. And some people have. However most can’t. Even with extensive training. And I think Bill misleads people into thinking that they can all be cosmetic gurus and not everyone can.

To pull it off you need to be top 5% clinical skills, top 5% selling skills, and top 5% management skills to set up and operate at a high level like that. And you probably have to be in a top 5% demographic market as well. You also have to take a big risk to even try. You need set up an expensive high end office which is also in the high rent district.

We can’t all be going for the local celebrities and wealthy because there aren’t that many around, and they all have a dentist already and will usually be reluctant to change.

I have always advocated having the skills to do the big cases when they come along, but also having an office that appeals to that huge 80% of the market that simply wants good quality dentistry at a reasonable cost with a convenient location and good hours.

I think last year’s recession has also highlighted the risk of going after a market based solely on elective treatment.

Last year during the recession all those people with cavities, periodontal disease and toothaches did not go away.

I hate quoting numbers all the time because it sounds like bragging. But I need to prove my point. For example last year, we added $1,000,000 in collections and ended the year with 3 record months all beating the one before in the worst recession since the dirty 30’s.

When I started this newsletter 3 years ago we were at $6 million a year and now exceed 8.

I am busy setting goals now to beat last year’s performance and I hope you are too.

This is a great time to revisit what worked last year and what didn’t.

Dental Management is all about bottom line success and that is my game.

I have taught hundreds of dentists my secrets through my dental management programs and now I take one dental consulting client a month as well.

If you want to learn how to improve your practice while spending less time in the office (I was away a week in November and a week in December when we had those record months), check out my Dental Management Programs.

Make a worthwhile goal this year to get your practice into a great place. I’d love to help if I can.

PS; The Dental Cruise is sold out, but we are starting a waiting list in case space on the ship becomes available. Let me know if you want to be put on that list.

Is Bill Really Wrong?

Sat, 08 May 2021 17:23:22 GMT

You can’t believe the flurry of responses I got to my last posting.

Some people thought I was trying to insult Bill. I have nothing against Bill, and I’m sure Bill teaches how to do wonderful work. And you probably should know how to do this work very well. But this is not a quality issue or integrity issue.

This is a practice success issue.

The truth is, on my consulting side, I have just had a lot of people contact me because they were in financial trouble from trying to operate as a ‘high end’ dentist.

I don’t even know how many of them went to some institute, Bill’s or otherwise.

I used Bill as the example simply because he is currently the most visible proponent of that type of practice.

Let’s face it there are many types of practices and many ways to earn a good living and practice quality dentistry.

There are very successful dentists doing ‘low end’, welfare type work, and there are also successes doing ‘high end’ work such as veneers all day long and everything in between.

In fact, a big part of my own personal practice is doing large cases; full mouth, cosmetic, full arch, etc.

The difference is that I do not exclude anyone from my practice. Dentists love to collect up front for all our work and get the patients to deal with their insurance on their own. But if someone can’t afford it, you lose that patient.

I want to be able to accommodate everyone.

Marketing gurus insist that you need a ‘market niche’. I am the antithesis of market niche.

My niche is everyone.

We find a way to accommodate everyone whether they want full mouth reconstruction or only an occlusal filling that is covered by their insurance and find a way to do it profitably. That is why we grow and grow.

And guess what? If you grow and grow, you can have a ‘high end’ practice within a larger practice doing high end, middle and low end work as I do.

The irony is that by accepting everyone, I have grown a high end practice PLUS I have associates doing all kinds of treatment as well.

So don’t be ‘exclusive’. Be ‘inclusive’ and you will achieve your dreams much faster.

So the issue is not about Bill at all.

The issue is; do all potential patients feel comfortable and welcome in your practice? You never know where the next big case is going to come from.

All for now,

Dr. Dave

Your best Future Patient is your Current Patient

Sat, 08 May 2021 17:22:34 GMT

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

—John C. Maxwell

Leadership is the key to 99 percent of all successful efforts.

—Erskine Bowles

The employer generally gets the employees he deserves.

—J. Paul Getty

I love it when a leader who is recognised the world over summarizes 50 years of their leadership wisdom into one line.

I just gave 3 examples of this kind of wisdom. Do you believe them?

Do you think that someone with grand vision and plans will still fail if he/she has no followers?

Is it really leadership that accounts for 99% of your success and you didn’t even know that was something you needed to work on? He doesn’t say 25% or even 50%. He says 99%. Could this be important?

And J. Paul Getty says that you get the employees you deserve. If you have great staff, you have earned it. You must be treating them the way they expect to be treated. If you don’t have great staff, is there room for improvement in how you deal with your people? Usually if we have weak staff we think it is just because there are no good staff members out there. It doesn’t usually occur to us that the good people go elsewhere and that sometimes we drive the good ones away without even realizing it.

I’ll bet any dentist can relate to all 3 statements in relation to how things are going in their practice. These statements can help confirm whether current leadership is good, bad or ugly.

And yet, how much time does the average dentist spend on leadership development? I think for most of us it is zilch, zero, nothing.

It took me a while to learn this myself. I always thought success was simply implementing the correct tactics and systems that other dentists were having success with. And while that is important, even critical, if no one is following your lead, you cannot implement even great ideas.

There was a time when staff and patient morale at my office was pitiful. No one liked working there and patients did not like how they were being treated either. My office is called Deer Valley Dental Care or Deer Valley for short. There was a time when the staff referred to it as ‘Death Valley’.

No office can rise higher than the leader. It was not until I understood that and did something about it personally that my office came to life. Now patients and staff love the place and so do I.

Leadership specifically as it pertains to dentists is going to be a big part of my presentation in Cabo San Lucas this January.

Come and join us. Have some fun. Transform yourself and transform your practice. Grasp this and it will transform your bank account too.

All for now.

Dr Dave

www.dentalmanagementsecrets.com

Good is the Enemy of Great

Sat, 08 May 2021 17:20:16 GMT

I just read an investment article with this title and it really struck a chord with me.

Most dentists are doing okay. That’s mostly good. The only part of that that is not good is the lack of sufficient incentive to move from good to great.

As I have moved into more on-on-one office dental consulting assignments, it has become increasingly clear that most of us get somewhat comfortable and then start to coast.

There is nothing wrong with coasting. I just got off the golf course, and I will also be golfing the next 3 and possibly 4 days in a row. But I have got my office to where I want it to be. Even then, I still work on it and grow it. When I first started this writing 3 years ago, my office was doing 6 million per year. We will probably hit 9 this year.

So developing and improving a dental office does not have to be in conflict with doing what you love and having fun outside the office, but some effort must be expended or you are just as likely to coast backwards.

And that is what I very often see; NO effort being made to improve the practice. Dentists doing good that never get to be great.

So let’s run this out a few years. The recession and market crash have taught us all that we can’t be too complacent about our preparations for retirement. The BEST way to be well prepared for a dentist’s retirement is having an office that is more and more profitable each year. This not only yields more current cash flow for savings and investment, but also creates a more valuable practice to sell some day.

Some of my dental blogs don’t give a specific instruction of what to do and deal more with principles you should be thinking about. This one is like that. It does not tell you how to create a great practice. But it begs the question; “Are you doing ANYTHING to make it great or even to make it better?”

You want to make sure the money you need for retirement is there before the need or desire to retire hits you.

Surely you agree that you could go in and do something that would make your office worse. If that is true then surely there are also things that could be done to make it better. We all get in a routine. But are you really achieving your potential?

If you have not tried any of my dental practice development programs, you can get them here:

https://dentalmanagementsecrets.com/home-study

If you have read my material, and it has motivated you, but you need help with implementation, then call us at 1(587)-391-5883. We are taking bookings for the fall now (as soon as golf season is over!)

All for now.

Dr. Dave

How to kick-start your Practice during the Recession

Sat, 08 May 2021 17:17:29 GMT

At our recent Cruise and Learn Conference in Hawaii, one of the burning questions the Doctors asked me in our ‘Proximity of Power’ MasterMind Sessions was how they could get people to accept dental treatment right now with all the prevailing gloom, doom and loss of net worth among our patients.

My answer revolves around the issue that it has to be in your patients’ best interests for them to proceed; you can’t ‘sell’ them or somehow use clever wording to convince them. They need to see a true legitimate benefit to them.

In most developed countries there is a large percentage of so called ‘Baby Boomers’ that were born approximately in the 1950-1962 era. A lot of these people had big plans for retirement which have been dashed or at least put on hold. (Incidentally these are the people with the greatest dental needs.)

But one thing a lot of them do have is a dental plan which they pay into every year and are very unwise not to take advantage of it.

My conversation with them goes something like this:

“A lot of my patients are nearing retirement age. I am not pushy with people about getting work done and I have had some patients retire just as their teeth starting falling apart. Then asked me why I hadn’t recommended something for them while they had a dental plan and an income.

So it might be something to think about to get your teeth in the best possible shape as you near retirement so that you are the least likely to have problems when you are not working and no longer have any income or a dental plan.

I have lots of patients whose teeth I have been able to get into a situation where they are as strong as I can possibly make them. In fact my own teeth are in that kind of condition too. My back teeth are all gold crowns and inlays. (Usually I show them)

That is the ideal situation to shoot for, especially when you have dental coverage. Most people do one section a year, and after four years they are in the best possible shape I can help them achieve.

If you wait until the year you are retiring we will only have enough coverage to do one section, so it makes good sense to get it done over time starting a few years before you retire.

You don’t have to do any this; it is elective treatment, but it makes good sense in my mind to do this.

What do you think?”

Do you see how a portion of your patients will make a positive decision here, because it makes sense.

Notice I ask them what they think about it at the end rather than some high pressure closing tactic someone else might recommend.

I have achieved excellent results with this because it resonates in a real way; no one wants to have things go wrong in retirement and if problems and unexpected costs can be avoided, why not consider it?

All for now.

Dr. Dave

PS Stay tuned for our Adventure Seminar Series to be continued soon in case you missed the last one…………………

Dental Practice Management Blueprint

Sat, 08 May 2021 17:16:08 GMT

Practice Management Blueprint

What is dental practice management?

I write, consult and speak on practice management. So what the heck is it anyway?

Practice management is the art and science of creating success in your dental practice.

So what then is success?

Now please do not confuse practice success with clinical success.

Most of our training and continuing ed courses are designed to improve our clinical excellence and by extension our clinical success. In other words can you do excellent dentistry that works well for the patient?

Dental practice management success begs the question that only Dr. Phil could ask: your dentistry may be working well for the patient, but how well is it working for YOU?

You might do excellent dentistry but it takes so long, that it is not profitable. Or you might do nice work but no one says yes to treatment. Or you are the best in town, but the stress of dealing with patients is killing you. Or you might do great work, are profitable, not under stress, but just aren’t enjoying dentistry. Or maybe everything works well, but you just don’t have enough patients; it doesn’t help you to do a crown in 15 minutes if you have a 2 hour opening right after it.

Even though practice management is thought of as kind of a small subset of dentistry, there are just as many issues and factors to consider as there are in achieving proficiency clinically. Just look at the program for any dental convention. Practice management instruction is generally far less than 5% of the topics to choose from. And they are just as important, and in some ways more important.

In fact some people would not even go to a practice management seminar. They look down on this type of thing. They think is less than professional, or for greedy dentists who want more money or will destroy the integrity of the profession by promoting misleading ads that steal patients from good dentists like them. And some practice management courses probably are guilty of that.

And certainly there are dentists who resort to low class ways to promote themselves and are greedy. But that is not what practice management or in particular practice management excellence is all about.

Practice management is the means by which you operate you practice. Picture a practice the opposite of the one I just described; it is of the highest integrity, well respected, high performance, great, motivated staff, high acceptance of treatment, everything working just right.

None of that happens by accident. To be the best, you need to be a good practice manager. And this involves the entire office staff. I can do excellent dentistry without a good receptionist, office manager, without a good assistant, and if I really had to without any assistant at all (although it would take a lot longer). But I cannot have an excellent successful practice on my own; everyone needs to be in on it and doing a great job.

So what are some of the issues to consider if you want to consider your practice a success?

What you like: type of dentistry; hours; people you work with; challenge;

Relationship development; this is at the core of staff retention and patient retention; if people know you care about them they are far more likely to care about you. And therefore more likely to stay. Oh, by the way, and a lot more interesting, fun and satisfying for you.

Money: the ultimate paradox of dentistry; the harder you try to make money the less you make; the more you try to do your best even if it costs you money, the more you will make. People are strongly repelled by someone out for your money. Money is more like a scorecard. It is proof whether you’re doing a good job or a bad job because money goes where it is well treated.

Stress: why does money matter at all if you are stressed, depressed, unhappy, moody, suicidal?

Ability to sell: so you are the best in town, but no one gets the treatment you can do so well because you don’t offer it, you offer it so poorly that they don’t accept it or worst of all, present it in a way that the patient feels pressured and leaves your office and has the work done by your competitor down the street at half the level of quality you are capable of.

Dental Marketing: you can’t sell to them until they are sitting in your chair

Organizational skills: more patients are lost from practices because of administrative and clerical screwups than bad dentistry or dislike of the dentist. Can we say ‘fee misunderstandings’ here??

Efficiency: Your patients love you, you can market, you can sell, you can do beautiful work. There are no financial surprises and the happy patient pays the bill in full and refers 2 others. Your staff adores you and will do anything for you. What could be wrong here? Only one thing; what if you are so slow and/or inefficient that you don’t generate any profit?

Vision: This is your typical business buzz word, but it really is important. How can you have practice success if you don’t know what your practice should look like when it is just the way you want it? How big? What type of work? How many dentists? Any partners? Associates? How much time off? How much are you netting? The analogy I like is the 2 guys trying to hack their way out of the jungle with a machete. One guy is a hard worker and hacks away 12 hours a day. The other stops every hour, climbs a tree and makes sure he is getting closer to the place he wants to get to so that all the work with the machete is not wasted. The other guy is working harder, but will not get out the jungle as soon and maybe not at all.

Team: A great team will make or break your practice. So how do you get and keep a great team? There are lots of things involved here. You need to be able to identify great talent and great people. But you also need to keep them. Some dentists are excellent judges of character and all the factors that make great staff; make great hiring decisions, but then they are not nice to them! So guess what, they leave.

Too many dentists take their clinical perfectionism and translate that into the expectations they have for their staff. And the truth is, most of us have or have had staff members that are so good that they do seem perfect so all others are judged against that standard. Well, if you have some people like that, show your appreciation! And because people are not perfect, take it easy on the ones who make mistakes. If their attitude is good, help them improve. If their attitude is bad, give them a chance to change it, and if they won’t, move on to someone else.

Most dentists have no idea how many good staff they have lost because they kept someone that had a bad attitude or weak work ethic. Good staff will cover for someone who is not pulling their weight for a while, but if nothing is done the unfairness of the situation usually causes them to leave. “Why should I bust my butt while she sits in the back making personal calls all day?”

Backbone: The last point ties directly into this one. We dentists feel that we have to be nice to succeed. Nice to patients. Nice to staff. After all who wants a dentist or a boss who is not nice? And there is nothing wrong with nice. Nice is good. But nice is not enough. It is totally inappropriate to be nice in certain situations. Is someone is damaging your practice, you need to deal with that. You need to be polite, but you also need to be firm in some situations. After all, we are paying people to do a job. They are going to expect to be paid at the end of the month, so why shouldn’t we expect them to do what we paid them to do during the month?

I’m not saying this is easy or fun. But the fun comes when you have a great team. So you sometimes need to go through the pain of discipline or termination in order to get a team that is committed and hard working and is just as focused on looking after your patients as you are. Your team needs to know that although you are nice, you also have standards that you expect them to meet. Because the whole team is watching how you deal with the weak link, slacker or ‘cancer’ in the office. What you put up with for them will be expected by everyone.

Whenever he had a difficult staff issue to deal with, a friend of mine used to say “I’m going to have to take a backbone stiffening pill to deal with this”. And he would. And his business continued to grow and prosper. He didn’t like doing it. But it comes with the territory of being in business. If you want to be nice all the time, be a dentist and work for a businessperson or get a government or teaching position.

Business mindset: This ties right in here. You might say, I am a professional and I am concerned with my patients and with quality dentistry, not dirty things like profit and money. Well that’s fine, and ties right into point number one: what do you like? If you are caring and compassionate and just want to help people, then you probably should be in a salaried position, a community clinic, or an associate. Because by owning a practice, by definition you are in business. And the purpose of any business to maximize profit. So if profit is not important to you, being in business is not going to be fun, because your competitors are interested in profit, your bank, suppliers, leasing company, landlord, lab and staff all want to be paid. And it is not good enough for them that you really helped someone this month. So either be in business and do it right, or be a dentist and focus on helping people and quality dentistry and don’t put all the pressures and liabilities onto yourself.

Do you see what I am saying here? Dentistry is not a business. Owning a dental practice is a business. Decide if you want to be a dentist or a businessperson. They are not the same and the skills required are not the same, and the definition of success is not the same. I have 10 associates. They are all dentists. They do not own a practice, did not sign a 5 year lease that obligates them to pay rent every month for 5 years whether you have the money or not, did not borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars, do not worry about marketing, payroll, systems, labor laws, cash-flow, advertising, staff evaluations, hiring, firing, etc etc. They just worry about patients, teeth and good dentistry. And there is nothing wrong with that. Most professions learn their trade and then go work for someone else. I have had associates for over 20 years.

There is nothing wrong with being a dentist. Dental practice management skills are for people who want to be a businessperson as well.

We do Dental Consulting worldwide; on the phone and in person.

If we can help, call any time; (587)-391-5883 in Canada Mountain Standard Time or email info@dentalmanagementsecrets.com

All for now.

Dr. Dave

Part 2 Dental Practice Management Blueprint

Sat, 08 May 2021 17:15:11 GMT

In my last blog, I received a lot of very cool compliments. If you missed the last one you can get it here:https://dentalmanagementsecrets.com/blog Some of the comments are attached. (I removed the last names for privacy)

Truly empowering eye-opener. thanks, please, pour more into my cup. Dean

Greetings Dave, Pure Gold. Regards, George

Dave, Good stuff…I’ve been at it since 1993 and never thought of it that way. Thanks for the email! Steve San Diego

Hi Dave, I appreciate your information. I’m a business guy. Owned (at one time) 3 dental offices. Now, I operate just one. Aside from that, a few other enterprises. You’re on the money: Decide if you want to be a technician or a business owner. Your choice. Good stuff. Take care, Jerry

However, that is not what I wanted to write about today. I also received one disturbing email. Here it is:

I didn’t really get a good impression from the blueprint email you sent out a couple days ago. The entire time I kept waiting for you to say something about how you are able to do both sides well – the business side and the patient care. I think it’s important for people to realize that there definitely is a different skill set required for each side of the equation, but that it is possible to do both well (and that doing the business side well will allow you to maintain great patient care). The way you presented it, it made it sound like in order to succeed in the business of dentistry you have to be cold and a hard-ass that people don’t like. It sounded like you were making people choose between the two. I think dentists feel an ethical obligation to the patient care side and if you’re making them choose one or the other, they’ll choose patient care to at least pretend they are good, caring, ethical people. Just a thought. Kevin

Wow, Great Comment! If I gave the impression that patient care and dental practice management are mutually exclusive then I want to correct that right now. These skills enhance each other. The better you manage your practice, the happier your patients are going to be. Some people jump from business skills automatically to presuming that means being ‘hard-nosed’. Good business people do everything they can to make their customers (or patients) happy. A business person (practice owner) does sometimes need to be firm. But the real job is making patients and staff as happy as possible. In dentistry this means that in addition to doing great dentistry we also want to be great managers; so that scheduling, financial arrangements, hours of operation, and the overall level of care and attention that all your staff provide is just as good as what we do at the chair. If we are performing great patient care and our staff members are not, we still lose. So YES, you can and should be good at both. My entire writing and dental consulting world revolves around helping dentists get the second part right and many dentists’ practices have been totally turned around when they realized their part (dentistry) cannot carry the whole patient experience in their offices. You need your staff doing a great job too and that is what practice management is all about. Sorry for the confusion.

All for now, Dr. Dave

PS We have begun a new program where we train your manager instead of training the dentist; after all, the office manager is supposed to manage the office. Contact us here if you want info on our next Train Your Manager session:craigh@deervalleydentalcare.com

Cost of Status Quo vs Risk of Change

Sat, 08 May 2021 17:13:54 GMT

The best dental management principle that I have come across this month is the following:

People (including dentists!) often fear making changes. And with good reason. Change is difficult, risky, uncertain and many things could go wrong.

So why would someone make a change?

It may be worth the risk in most cases, but in some cases it won’t be.

What you need to determine is whether the Cost of the Status Quo is actually greater than the Risk of Change.

In other words, sometimes what we are doing is working so poorly that the cost of doing nothing is far greater than the risk of something going wrong with making a change.

Of course this brings up another issue. Are you capable of making a change? I was talking with another dental consultant recently about a client she is working with. She recommends something and he gets all excited and says “YES, let’s do it!”

Then he tells his staff and they don’t want to do it. Then he phones the dental consultant back and says, “Sorry, I guess it’s off; the staff don’t want to do it”. Then she reminds him of the reason for doing it and why it is important and he gets excited again and agrees to do it again, only to face opposition from the staff. He usually gives up and nothing ever improves.

What I have found is that the practices that have this problem and being afraid to upset the staff tend to deteriorate over time because the owner feels he or she has great staff and does not want to upset the applecart. Well if they really are great staff they would go along with office improvement ideas.

I remember a kind of coming to age issue for myself in this regard.

We used to do the dental work, send the claim to the insurance company and then bill the patient for any amount their plan didn’t pay. As you all know this sets up perfectly for a situation where you spend hours per day hassling patients who have a hundred excuses why they shouldn’t have to pay. You have all heard them so I will not repeat them here.

But we were always in conflict with our patients. Sure, some paid happily. But most people faced with a bill they did not want to pay well after the fact became our adversaries in this tug of war over the money they owed.

I can still remember finally taking a stand. I decided we were never doing this again. We were going to collect up front and eliminate billing after the fact.

Of course the staff were mortified because they knew many patients would be upset with the new arrangement. And certainly some were. So I was facing a situation with upset staff AND upset patients.

But I also knew that the status quo was unacceptable. We had developed a reputation for being in constant argument with our patients. Plus we were still not collecting a lot of these accounts. Plus we were losing many patients who thought it was somehow our fault.

So I knew we had to fix it no matter who didn’t like it. The risk of change in my mind was less than the huge cost of the problems that existed already.

Of course we got through that. We lost a few patients and probably some staff who would not make the change. But we fixed it. Now we never argue with patients or chase them. If it’s too expensive or not covered we do something cheaper or maybe nothing at all. But we don’t just do it and then chase them later to pay us.

Of course on looking back at that it was also a critical stage in my development as a dental practice manager. Until then I too was afraid to make changes in case I lost a team member or patient. I also learned that there is a price to pay for anything worthwhile. And the staff learned that when I took a stand that I really meant it.

So, what is going on in your life or practice that begs for a change but you have not confronted it and the cost is mounting every day?

Change is tough, but deteriorating slowly is even worse. Do you want to treat the disease or let it fester?

As you know, we love to help offices make these changes. You already know that every problem you face we have faced at some point and found a way to deal with it.

We are real life dental consultants running a real practice just like you. We are not theoretical consultants who can only tell you how they used to do it or how they think you should do it.

So contact us if your Status Quo is getting expensive.

You can help yourself, like I did with some help from my online programs at www.dentalmanagementsecrets.com or contact us for one on one help at info@dentalmanagementsecrets.com or call me at (587)-391-5883 if you are interested.

By the way, we held 4 webinars on our new Automated Manager System last month. We had more people try to get onto it than we expected and I know some people could not access it. Even the email did not work as it was tied into it. But it works now.

Please contact us to receive a personalized one on one demo and we will still honor the introductory special if you call right away. Email us at info@automatedmanager.com or call Craig at (587)-391-5883.

All for now,

Dr. Dave

Revenue Up, Costs Down; Is it Possible?

Sat, 08 May 2021 17:11:41 GMT

Please read this if real dental practice bottom line improvement is of interest to you.

The nice thing about what I write is it is not theory. It is based on actual results from my office, which is very likely not much different from your office other than the size. If it works for me it will work for you too.

I just had a look at my financial statement for last year.

It’s no secret that we are in a recession and holding steady would be considered a win.

So 2 things jumped off the page when I looked at my year end numbers.

First; revenues were up 10 %. This is hard to achieve for anyone. It is harder yet when an office is already 10 times the size of a typical office. And even harder when we are in a recession.

So I was very pleased to see that. It was gratifying, but not a total surprise, since we work on the growth of the practice all the time.

But the second thing I noticed really caught me by surprise. My staff salaries were down from the prior year. And I don’t mean down percentage wise although that was also true. I actually spent less on salaries last year than the year before. By $70,000! This has never, ever happened in my practice in 31 years. And especially with a big jump in production.

We did not have any salary freezes or cutbacks. No one’s salary was reduced. In fact we instituted many raises on an individual basis where we felt it was merited.

Now, just to be more clear, cutting costs in a dental office is extremely difficult. You can’t cut rent, you can’t cut lab, cutting marketing is suicide and with supplies, it costs you more to pay your assistant to find good deals that you usually save. Our largest expense by far is salaries. And staff salaries seem to grow and grow as you give raises and add more staff.

I should also point out that we did not have a goal of reducing staff costs. It just happened.

So how did it happen?

I had to think about it, but there is no doubt as to exactly what happened.

It is our new software program.

It is not a program that replaces your existing dental software package. It does a number of things that your current software does not do. It doesn’t just track your office numbers; it literally manages your office for you.

Earlier this year I sent an announcement about new software that we are using. It was simply to help us get a grasp on the many moving parts involved in managing our practice. We developed it over the past 3 years and we held a webinar demonstrating how it works.

It is a program that automates the management functions of a dental practice. It was really designed to save time by eliminating repetitive chores such as payroll entry, scheduling staff, staff shift changes, reporting, etc. These are usually done either by you or your office manager. Either way, your most qualified and highly paid staff.

By automating all of that it has freed up my office manager’s time incredibly. Now he not only manages 60 staff, he assists me with consulting and works at implementing our new software in other offices. So we knew it saved time; days and days of time.

Then somewhat to our surprise, we have found that the program catches inefficiencies we had no way of finding in the past.

We did expect the program to help increase production, but the salary savings were an expected but huge benefit. After all, cost savings go 100% to the bottom line, while growth often costs money; sometimes even more than the increase especially if you invested heavily in marketing.

Here are some examples of how it works.

In the past it was impossible to verify hours. For example if someone started an hour early because the dentist came in an hour early it is legit. If they come in an hour early to ‘set-up’, then it may be a case of someone increasing their hours without us needing them to do that.

Same is true of overtime. If the dentist takes an emergency and stays late, no problem. Just staying late and putting in more hours may not be okay.

In the past, we never saw these numbers till payroll day and by then it was impossible to verify who worked when or why.

But the program has rules that prevent these discretionary increases in hours. The payroll entry area knows your hours scheduled. If you add hours, you need to add a note to state the reason why. We can look at these on payroll day, but the reality is that 90% of them just went away.

For example, the system sees your team booked 9-5. If you log in at 8, it asks why. Fair question, really.

And guess what? The program is the bad guy. You don’ t have to say no, the machine does.

The other feature that has increased production and decreased salaries is our hygiene reporting.

Since the program tracks payroll, it knows how much someone earns. Since the staff calendar and schedule is done on it, it knows how many hours someone works. Since it tracks production in the reporting section, we can correlate what someone earns in relation to their production.

We have always struggled to gain compliance in hygiene with our suggestions. How many offices have tried to encourage the hygienists to do more perio treatment, offer whitening, encourage fluroride, fill their own openings during their downtime, book off if their last patient cancels, etc, etc.

If your office is like ours they mostly revert back to their usual routine fairly quickly.

With our system we told the hygienists we expected a certain multiple of their earnings in production. This % may vary from place to place, but basically we expected them to produce 3 times their salary.

It was like magic. 80% of our hygienists were around $1500 per month below ‘budget’. After just one short meeting to implement it, they all reverted to approx $1500 per month over budget. It became their job to figure out how to do it. We did not make one suggestion. They knew what to do.

I don’t mind paying high salaries to hygienists. They are a key part of our practice and invaluable in so many ways. But I don’t think it is out of line for me to expect a full day’s work for that salary. And now we get it.

There are so many other features that have saved us time. One of my favourites is the shift swap function. Anyone can go online and post a shift if they want the day off. And anyone can go online, even from home to take that shift. Last week one of our assistants sat on the beach in Mexico and picked up a few extra shifts from her iPhone.

There is no time spent by the manager, or staff members going from one person to the next disrupting their work to beg someone to take their shift.

The program does so many things; I can’t list them all here. However, if you want more examples, go to this site and check it out:http://www.automatedmanager.com/

We now have a bunch of demos online of how it works.

This program is for people that want their practice to be more businesslike without requiring any more business knowledge.

You can even try it out for free if you are not sure it is for you. And it does not matter what dental software you have; it is on the” cloud”, available on line and most of its functions are totally independent of your other programs

All for now,

Dr. Dave

Of course, as always we still have many ways and means of building your dental practice at https://dentalmanagementsecrets.com/

Revenue Up Costs Down Part 2

Sat, 08 May 2021 17:10:37 GMT

Last week I sent a blog that highlighted the new program we are using to truly lower overhead, get a grip on the practice results in real time and once and for all to organize your management functions and stay organized forever.

In fact, with this program you can literally do payroll from your iPad on the beach in Mexico. Or check any of your office’s key result areas.

Anyway, I neglected to mention that we are doing personal one on one demonstrations to show you for yourself how it works.

I also neglected to mention how to get hold of my dental office manager Craig to get more info.

He can be reached at Legacy shortcode or by email at craig.hayes@automatedmanager.com

We did have quite a few people find us through the web site, http://www.automatedmanager.com/, but these contact numbers are direct to him.

All for now,

Dr. Dave

How to get more New Patients

Sat, 08 May 2021 17:08:40 GMT

I have been consulting in dental offices for a few years now. I am constantly amazed at the impact a few key changes can make in the success of a dental office. For example in a recent interview with the receptionist in an office I am consulting in, I asked how often patients asked about their financial policy. She said most did. I also asked how their financial policy was received by their new patients. She casually said, “Oh about half of them don’t like it.” When I asked if any of those that don’t like it book anyway she said that they did not. So right away he is losing half of his potential new patients. And it never occurred to her that this might be a problem or that she should tell the doctor. When I listened to her answer the phone, I realized that she did a good job of answering all the questions people asked, and was very friendly and polite. But she never once encouraged the caller to make an appointment. The only ones that got an appointment were the ones who already had that in mind when they phoned. So she easily lost another half of the remaining potential new patients. Needless to say with some minor adjustments, the new patient flow took off in this office. They simply stopped wasting what they already had calling in. This is one small example of how a new set of eyes or ideas can create massive improvements almost over-night. It is amazing how many things we overlook in our day to day routine just because we are used to it being that way. Yet many times there are glaring issues that can easily be corrected. There are other critical things to say and also not say in these initial calls and the difference in your results can be extreme. If you would like information on our dental consulting services, contact me directly at info@dentalmanagementsecrets.com or at (587)-391-5883. I only take on one new consulting client per month so if you are interested please let me know as my time is getting booked up. Or you can still improve tremendously doing it yourself with my home study programs at https://dentalmanagementsecrets.com/home-study

All the best,

Dr. Dave

First Impressions

Sat, 08 May 2021 17:07:17 GMT

My wife needed some legal documents notarized recently and I thought her comments on the treatment she received from several different lawyers would be instructive to dentists as well.

These signings are kind of a pain to lawyers; it is simplistic, low fee and kind of a waste of their time. The last time she went, the guy was totally disinterested; she even had to show him where to sign. He charged her $50 and gave no receipt.

This time, he was on holidays so she found a different guy. This one looked over everything carefully and made sure she really understood it. He charged her $15 and gave her a receipt.

Needless to say she loves the second guy and all our future business will be going to him. He may be half as good as a lawyer or twice as good; who knows? But he seems to care and does not act as if he is trying to rip us off.

If we went for a more complex matter and this second lawyer charged us $900 my wife would feel that it was reasonable based on her first impression.

If she had to go back to the first guy and he charged her $900, she would think it was probably worth around $450.

What the first lawyer did not understand is the lifetime value of a client. We might need him for a $10,000 issue some day. That is where he makes his money. Not by charging more on the trivial stuff.

But he also needs to improve his attitude. He didn’t seem to care. Even though it was a trivial matter, who wants to work with someone who doesn’t seem to care?

The second lawyer gets it; he did a wonderful marketing job on my wife. She only wants to see him from now on.

The lesson is that each interaction we have with a patient is an opportunity to show them we care and to impress them or not; and that determines everything from your patient retention stats to your treatment acceptance, to your no-show rate and accounts receivable.

It also highlights the value of a low first fee. This is not the time to blow their socks off with a large fee. Be careful and make a strong first impression and you will profit for years to come.

In dental school they teach us how to take an excellent impression, and obviously that is critical that you do this. But your practice success will be far more dependent on the impressions you make upon your patients than the ones you make of them.

Dental ManagementSecrets is not some complicated set of rules. It is just treating people the way we would like to be treated.

Dr. Dave

WHEN should a dentist be focused on making money?

Sat, 08 May 2021 16:56:27 GMT

This may seem like a strange question. Everyone knows that dentists make their money when they are chairside. Right?

Wrong!

I believe that when a dentist is chair-side, it is not the time to be thinking about money, profit, overhead, etc. We should only be thinking about what is best for that patient. And sometimes the best thing for that patient is little or no treatment due to their financial situation or a host of other possible reasons.

Dentists make their money when they are NOT chair-side. That is when we should be thinking about ways to make ourselves more profitable. This is what dental management is all about. It is about strategy, planning, organizing and adjusting to improve profit.

There are many ways to become more profitable that can be worked on when you are not treating patients. Here are some examples:

Developing ways to attract more patients. If you have a huge patient flow, when you run across someone like the patient I just mentioned, it is no big deal to coast with him for now until he can afford more extensive treatment.

Maybe you should even be looking at a better location if you are not getting enough patients or if too many seem like they can’t afford treatment. You can be profitable doing minimal cost dentistry but that may not be your passion.

Another key is learning how to present treatment properly. Some of the people that say they have no money are just using that as a way to blow you off because you are pushing them too hard. Time spent on this skill is probably your best investment as a dentist.

You can earn more without producing more simply by collecting more of what you produce. Many offices I have helped have totally lost control of collections. The patients dictate what they pay and when. This is serious financial trouble. Especially since people that owe you money don’t like you. And they look for something wrong with what you did so they can justify in their minds why they don’t pay you. Make sure people are not walking out without payment. Besides it also costs a lot of money to have your staff figure out who owes what and chase them down for payment. So if you don’t collect up front, you are delaying your cash flow for your bills, creating patients who are looking for something wrong with their veneers (they can always find something), making them mad by hounding them after the fact for money, paying people to chase these reluctant people, and often never receiving payment at all. How many more reasons do you need to get on top of this? There is nothing you can do about this chair-side. This is a financial policy that must be decided upon and implemented when you are not chair-side.

You can earn more by raising your fees. This may not be across the board, and you may need to do some research on your competition first.

You may want to analyze your productivity per procedure. Perhaps you would earn more by NOT doing certain procedures. You need to be un-emotional in this analysis, as something you enjoy doing may be killing your bottom line.

You can work with a dental consultant, or you can do it yourself. Dental consultants can be very effective in helping you discover your personal blind spots, as well as providing ideas for improvement.

That’s enough for now. I will send more ideas next time.

In the meantime, if you feel a dental consultant would help, call me for a free half hour consult. I can tell pretty fast if I can be of help.

Dr. Dave

Trust in the Dental Office and Course Updates

Sat, 08 May 2021 16:52:53 GMT

Trust in the dental office

When all is said and done, there is really nothing more important than trust when it comes to building your dental practice.

The best, most thriving practices get this. So how do you achieve it?

It’s by doing the ‘right thing’.

How many times have you heard this expression and what does it really mean?

What it means is doing something that hurts you in some way simply because it is the right thing for someone else. In this case the ‘someone else’ is usually your patient, but sometimes your staff.

For example someone comes in asking for some kind of expensive treatment that you know is not right for them. Maybe they ask for veneers and ortho would be better but you don’t do ortho. What do you do?

The ‘right thing’ is to explain both options, the pros and cons of each and what you would do if they were your teeth. If they choose ortho, you lost what could have been a very profitable case. But you gained the respect and admiration of not only the patient but also your staff.

Believe me; they are watching what you do. If you create treatment plans that are more in your best interest than the patients, they notice. They won’t say anything, but they know what is going on.

When you do the right thing every time, both your patients and your staff get behind you and support you in all things.

We need to realize that losing that veneer case may seem like a loss, but if your honesty causes your assistant and that patient to refer you 3 more families because you can be trusted you gain a lot more.

It is the old short term pain, long term gain.

Course Updates

The Dental Manager’s Training Program is right around the corner (October 11-14). It is almost full but you can still get in on it if you register right away. You can click here for information on this. We have a number of very accomplished managers attending including several multiple location practices. You learn from us and from the combined knowledge of the group.

The Dental Practice Management Seminar in Jamaica is just getting off the ground. Our last seminar we had attendees from Australia, Alaska, Canada, mainland US and even Scotland.

So far we have had interest from not just North America but also Norway and even Egypt. It is a fantastic experience learning how our colleagues from around the world practice. The issues are more similar than different.

I have just added another speaker to the agenda. Trent Wehrhahn who does the dental marketing and website for our own practice has been added to teach the key concepts of dental marketing.

I will be speaking on what I believe are the key elements of successful dental practice.

My office manager, Craig will be speaking to the managers, staff and spouses on their roles in supporting the dentist and the practice.

Someone emailed to make sure there will be time in the schedule to have fun down there. Don’t worry. This is meant to be a break, but you will also learn a lot; both from us and from the other attendees as we will also be having round table discussions where we discuss issues as a group.

I am aiming for a 2 hour talk each day so there will be lots of time to enjoy the amenities of the resort.

There will also be lots of time for informal one on ones with all 3 of us for your specific questions (such as on the golf course??).

As I mentioned everything is included from golf, scuba, food, drinks, water skiing, etc. Whatever they have there seems to be included so it is a hassle free vacation.

You can get more details here https://dentalmanagementsecrets.com/jamaica-seminar and I hope to see you in Jamaica.

We only have a small number of rooms booked as that is all they will allow. The whole idea is to make this an intimate group who gets to know each other and have 2 way interaction. At this point there is space, but if you are interested I would encourage you to register early.

All for now,

Dr Dave

Spouses in the Dental Office

Sat, 08 May 2021 16:47:53 GMT

This is a touchy subject because a lot of dental offices have spouses working in their practice.

The question is; is this a good idea or a bad idea?

I have certainly seen it work. I have seen spouses totally take charge and run the office very effectively and profitably. After all, they have a lot at stake and really care more than a hired gun would likely ever have.

However, I have also seen a lot of disasters.

Why do these disasters occur?

Several reasons.

First, often their only qualification is that they are the dentist’s spouse. In other words they are not qualified to do the job. They have no training or experience. Not in working in a dental office and also not in management. And guess what their role usually is? Office manager of course.

So why would anyone expect them to succeed? If they were not related they would never have been hired for the job. So do you seen the disconnect here?

Of course, when they do not know what they are doing, they set themselves up for criticism from the rest of the staff who know the work a lot better. This sets the stage for a hostile environment with blame and defensiveness instead of leadership and cooperation. And of course the spouse will bear the brunt of this unpleasantness.

Second, the staff don’t see the spouse as objective or able to defend their interests. In other words, a good manager sometimes has to impress upon the staff the dentist’s wishes when things are not being done well. On the other hand, there are times when the dental office manager has to impress upon the dentist that he or she needs to back off on poorly thought out or unfair policies. It is a two way street.

In my experience, the staff have little faith that a spouse will see their point of view and feel that the directives will all be one sided. I have heard it stated that the office manager spouse is not someone that helps them in their work, but rather is a spy for the dentist who rats them out if they do something wrong.

Third, sometimes the spouse undermines the dentist’s authority. For example, some spouses are more than comfortable chewing out their husband or wife. At home you are equals and no one is the boss of the other.

But in the office environment, the dentist is expected to be the authority, the leader, the boss and the one in charge. They have many years of intensive training and they have borrowed and invested the money to develop the practice. In this environment, you would not expect a manager to chew out the owner, but some spouses carry over their bad habits from home into the practice, often without even realizing it or understanding the damage it causes.

Sometimes dentists hire their spouse because it is ‘free’. In other words they don’t have to pay them. But if they are willing to work, they could work elsewhere and get paid for it. So the money you would have to pay for someone better qualified would be offset by what they could earn elsewhere.

So in conclusion, in most cases I am opposed to spouses working in the dental office. I think getting the spouse to work elsewhere will be better for the practice, a lot more fun for the spouse, the staff will be happier, the practice will be run better and it will be better for the relationship between the dentist and the spouse.

The only exception should be when the spouse has excellent management and communication skills as judged by the staff. But even then, it is always riskier than hiring someone who is not related.

And either way, whether your spouse is the manager or if it is someone else, make sure they are trained in up to date dental management principles.

In our consulting work, this has consistently shown up as a shortcoming in almost every office.

We do not have any office manager training sessions available right now but our dental manager training has been so well received that we will be doing a lot more of in the future, so make sure you watch for updates.

All for now,

Dr. Dave

What does Success Mean to You?

Sat, 08 May 2021 16:46:06 GMT

I know hundreds of dentists, and they are all different.

We all have things we love and things we don’t.

Most of us want to be successful, but have never defined exactly what it means to be successful to us personally.

When we see someone with a nice car or a nice house we think they must be successful.

But if these purchases required a large amount of debt for a person who is stressed out by debt, then they really are not at peace and happy and therefore not successful in my opinion.

Some people thrive on excellence and quality and pride in their work.

Some strive for financial security.

Some love the relationships we build with our patients and staff.

Some like time off.

Some like to live in lavish surroundings at work and at home.

Some want to give their family a great life.

Some want to make a lot of money because they like to spend a lot of money.

Some hate debt, others want to use the leverage of other people’s money to juice up their returns.

I know exactly what success means to me and I have been working toward that outcome for years so it is no surprise that I am happy in where I am at.

So what about you?

What gives you the greatest joy? The greatest satisfaction? Peace of mind. Do you have a crystal clear picture of where you want to be a year from now? 5 years? 20 years?

Imagine if you could set out your ideal future world and some day wake up living it?

Well you can if you figure out where you want to be and a plan to get there. It also helps to get advice from someone who has achieved what you want to achieve.

No matter what your dreams or goals, if you are a dentist your dental practice will always occupy a large portion of your life. So it is essential that your practice is fulfilling and helping move you toward your goals.

If not, it is hard to be successful. It is hard to be happy out of the office if you are not happy in the office or if it does not support you to the level you require.

And yes, any practice can be made either worse or better. So why not choose better?

I have also found that most dentists don’t like management. We like doing teeth and patients.

How would it impact your happiness and success if you could delegate more of this?

I have a large practice with 60 staff and I probably spend less time managing it than you do. How do I do this? I have an excellent office manager. This is why we have developed a seminar specifically for dental office managers.

There is no comparable course that I am aware of and we have been running it out of Vegas, but now are adding several addition locations across North America.

The idea is this: We dentists don’t know how to manage so we can’t train our office managers on how to manage. But my office manager knows how and he can train them.

He is real world; he manages my office. He does not teach theory; he teaches dental people how to manage. Because most dental managers are dental people with no management know-how.

The impact this course has had on the offices that have attended is staggering. This creates a double win: more profit and less stress and hassle of dealing with staff issues. It also makes your practice more valuable.

Here are just a few of the comments we have received: https://dentalmanagementsecrets.com/management-seminar-results

As 2011 winds down this is a great time to start thinking about how you want 2012 to turn out.

Same old same old or better?

There is a wise old saying: ‘When the student is ready the teacher appears”. Are you ready to make a move forward?

We can help with our on-line programs, one on one consulting and now manager training.

All the best,

Dr Dave

www.dentalmanagementsecrets.com

Your goals for Next Year

Sat, 08 May 2021 16:43:30 GMT

If you have been reading my stuff for a while then you know how I love goals. There is no way your practice is going to go from 60 per month to 80 per month (or whatever is relevant) unless you TRY to get it to improve like that. Major improvements don’t happen on their own. Major improvements are the result of a deliberate decision and a plan to make it happen; in other words a goal. So make this the year you break through. As a belated Christmas present I am inserting a few of the principles from my Dental Productivity Secrets Program to help get you started. You can get the entire program here: www.dentalmanagementsecrets.com

There are about 20 points in the program, and I will include 5 or 6 of them here :

Goals “What you get by achieving your goals is as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” -Henry David Thoreau

I love this quote because I think it gets to the heart of the difference between high and low producers. People that achieve a goal not only benefit from whatever the goal accomplishment got them. More importantly they learned that they can improve themselves. So now they feel comfortable trying something else new. People that bailed out on a goal they set have taught themselves that they can’t do it. People it this group don’t really see themselves this way, they just think there is no point in trying something new, because what they have “works”, and every time they try something new bad things happen. Remember that the past is past. What has happened before does not determine what you can do. After all you have achieved quite a lot in your life already. And none of us want to mess up. But the answer lies in careful progress with the right help and advice, not in avoiding anything new. It also means letting go of the old way. You can’t do it the same way and have it improve. The hardest part is usually not the new way; it is letting go of the old way. The old way is our security blanket. But you need to cut the ties at some point if you want to improve. You need to know where you want to go if you hope to have any possible chance of getting there. And once you set a goal, you need to make a plan to set out what you are going to do differently to achieve the goal. If what you really want is to get into better shape, and then set it as a goal, but you never change your eating habits, or exercise patterns, you obviously are not going to see any improvement. If you are able to clearly state what you want, and how you can get it, the more likely you are to be able to get there. Sometimes clearly stating our goals helps us realize that what we want has changed, and we hadn’t even realized it.

Why do you want it? One of the most powerful motivators is to really understand yourself and your own motivations. If you are clear what you want and why you want it, the world had better look out, because you will be hard to stop. When we don’t ask ourselves why we want something, sometimes you are chasing an old dream, or even your parents’ dream! Make sure you are pursuing what is right for you right now.

Written Goals should be written out for various reasons. First, it has to be clear in your mind to be able to write it out. Second, the act of putting it to paper registers in your mind, both conscious and sub-conscious. I can’t tell you how many goals I had written down, forgotten about, and found the written goals years later, and had already achieved them.

Review them Everyone has heard the story about the Harvard graduating class that was interviewed 30 years ago. Only 3% of the grads had written goals, and what that 3% achieved over their careers exceeded the total of the other 97%. So, everyone knows goal setting can work. However, realism, doubt, lack of confidence and lack of belief in yourself sometimes makes you skeptical that you can do better. And sometimes that stops you from even setting goals. But the statistic I have also read is that if you set a goal, and look at it every day, the chances of achieving the goal are well over 90%. This fact should inspire you, because the mechanism is there for you to use. If you are serious about this goal, and follow this method it most likely will happen.

Believe you can Napolean Hill said that whatever you can conceive and believe, you can achieve. If you don’t believe that somehow you can do this, you shut down your pursuit of your goal. But if you do believe it, you will keep trying until it happens.

Chase the goal Tony Robbins’ take on this is that once you have a goal, and believe it, and review it every day, take massiveaction toward it. While goal setting is powerful, it won’t work unless you do. You have to do the things that take you to your goals, and quite frankly, this is the difference between people who make it happen, and those that watch things happen. We won’t even talk about the people who wonder what happened.

Service

One of the things many people lose sight of when setting goals is that what you are trying to do cannot be just for your own benefit. Your goals have to be to do something that is of value to others if your dreams are to get any legs underneath them. A business venture with a goal to make you rich is worthless. You need a business goal that solves a lot of problems for a lot of people if you want to get rich. The better you can serve others, and the more your business is set up to serve a large number of people, the more successful it will be for you. Never lose track of who you are trying to help, and make sure they get more for their money than they expect.

Get at it Write out your goals in all areas of your life. Write down how you intend to achieve them, and by when. Narrow them down to the top 3 you need to work on right now. Write down why you want it. Get a mentor/supporter to sign the goal you want supported. Create an incentive for yourself. Find a friend that has a goal, and set up the game. Review your goal daily. Just do it. Enjoy your reward when you reach your goal, and go on to the next one. Some people don’t like to set goals because they feel “pressured” to achieve them. Well , hello! Your goals should be exactly the things you want to do, to become or to achieve to create success, health, wealth and happiness! If you feel some kind of negative energy associated with those outcomes, please purchase my program and read the section on Fear of Success!! But I digress; this is the time of year to think about how you want 2011 to go.

All for now. Have a Healthy Happy and Prosperous New Year. Dr. Dave

www.dentalmanagementsecrets.com

Teaching vs Learning

Sat, 08 May 2021 16:40:59 GMT

Do you have any kids?

If so you have probably tried to teach them something valuable and they totally disregarded it.

Typically they ‘discover’ this information again at a later date and embrace it.

Why is that?

It is because you cannot teach anyone anything.

You can learn but you cannot be taught.

So what’s the difference?

The difference is being ready to hear it and ready to learn it.

Why would an excellent lesson not sink in?

If you are not ready emotionally or psychologically. If you don’t believe it. If you don’t think you need it.

If you don’t think it applies to you. If you agree but think it is too hard. If your ego can’t handle being told what to do.

There are many reasons why good information is rejected. And this does not just apply to kids.

If applies to everyone of every age, culture, race and sex.

It applies to you and it applies to me.

We all have the capacity to learn a lot of things that will enhance our lives.

But if we are not ready to learn them, the best teacher in the world will be totally ineffective.

As always, our success is our own personal responsibility. And as such it is our responsibility to learn, not to be taught.

When you are ready to learn, the teacher will appear. And it will seem that the teacher is excellent!

We love to provide information to dentists and office managers who are ready to learn.

Dentists can access our programs here: https://dentalmanagementsecrets.com/home-study

Dental Office Managers can sign up for our next training

programs (Miami in Feb and Vancouver in May) here: https://dentalmanagementsecrets.com/managers

All the best and here’s to a happy, healthy and successful 2012.

Dr Dave

How to do a Dental Recall Exam

Sat, 08 May 2021 16:37:00 GMT

The proper way to do a recall exam

Last month I was gearing up for a period of time away from the office for over a month.

I was doing a recall exam when one of our hygienists mentioned that she was not happy that I was going away for so long because I was the only one that did recalls properly.

I know that was a bit of an exaggeration, but I think what she meant was that I do it right all the time so she can count on me, and therefore knows how her day will go.

In other words, when I am working she could on staying on time and the day going smoothly for her.

Now I was surprised to hear that and it is obviously something I am taking up with the other dentists in the office.

So what do I do that the hygienists like?

This is pretty simplistic, yet the dentists in my own office don’t do this, so maybe you don’t either.

Basically I don’t wait until the end of the hygiene appointment or worse yet, wait until their hygiene visit is over, so they have to come and ask me to do the recall.

You know how they stand there, impatiently tapping their toe wanting and expecting you to stop whatever you are doing and run over there.

So how do I avoid that?

I look at the day sheet constantly throughout the day. When a recall patient comes in for a cleaning, I take the very first opportunity I can to go and do the recall.

Whenever I have any break at all; waiting for anaesthetic or the rubber dam or an impression to set, or my assistant making a temporary or taking x-rays. Basically any chance that I get to sneak away, I go and get my

recalls done, so that when I come back I am ready to go; uninterrupted.

The only time they come and pester me is when I am in the middle of an appointment that is long and intense and there is nothing I can delegate to my assistant. There are very few examples of this, but sometimes I

just need to stay and get something finished.

But 99% of the time, I leave my patient with my assistant getting some small procedure done while I slip away and see the recall patient. Because my own patient is getting something done, they don’t feel neglected, so

I can take my time on the recall and have some fun with them, find out if they need any work, then slide back.

What I don’t do is stop in the middle of a procedure and leave someone cranked open with the rubber dam on, and everyone leaves the room and goes away for 10 minutes. Patients hate that and so would I.

I do all the recalls before or during the placement of the rubber dam so once it is on, I work till I’m done.

So learn to ‘do recalls right’ as my hygienist put it.

Everyone benefits; your hygienist, (they can stay on schedule), your recall patient (they get out on time and you are not rushed with them), your patient, (you don’t leave them waiting), your assistant, (you stay on time and they don’t need to set up and clean another room since you did it in the hygiene chair), your front desk, ( they don’t get complaints about being kept waiting or being charged for a one minute exam), and you because everyone else is happy and you will run on time.

If you are interested in learning all the ways I practice, which is always at a high level of dental productivity, you can check out my programs here: https://dentalmanagementsecrets.com/home-study

On a side note, we are changing dental offices one office manager at a time at our very popular Dental Office Manager Training Sessions.

We just completed another successful session in Miami and the next one is in picturesque Vancouver, BC.

It is being held May 7-11 and few places on earth are more beautiful than Vancouver in the spring. It is the San Francisco or Sydney of

Canada.

You can sign up here: https://dentalmanagementsecrets.com/managers

All for now,

Dr Dave

The Power Of Your Thoughts

Sat, 08 May 2021 16:26:30 GMT

Yesterday I golfed with a man who is a physician and also a PhD in psychology.

We had a most interesting game of golf while also discussing our philosophies of life.

It got pretty deep pretty fast.

He believes that we all have the power inside of us to accomplish everything that we dream of.

He deals with lots of people with many physical and mental problems that he ascribes largely to their way of thinking and looking at their issues on a superficial level and not going to the core of what is really bothering them.

He also deals with people constantly reaching new heights.

He is not a ‘shrink’ who diagnoses and then prescribes pills.

He leads people to think about why they think and believe what they do.

He sent me this article of his view of the world and I thought I would pass it along.

It has nothing to do with dentistry, but everything to do with happiness, self improvement and how you relate to others. Here it is:

Myself-and-my-world constructs

An opinion – John Faul

Growing up, or becoming the actual person in one’s own life, entails and consists of developing a set of definitions, concepts, or mental constructs of who I am and what my world is all about. Subjective living is to be engaged in a lifelong task of creating my worlds and my places in them.

Life-changing and in depth work lies ahead if I am to re-examine my way of being and revise and broaden my constructs of myself and my world that continuously direct my life. The structure of myself-and-my-world is so central in my life, that it can almost be considered as the essence of life itself. My experiences of myself in my world may have become gradually so stable, that they have given me a sense of identity.

The most intimate relationship I have personally is with all my own thoughts and concepts that I have about me and the world I created, for myself. The way that I relate with my own thoughts determines my life, and especially how I relate to other people in my life. My thoughts affect my life.

To grow towards a more interesting and fulfilling life is to begin to learn to listen within myself. There is a difference in self-reporting about me and my world than actually being aware, present, and living in the moment. Examining my experiences when I am without some of my closely held thoughts, beliefs, and concepts, may broaden and stretch who I am and what my world is about. Taking personal responsibility for my own experience implies a review of what I think about myself and the worlds I have created for myself. Gaining inner sight into the impact my thoughts and concepts have on my outer reality, will require empathy, guidance, and healing.

My quest has become to open the myself-and-my-world construct to imaginative and possible alternative options. Previously held beliefs – religious, psychological, relational, health, economic, physical, social, and environmental – are all available for possible change.

I think we all need to examine what we constantly think about and question whether our self thoughts are helping our hurting us.

You need to read this a few times to really get it. But the message is clear that we are the architects of our own destiny.

I particularly like the paragraph that reads: The most intimate relationship I have personally is with all my own thoughts and concepts that I have about me and the world I created, for myself. The way that I relate with my own thoughts determines my life, and especially how I relate to other people in my life. My thoughts affect my life.

If you think you can improve your situation you are right and if you think you can’t you also will be proven correct.

So think about what you are thinking. Maybe it’s time to start arguing with yourself! Question your self-talk if it is negative and not moving you forward. Replace it with the kind of pro-active and self confident inner dialogue that winners use.

I’m not a shrink either, but if your newly empowered self is ready to finally deal with the office management monster you’ve been ignoring because your self-talk said it can’t be fixed, then we can help.

All for now.

Dr Dave

PS We are also hosting another dental office manager training session in October in Las Vegas.

Who do you need to be?

Sat, 08 May 2021 16:24:32 GMT

I was just at a dental convention. There was only one really great point made in 2 days.

It was this: instead of thinking what information you need to improve you should be figuring out what kind of person you need to be in order to do the things that need to be done in order to get the result that you are after.

Wow. To me that is profound.

Let’s face it, a lot of the time we know what to do, but somehow it just never gets done.

It is human nature to avoid unpleasant tasks and do the things that are more fun.

But that is not how you make changes or get ahead.

Of course you do need the right information as well. But the right dental management know-how needs to be combined with the right attitude.

What kind of person do you need to be? What kind of person do you want to be? What kind of person are you now? What kind of person do others think that you are? Who inspires you? Who do you want to be like? Who can help you get there?

If you can answer all those questions honestly, then you are already well on the way.

I suppose Question B in all of this is what kind of person does your dental office manager need to be to run the office while you drill teeth? When we do consults it strikes us how the dentist thinks they are running the show but since they are seeing patients all day they really don’t know what is going on in a lot of cases.

You need a manager to manage all the things that are going on while you provide patient care. If you think you can do a great job of that from chair-side, you may be in for a surprise some day.

The dentist needs to be a great leader, but to run the day to day aspects you also need a great dental office manager.

We have found that the best improvements in dental offices that we have been able to create are by helping dental office managers become the people they need to be to support you and the entire team.

Our 2013 calendar has just come out and we have scheduled training for dental office managers 3 times.

We do a management 101 which cover management basics and dental office manual creation in April and September. And we do an advanced session in November.

Our website has lots of testimonials as these are really life changing sessions when an assistant or receptionist is finally given tools and skills so they he or she can manage properly for the first time ever.

The following January we are going to invite the dentists to join the managers so we can teach the differences in the roles and how to work together for the best outcome.

You can sign up here if you are interested. We have some early registration discounts so book now and make sure you get a spot and that 2013 becomes the year when things really start to move upward.

Imagine if both the dentist and the manager are the people they need to be. Nothing could stop them.

All for now.

Dr Dave

www.dentalmanagementsecrets.com

PS I know that we are in a recession. When I started consulting and writing our office produced in the $6 million range. 5 years later we are hoping to hit $9 million by Jan 31. And this is through a tough economic time. So our methods are not theoretical. We practice what we preach and we love to pass on what we have learned.

A word from my office manager

Sat, 08 May 2021 16:19:59 GMT

This month, I have a guest writer.

Craig Hayes is my dental office manager who not only manages our huge 12 dentist office, but also works with me on consulting and he has also been running hands on training seminars for dental office managers over the last 2 years.

Craig does not come from a dental background. In his previous career working for a large public telecom company, he saved them $8 Million. They were going to write off $12 Million and he found a way to reduce it to only $4 Million. Still a lot, but a lot better than it was. So he has real world experience as well as dental. He was managing over 300 people at that time. He has the HR skills to show your manager how to make your office run well.

I want you to read what he says but more importantly, read the reviews from the dentist owners of some of the practices whose managers we have trained so far.

First, here is Craig:

I find it difficult knowing that we have answers that can save dentists a ton of heartache, not to mention money.

Like a dentist I have the knowledge and skill to deliver the equivalent of preventive dentistry, only in my case it is preventive management. It is much better to catch decay while it is small. A filling is so much better than a endo, crown (post etc.) or worse yet an extraction if it was really left too long.

It is also true that a staff hand book is so much better than a law suit. Imagine the trouble you would find yourself in if you were a dentist without any dental training, trying to diagnose and fix a problem. I see this every time I hold these seminars, managers managing without the proper training; it’s like an assistant performing an endo.

I‘m reminded of the office we warned that without changing their management style they would lose all their employees, well they’re all gone now. Or the time when an office allowed me to review their homemade Rule Book; we warned them they were headed for a lawsuit, today they are in court facing over $100,000 in labor board actions.

My advice; have the filling done now rather than waiting till it hurts…. Catch the problems while they are small. Send your manager to one of our upcoming courses. (One of which starts April 16 – 19 in Las Vegas) plus we have added many other dates.

Rather than give you more negative horror stories, here are some glowing reviews of the positive changes in some of the office managers we have trained:

________________________________________

I have seen so much progression in her both professionally and personally, She has taken so much of the workload off of me and the weight off of my shoulders. She is both kind and gentle in the way that she deals with the staff.

~Dr. K on N*****

________________________________________

We now have a direction, and no longer feel like we’re walking around blind. Our clinic has both a clear vision and we’re confident in L****’s role in helping to make this vision a reality.

~Dr. R, on L****

________________________________________

Having promoted an internal candidate with no management experience or training, we were expecting Management 101 to increase the ratio of hits to misses. We’re thrilled to say that it eliminated the misses altogether!

~Allan H, on K******

________________________________________

Since the completion of 101, we are implementing SYSTEMS to be more productive and efficient in the practice and we couldn’t have done it without J***. BRAVO. We are looking forward to more learning objectives after 201 is completed.

Dr. M, on J***

________________________________________

The biggest change I’ve seen since T**** came back from Management 101 is in her confidence. She has the confidence to deal with most issues that arise, without needing to check with me. This is particularly true when staff issues arise. She knows how to direct our team members to do what she wants, rather than “asking” them. Where she encounters an issue, she has begun implementing and enforcing clear policies. We’ve also been consistently meeting our targets, which makes everyone happy!

Dr. S, on T****

________________________________________

I just wanted to let S****** know how invaluable she’s been, and it takes me awhile to put things in to words. Thank you so much for these great

courses. I’ve needed this fantastic combination of a great office manager and great training to make her even more knowledgeable. So here we go:

S****** has always been our “go to girl” in the office and my sounding board for my ideas,my goals and visions for the office, many which I

haven’t been able to achieve much to my frustration. Becoming the office manager was the natural transition for S******. Since taking

the first management course, she has turned out a fantastic, much overdue office manual,implemented many office protocols, revamped our

scheduling of both patients and staff, which has increased our patient care and almost eliminated overtime. She has cleaned up our A/R, which

was a mess!

S****** has also begun streamlining our Hygeine, CDA and Reception teams, ensuring that all protocols are followed, and every person will have some degree of crosstraining. She shares the same visions for our office that I do, and is the person to take it to the next level. In short, she has my back, and I have hers.

Dr S on S******

________________________________________

Here are the comments for K*** on her improvements and accomplishments since management 101.

K*** has integrated several changes to our office since her first course. She has brought in new evaluation forms for our staff and has been performing all of our staff evaluations. She has reorganized the administration of the front desk area and brought in the greeter position which had improved patient flow at the front desk. She has been able to delegate many duties to other admin staff and has been able to focus on reducing receivables with great success. She is better able to organize her time so she can more often start and complete tasks. K*** has always had good ideas to improve our office and now she is in the position to implement these ideas. We look forward to her continued growth and improvement!

Drs. B, K, B,and W

________________________________________

Anyway, I think you get the idea.

The common element is how the manager has taken some of the burden off of the dentist. Who does not want that?

A great person with great training will be much more valuable to your office than a great person that just does not know what to do.

In fact, untrained managers burn out and leave because it is so stressful doing everything the hard way.

And your office manager is usually your best staff member, so if they burn out and leave, you have lost your best and brightest.

The course is not expensive and we offer a full refund including airfare after Day 1 if you are not completely blown away.

You can sign up here: https://dentalmanagementsecrets.com/management-seminar-101

All for now,

Dr Dave

PS As you may have gathered from the comments above, we have a second level that we call 201, so there is continuity. It is not a one stop’ rah rah’ then go back to the old ways type of program.

If Not Now, Then When?

Sat, 08 May 2021 16:05:26 GMT

January has always been the time that I have taken stock of my life; how I’m doing right now, how last year went (never mind!), and what I want to do in the upcoming year.

Almost everything I have accomplished is not because I just fell into it. It is because I made a plan that year to do it, or at least start on it.

I have always wondered what goes through mind of a golf pro that works at a driving range. Most of the time no one hires him. He stands there watching anywhere between 10 and 40 people flail away with horrible golf swings that he could fix or at least help.

So why don’t they hire him? Some of these people golf over 100 times a year. You would thing for what they spend on golf, a few lessons would be an insignificant cost.

And I have to say, I feel the same way myself. When people call us for help, most times they have been struggling for a long time.

What stops people from spending a fraction of what they have invested in dentistry into some tips to get better at it?

If you are a dentist, this is your life. My annual goals have always been to have a better life.

Presuming that you think along the same lines, what can you do to improve?

As the title says, if not now, then when? Why not start 2021 with plans to work smarter, earn more, enjoy dentistry more, and make your team and patients feel better. All with the same office, team and tools that you already have invested in.

Whether we can help you with Dental Self Help, Dental Automation, Dental Consulting, or Dental Office Manager Seminars, (in order of cost), improvement is not only possible, we guarantee it.

If you could spend $1500 on an investment that could get you $3000 back, you’d probably go for it. Especially if they said you get the $1500 back if it doesn’t work.

Imagine spending $1500 and getting $5000 more EVERY MONTH for the rest of your practicing life. Seems like a no brainer. Especially when we promise to give the $1500 back if the returns are not there.

Let us help you help yourself.

All for now,

Dr Dave

Dental Management Secrets

How to produce $100,000 per month – New Audio Program

Sat, 08 May 2021 16:02:04 GMT

For those of you who know that I have been in practice many years, this kind of a number may not seem that impressive.

But in this newsletter, I am not writing about me, I am writing about my son.

He graduated from dental school two and a half years ago.

When he started we sat down together and I gave him my best advice on how to be successful over 3 hour long sessions.

We recorded these sessions, so he could refer back to them from time to time.

He started off quite quickly and was producing $60,000 a month in no time and has been gradually increasing steadily over time.

But last month he hit $104.987.00.

And that is working a 35 hour week.

I finally realized that lots of people would benefit from our father/son chats, so I have made some copies and am making them available to you.

They talk about how to deal with patients, case presentation, and even how to manage large cases.

As always these are no risk; if you don’t agree that you received value of at least 10 times the purchase price I will send your money back.

The CD’s are $99 each or all 4 for $299, including shipping and handling.

Just some quick math, if you increase your production even $5000/month times 12 months and say 10 years that’s $600,000 or a 150,000% return on your money. And some of you will improve by $20,000 per month.

The best part is that you can use what Zig Ziglar calls Automobile University; you can learn this while driving to work.

To order, click here .

All for now,

Dr Dave

PS Make 2013 your breakthrough year

A Little Mistake That Cost A Dentist More Than $30,000

Sat, 08 May 2021 16:00:43 GMT

When Dr Jones (not his real name) downloaded his office manual from a popular internet site, he thought he had taken care of a big potential problem, but instead he ended up having to pay a $30,000 employment claim.

It’s really simple – If you don’t have an office manual, you need one. If you do have one, you better know that it is the right one for you. In the US and Canada you have over 63 different labor jurisdictions, so to create one on your own with no experience is a really bad idea. And like Dr Jones, downloading the cheapest one you can find on the internet isn’t very smart either.

Here’s a better idea: Send your office manager for a four day program, and have a customized manual covering more than 50 topics and policies that do more than just protect you from “little mistakes.”

A good office manual will not only save you money, but actually make you money. In addition to covering key employment and liability issues, your manual should help reduce overtime, increase productivity and patient satisfaction, and provide consistent guidelines for training.

So which way would you handle this important business decision?

Remain vulnerable with no manual,

Use a cheap internet template that still needs hours of work and extensive lawyer review,

Create your own from scratch with weeks of effort and potentially increase your liability, or

Send your manager(s) to work with our professional team for a few days at our next Management 101 training, and have them return with a complete office manual that protects your practice and increases productivity.

Our Management 101 Workshop does more than just create an office manual, it also includes training on all aspects of managing a dental office and successfully implementing your new office manual. We now have an Office Manual Workshop and 4 Day Intensive Manager Training scheduled in 11 cities across North America.

Satisfaction Guaranteed

Now save $400 off our regular price of $1,595 and pay only $1,195 for our next 4 day training event in Las Vegas. Your satisfaction is guaranteed. If you don’t feel completely satisfied, we will refund 100% of your purchase price.

**The $400 savings applies to our next workshop only in Las Vegas April 16-19, 2013.**

More Details here or give us a call at (587)-391-5883.

All for now,

Dr Dave

PS – You would spend more than $1,595 in legal fees on your manual alone!

Book your office manager training for Las Vegas today before the limited seating is gone. Best of all, you can order with the peace of mind that comes with our 100% money back Satisfaction Guarantee.

Automation For The Dental Practice

Sat, 08 May 2021 15:55:27 GMT

We love automation.Our staff salaries have dropped even as our revenues have increased over the past few years. They are now below 20%.We love our staff and they do a fantastic job of making sure our practice runs smoothly and every patient is satisfied with every interaction with our office. But we have eliminated several staff positions over the past few years.Here are some examples of what we have automated:

All payroll calculations. We don’t figure out vacation pay, overtime, statutory holidays, bonus, banked time, etc.
Our staff schedule; our staff shifts repopulate into the future.
Staff shift swaps; our staff manages this themselves online without hassling the manager. Even temps have access to our open shifts; they can plug themselves in online from home with no temp fees.
Reporting; Anything we want to know can be accessed instantly right down to how many appointments each reception has booked that day and for which provider.
Tasks; even task requests are done online and staff have to click ‘completed’ when done. Nothing gets forgotten and no one needs to be chased.
Self Monitoring. For example our hygienists can make sure their production is adequate based on their salary level.
Patient appointment reminders; all automated.
Patient announcements; we can send an automated phone message or email to all our patients in half and hour.
Office entry; we have a key fob that registers who comes and goes and at what time.
Chartless files; how many hours are spent looking for charts? In our office it is zero. We can have 3 people working on the same chart at the same time. Old files do not need to be found and removed and stored. We can look at charts from home. I could go on a long time on this one.
We get patient feedback on their visits with an automatically generated post treatment assessment survey.
Even our office birthday list is automated and you get an email when it is your turn to bring a cake.

This is not even a complete list of all that we have automated but it gives you a good idea where we are coming from.Plus everything we do can be done online; from home or vacation. My manager has done payroll for over 50 people from all over the country; even Disneyland.Keep in mind that not one of the above functions costs one cent of a staff member’s time to carry it out. You can see how staff costs can be reduced. Your staff are very valuable and the key to a successful practice. You just don’t want them doing these kinds of things.Contrary to popular belief, automation does not de-personalize your practice. Rather it frees you from repetitive time consuming tasks. It makes sure everything important gets done 100% of the time and it frees you up to do what you are supposed to be doing; looking after your patients!We love to teach what we have learned and hope you come to one of our upcoming seminars to learn about automation and a whole lot more.We have managers only seminars coming up in New York, Vancouver and Calgary, and an all office seminar coming up in Cabo San Lucas in Mexico in January.You can get info on all our programs here: https://dentalmanagementsecrets.com/All for now,Dr DavePS May 31, this Friday is the deadline for the early bird discount on our Cabo San Lucas seminar.

You can get info on that program here: https://dentalmanagementsecrets.com/cabo

Please accept this as my two week notice – From Your Office Manager

Sat, 08 May 2021 15:51:40 GMT

Please accept this as my two week notice…

Over the past six years I have had the privilege of speaking with hundreds of Dental Office Managers. Now I’m not sure if you dentists are aware, but a number of your clinic managers have their resignation letter already typed up on their computer. It’s just a matter of changing the date and emailing it out.

Being a Manager for the last 18 years of my career, this puzzles me sometimes: why are so many of us Dental Managers on the brink of leaving? Then I remember sitting with a group of managers, watching, as each of them broke down in tears; talking about the stress they were under when the staffing crunch in Alberta showed up. Unemployment rate was at 0.04%, Burger King was offering a $4,000 signing bonus, Generation X made their debut into the workforce, and hygienists were asking for $55.00 per hour (even the ones fresh out of school). I, of course, held it together (yeah sure). I said to them: “there is no crying in management”.

The pressure of coming to work every day and dealing with:

Baby Boomers*, Generation X**, Generation Y***, Hygienist, Assistants, Administration, Patients, Insurance Companies, and on top of all of these factors: the Dentists. Don’t forget, often times the dentist’s spouse (even though he/she is often not involved in the business) have a ton of ‘useful’ information us managers need to adhere to. Then there’s our Accountants, while they are involved with payroll, they still only deal with the figures and numbers. We as the managers have the thrill of passing on their message.

We managers come to work, day in and day out, doing our jobs and still managing to balance all of these personalities. All the while dealing with endless reports that make no sense to us. Don’t forget: we do this balancing act DAILY with next to no training. Actually, I would say that we, as managers, are afraid to ask for training. Will our Dentist approve a 3 days and $1,500.00 course to get us the training we need. Even though the clinic is shut down when the dentists fly’s out for another course on the latest procedure in implants. Often these courses seem to pop up overnight, which means we managers, along with the rest of their staff, are stuck with moving all of their patients into the next few weeks.

And now we see the managers pulling up their resignation letter; usually appropriate titled “NO MORE.docx”. They punch in the date for that day, and email it off to their dentist. Now the dentist is surprised:

“What happened? You looked happy last time we spoke…you seemed so strong when you were working as my assistant…”

They just didn’t know.

The explanation for the aforementioned scenario is simple: these managers simply did not receive the training they needed to do their job. Giving these dental managers proper training will ensure they stay with the practice, so they can implement the proper changes to take their clinic to the next level.

A Staff Handbook (for Office Policies and Guidelines)

Progressive Management Techniques (Progressive Discipline)

Goal Setting

You spend thousands on your own continuing education, why not get more leverage from that investment by sending your Manager to our courses and we promise she will delete her “NO MORE” document, create a new folder called “Moving Forward,” and become an impact player that MAKES YOU MORE MONEY – GUARANTEED.

Best regards,

Craig Hayes

Dental Management Secrets

Other DMS Courses

Best of Both Worlds – in conjuction with Cleardent and Sinclair Dental – Las Vegas – September 26 -27 2013Dental Office “Rejuvenation” Retreat – Riu Palace Cabo San Lucas – Jan 23-26, 2014

*Baby Boomers

Work-Centric: Baby Boomers are extremely hardworking and motivated by position, perks and prestige. Baby Boomers relish long work weeks and define themselves by their professional accomplishments. Since they sacrificed a great deal to get where they are in their career, this workaholic generation believes that Generation X and Generation Y should pay their dues and conform to a culture of overwork. Baby Boomers may criticize younger generations for a lack of work ethic and commitment to the workplace

**Generation X

Individualistic: Generation X came of age in an era of two-income families, rising divorce rates and a faltering economy. Women were joining the workforce in large numbers, spawning an age of “latch-key” children. As a result, Generation X is independent, resourceful and self-sufficient. In the workplace, Generation X values freedom and responsibility. Many in this generation display a casual disdain for authority and structured work hours. They dislike being micro-managed and embrace a hands-off management philosophy.

***Generation Y

Achievement-Oriented: Nurtured and pampered by parents who did not want to make the mistakes of the previous generation, Generation Y is confident, ambitious and achievement-oriented. They have high expectations of their employers, seek out new challenges and are not afraid to question authority. Generation Y wants meaningful work and a solid learning curve.

Above endnote entries extrapolated from legalcareers.about.com.

Sally Kane, “Practice Tips and Career Advice for Legal Industry Professionals”. Publish Date: N/A. Access Date: June 21st, 2013.

URL: http://legalcareers.about.com/od/practicetips/a/

Roles and Responsibilities of Leaders

Sat, 08 May 2021 15:47:59 GMT