Few areas in Dentistry are as important as your ability to assemble a great staff. It takes even more skills to turn that “group” into a team. Truly the “practice” of Dentistry has become the “business” of dentistry. Leadership, systems, delegation, rewards, and consequences are just a few key elements. Each is like a piece ...
Read MoreFor nearly 20 years, I have read many articles about our profession but this is my first one to write. Our consultant, Dave Rutty from Summit Practice Solutions, called me last week and said, “Do you realize your production is up 20% this year and you had your best month ever in June?” In June, we produced $239,000 and collected $229,000. Both ...
Read MoreEvery couple of weeks someone prepares a payroll for your office. Every month someone pays the bills, and as owner you get to take what’s left. This commonplace occurrence tends to mislead doctors and team members into thinking they were hired to do a particular job and that if they do it with excellence, they will be richly rewarded. ...
Read MoreIf this is a question you ask yourself daily, then your practice may suffer from distributive inequity. While this term is seldom heard, it pervades the halls of many practices, destroying team morale and generally making the dentist’s life miserable. Before I define it, let me describe it. The entry to the dentist’s private office is a ...
Read More“The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred.” – George Bernard Shaw Consistency – modern culture longs for this; things change too fast; consistency = comfort; give patients the same experience every time they are in the office, keep repeating your message Attitude – statistics for the effectiveness of ...
Read MoreThere is nothing worse than having a perfect day scheduled at 8:00am and by 9:00am, 20% of the day has cancelled. What’s even worse is that cancellations and no-shows seem to affect the most productive procedures (Crown and bridge for the doctor and soft tissue appointments for hygiene). Therefore, the 20% cancellation rate may mean an ...
Read MoreThe short answer is absolutely maybe. It always starts with a short email from a doctor asking me how to structure his/her bonus. I always answer: “Give me a call, because it will take too long to type it, and you will end up sending me six more emails all starting with “Yea but, what about ….?”. It happened again so I decided ...
Read MoreSteven Covey in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” identifies the number one trait to make you successful in any endeavor: “Begin with the end in mind”. In other words, if you can define, or create a picture of where you want to be you will shorten the path and define the result. The same is true in overhead. Your overhead ...
Read MoreNot long ago, I received a marketing piece that listed 7 things every new patient deserves. I would like to expand on this with my own list. We all spend money on branding our practices and trying to attract new patients. With varying results, I hear doctors complain about this strategy or that. They get less than a 1% response from ...
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