What Makes A Successful Dental Practice |
Posted: February 23, 2022 |
No one likes going to the dentist. However, everyone has teeth. And everyone eats at least once a day. Ergo - everyone needs the dentist as long as they live. If you look at it that way, dentists are one of the few professionals who will always have a market to work in alongside morticians and taxmen. It’s also the reason a dentist always has fierce competition to contend with. So, what can you do to make sure your practice stays ahead of the curve? How can you ensure that your business processes are optimized in such a way that you never lack a customer? Here are some very helpful dental management tips. Take care of your employeesHaving a cohesive team made up of satisfied practitioners and technicians is crucial for keeping your business running like a well oiled machine. Subpar working conditions make for a disgruntled and dysfunctional team. Unfair shift delegation, long hours, insufficient paid time off, etc., all create an inhospitable work environment. The obvious consequence is dissatisfaction within the ranks. Fights and hostilities between staff members make running an office nearly impossible. Not only will you struggle with employee retention, but an unhealthy atmosphere within the ranks rapidly trickles down to the patients. An air of frustration creates an unwelcoming environment for the patients, who are stressed out enough for being at the dentist's in the first place. An unhappy staff is a surefire way to lose both employees and patients. On the other hand, a relaxed atmosphere in a dental office, banter, and jokes flying soothe the patient, make them feel at home, and loosen up. This makes your technician’s job orders of magnitude easier and results in an overall boost in customer experience. Know when to make hires. Being understaffed means being overworked. Some dental industry professionals recommend the following formula - hire one front desk employee each $350,000 in production, and a new dental assistant each $250,000 of production. That is by no means a perfect formula. New hires have to be a judgment call at the end of the day. Make sure you keep an eye on our employees’ workload and don’t be stingy with bringing new people to help carry the weight. It goes without saying - a good onboarding routine is also of immense value. As far as keeping the seasoned veterans on board, aside from paying them an honest salary, employee training is your tool. Not only will you gain a more efficient worker, the sense of progression and advancement is what fuels hard and meticulous work. Other team-building activities also help, of course. For example, an early morning huddle can do wonders for team morale. Just don’t push it too much. An insistence on being a ‘work family’ can easily become overbearing and have an inverse effect on cohesion. Get to know your strong suitsSure, you can get a root canal in any old dentist's office. But is your practice famous for having an almost painless procedure? Anyone can replace a filling. But does your technician do it in less than 5 minutes, without any discomfort for the patient? Your dental office needs some ‘signature’ procedures. Do your diligence and research your competitors. What are their specialties, what do they do better than the rest of the pack? Find an angle that will make you unique in a sea of practices. Invest in tools and equipment, employee training, and learn the latest techniques. After finding a way to make you stand out, make sure you put it at the forefront of your marketing campaign. Word of mouth will do its own thing soon enough, and your practice will become famous for doing certain types of procedures better than any other in town. At the same time, you should always be thinking of expanding the portfolio of services you offer. Staying ahead of the curve in the latest technological advancements is paramount for success. Use scheduling software to its full extentOptimizing your bookings is the cornerstone of a successful practice. Avoiding unnecessary gaps, as well as huge crowds in the waiting room, is essential. Scheduling software does all the hard work nowadays. Find a system that works for you and stick to it. A certain amount of flexibility should be built into the system, though. Some people prefer morning appointments to get the procedure out of the way as soon as possible, and the dentist’s office is an afterwork affair for others. Demand 24-hour cancellation notices and impose fees for missed appointments. Don’t let somebody else’s irresponsibility ruin your profit margin. At the same time, online appointment scheduling definitely simplifies the process and results in a higher rate of filled slots. Cloud-based software allows patients to select a time that suits them from a list you provide and manage. You get an email request, and if approved, the client gets a confirmation note. Easy and painless, just like your root canal procedure! Invest in online marketingThere’s no way around it - without an online presence, your practice is practically invisible. That means delving into the deep black sea of digital marketing. If you’ve never had any experience with digital marketing, you may feel intimidated by the sheer vastness of the field. If you’ve had experience, you’ll know of its deep wormholes of data metrics, paid ads, and search engine optimization. But nothing worth doing is easy, and boy is investing in online marketing worth doing. No matter how many word of mouth referrals your garner, nothing will bring more new patients to your doorstep than the first place on Google for a commercial keyword. The process is this - before hiring a digital marketing expert, learn the basics of paid ads and SEO. There are plenty of reading materials online. Then, ask around for the best office in town and let them do their work while constantly keeping an eye on pertinent metrics. With a bit of luck and a lot of persistence, you will see a steady increase in clients within a few months. Use billing softwareAutomating your billing process will save you incredible amounts of headaches. Making satisfied patients pay for their co-pays is no easy task. That’s where automation steps in to save the day. An automated and streamlined will make your accounts receivable balance stay low and your employees timely paid and happy. Of course, this also allows you to provide much more flexible payment arrangements. If a customer lacks insurance or just wants to pay on a monthly basis, the software makes this easier than ever. A choice in how they pay you makes for a much happier customer. ConclusionThere are plenty of mouths with plenty of teeth waiting for your help. If it were that simple - they come to you, you and your team fix their problem, and they pay you - this world would be paradise. However, as it stands, you’ve got the competition to worry about, employees to take care of, an office to run efficiently, and debts to collect incessantly. But don’t lose hope - dentistry is still alive and well. Follow the tips in this article, and you’ll be on your way to making the world smile brighter.
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