Dental Practice

6 Ways to Build a Profitable Dental Practice

One of the main issues that today’s dental practices face is the fact that dentists rarely have control over when patients will come to you or not. That’s why it’s important to figure out the best ways to build a profitable dental practice while still delivering an excellent patient experience! Listed below are 6 ways to grow the bottom line of your dental practice.

Always Deliver Your Best: Patients need to know one important thing: that you are the most valuable investment they can make at this particular time. Always deliver the best results and work hard. This way you will have happy clients and they will convince others to come to you. “Word of mouth” is by far one of the best marketing methods. In the long run, it will lead to a profitable dental practice.
Patient Surveys: Surveys can be a great tool for both your practice and the customer. Patients can tell you what they want improved. Then, based on the feedback, you can get better results. Everyone wins, and you get to grow the bottom line for your practice.
Add New Services: The more comprehensive services you offer, the higher the chances of growing the bottom line for your practice. Make sure you do research on what services make the most financial sense before offering them. The more services you have, the higher the number of customers you will get. Of course, keep all those services at a stellar quality if you want the best outcome!
Always Look for Ways to Improve Customer Service: Customer service is as important as any other portion of your business. Every staff member in your office has to be customer service focused. Engaging in casual conversation with your patients, along with doing what you say you are going to do, will ultimately have a better outcome in the end. This can lead to a huge spike in referrals and regular appointments.
Hire the Right Staff: You already offer high quality services. But is your staff fully prepared for these type of tasks? The hiring process can pose its own challenges, but in the end you can offer more and better services to your patients.
Embrace Technology: Technology has come a long way from days of the past. One simple way to embrace technology is to give patients options on how they want to be reminded of upcoming appointments. They can be reminded by phone, text, or email, which will allow staff members more time to be doing other tasks.

These are some of the best tips that you can use to build a profitable dental practice. It will not be easy at first. But with the proper attention to detail, the outcome can be very well worth it!

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5 Tips to Improve Your Dental Practice Staff

In today’s dental practices, it’s imperative to surround yourself with strong team members. They will be the difference between becoming successful or not. This is why building a strong team is vital in helping your practice meet its full potential. But often, team members aren’t meeting your expectations. Instead of helping your practice flourish, they are holding your practice back. But how do you turn team member(s) into thriving ones who excel in their roles? Here are 5 ways to improve your dental practice staff.

Lead Through Guidance: Someone needs to take the lead. Don’t sit back and expect the office manager or lead assistant to set the expectations for your practice. Every employee needs guidance and direction in order to become successful. Create and present job descriptions outlining clear expectations for each position within your practice. Set aside time each month to have a one-on-one with each employee and offer positive and negative feedback outlining missed opportunities and how to improve.
Take Your Time When Hiring: When the time comes to add a new position or replace an employee, think about what you are looking for within this position and take your time filling it. Most practices take the first qualified person who applies, not thinking how this new hire will affect the existing team members dynamic, or if this hire can be groomed into a future position. Developing and implementing hiring procedures will pay off in the long run. Ask potential candidates to be interviewed by another team members. This will assist in the selection process and open up communication within your team.
Invest in Your Team: The importance of investing in your team can’t be stressed enough. It’s important to invest time in training new, as well as, existing team members when implementing new policies and technology. Proper training will help your team members become more efficient in their roles, and make them more confident in their skills. Happy employees make businesses thrive.
Raises Need to be Earned: Don’t give out raises just because it’s the right thing to do, as this sends a wrong message to your team. Team members need to earn raises, not just receive them because it’s expected. During the review process, set measurable goals and expectations to better determine if a raise should be earned through performance. Set clear expectations so all team members know exactly what it takes to earn a raise. Setting these expectations will motivate team members to excel in their roles.
Call it Like it is: Sometimes great ideas on paper don’t actually work out. When this happens, admit it and ask for input from each team member on what did and didn’t work. Once a mistake has been identified, and a new procedure is in place, the team members can get back on track to becoming a great dental practice staff.

Making the right choices with your dental practice staff isn’t easy. You need a strong team behind you to help you reach your practice’s goals and objectives. Follow these tips and soon your team members will be happier and more efficient as they work towards a common goal.

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4 Ways to Improve the Patient Experience at Your Dental Practice

Don’t take this personally, but most patients don’t enjoy going to the dentist. Many patients have bad childhood memories, know that they could potentially experience pain, and that the visit could be expensive. The goal is to have every patient walk out of your office with a smile on his or her face wanting to spread the news about how great his or her dentist is. So how do you do this knowing the odds are stacked against you? Here are four ways to improve the patient experience at your practice and ensure you will continue to grow your patient base.

Impress Them as Soon as they Walk in the Door: First impressions are everything! Make sure the person sitting at the front desk gives the patients a warm smile and a sincere welcome to your practice. The front desk person should focus on the details by using the patient’s name. This gesture may seem simple, but it is actually a big deal. Studies show by using someone’s name in a sentence, you validate their worth and let them know that you care about them. Engage in a conversation with them and take notes for future visits and conversations. Ask them about their family to show that the pracitce care. This will help ease anxiety and, ultimately, improve the patient experience.
Introduce Everyone: Make sure the office manager, dental hygienist, dental assistant, doctor, and anyone else who will be working with the patient introduces themselves to the patients. Again, using the patient’s name will make him or her feel like they are seeing friends, and new patients will notice and sense a warm atmosphere.
Body Language: Pay attention to your body language when interacting with your patients. Crossed arms, indirect eye contact and turned away shoulders while they are in the treatment chair are all signs that you don’t care about engaging with them. However, direct eye contact and speaking to them directly will show your patients that you care about engaging with them.
Practice the K.I.S.S. Method: Remember, different people process information differently. When speaking to your patients, speak clearly when explaining procedures to them, allowing them to process the information. Sometimes it’s helpful to leave the room for a few minutes. This will give them time to process the information and to think of any questions or concerns they might have. Overcomplicating the explanation by rambling on and on will only cause more anxiety.

Every practice can benefit from taking a few minutes to look at their patients’ own experience. Whether you have a little or a lot to work on, it’s worth taking the time to improve the patient experience. A little effort to improving your patient satisfaction could be the key to growing and improving your practice.

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5 Ways to Reduce Cancellations and No-Shows at Your Dental Practice

Let’s face it, every dental practice will have appointment cancellations and no-shows. But how you and your staff plan to reduce cancellations and no-shows can be the difference between a good profit year and a GREAT profit year. Even in strong economic times, appointment cancellations and no-shows will happen.

If not addressed properly, cancellations and no-shows can add up to big revenue losses, estimates pointing to an average of $40,000 to $60,000 per year. And that doesn’t reflect the dollars lost in production when the dentist never has the opportunity to diagnose and perform. Here are 5 ways to help reduce cancellations and no-shows at your dental practice.

Educate your Patients: Often patients have no idea the havoc their cancellations or no-shows cause on the entire dental office. In fact, it has been estimated that a little more than 25% of patients routinely cancel appointments. This is a result of dental practices not educating them on what their cancellations or no-shows do to the overall dental practice flow. But be patient with your patients, because they do not intentionally what to disrupt your day. They have very busy lives and when something needs to give, the dental appointment is usually first thing to cancel. However, take control by educating them on the impact their cancellation or no show has on the schedule, and pointing out the office cancellation policy to help reduce cancellations.
Make It Personal: Confirmation calls are a must for every scheduled appointment. But don’t rely solely on the phone, as times are changing and today we have more than one way to communicate with patients. Ask your patient how they would like to be reminded of their next appointment, by phone, email, or text. In fact, studies show most people like to be reminded of upcoming appointments by text or e-mail. Additionally, your office is more likely to get a prompt response from patients if you communicate via text or e-mail. Patients should be notified 48 hours in advance of their appointments. If your patients prefer to be contacted via phone, adjust the schedule of the employee assigned to making phone calls to help accommodate when your patients want to be called. If you are going to make the effort to make the call, make it as effective as possible. Try to speak directly with the patient, don’t just leave a message, because this is not effective and will increase your cancellation or no-show rate.
Fill No-Shows Fast: A computerized scheduling software system is essential if a practice wants to fill cancellations quickly and efficiently, as well as completely manage the entire office scheduling. These software packages offer practices the ability to maintain lists of patients interested in coming in sooner for their appointments. When a cancellation occurs, the software package retains the appointment information. It then scans for available patient information to try and fill the open appointment.
Follow-Up with No-Shows: No-shows are the worst. Make it a standard operating procedure to follow-up with no-shows by calling every patient who cancels, doesn’t show up or doesn’t reschedule. Contact no-shows within 10 minutes of their missed appointment and express genuine concern for their missed appointment.
Don’t Point Fingers: When a cancellation or no-show occurs, dental offices typically point the finger at the front desk employee for not maintaining a full working schedule. But in order to minimize cancellations and no-shows, every employee needs to be urging patients to keep their appointments. Actually, curbing cancellations and no-shows begins at chairside. Once the dental appointment is completed, it’s the clinician’s responsibility to schedule the follow-up appointment. It is essential that the clinician emphasize the value of regular dental visit. Explain to your patients the importance of keeping their appointments.

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5 Ways to Make Your Dental Practice Profitable

Dentistry is a very tough and competitive business to excel in, as the average dentist in the past 5 years has had difficulty being profitable. You’re probably wondering how you can make your dental practice profitable with so many challenges! Insurance reimbursement is falling and overhead is rising. This means that even the most astute dentists find themselves scratching their heads over the topic of profitability. Many practices today think spending more time increasing rates and lowering payroll will be the answer to profitability. However, if all your focus is on increasing rates and lowering payroll, then there is a good chance you will lose patients without ever increasing profitability.

Here are 5 ways to make your dental practice profitable:

Morning Team Huddle: Morning team huddles are very effective and the least expensive way to increase your practice profitability. Treating your practice like a business by conducting a morning huddle will set the tone and pace for the entire team throughout the day. Start out by reviewing yesterday’s activities, what went right, and what can be learned and improved upon. Then review the days schedule, how many bookings are there, are the goals being hit, if there is any room for improvement, and what is happening tomorrow. Team members always work best when they know what the goals are. Morning huddle meetings should focus on brief overviews of the past, present and future goals. Save the long term overarching discussions for weekly team meetings.
Increase Efficiency: This is a no-brainer but it needs to be said. The more dentistry you do per hour, the greater the revenue per hour. Increasing efficiency can be done a few different ways. One inexpensive way is to have lunch appointments available for your patients and have adequate staffing to accommodate these appointments. Other ways include adding another hygiene room, adding more staff or even adding another dentist. You can also increase efficiency by adding capacity. Examples of this can include shortening room set up time, faster turnaround time during sterilizations, and streamlining patient wait time. The longer the patient waits in the waiting room, the less opportunity you have to make your dental practice profitable.
Additional High Profit Procedures: Adding higher profit procedures, such as porcelain veneers, implants, endodontics and bridge work, will lead to a higher profit margin for your practuce. But remember to be cautious in deciding what procedures to add. Just because it’s a high price procedure does not mean it will transplate to high profit margin. Do your homework and make a solid business decision on which procedures are right for your practice and patients and which procedures aren’t.
Increase Your Patience Base: You can increase the number of new patients by doing more internal and external marketing. But it’s important to focus on marketing that is relevant to your practice. Most dentists want to increase the number of new patients when revenue is trending downward, but before you go out on a new patient crusade, it’s important to make sure your practice can handle an influx of new patients. Also, if you add new procedures to your practice before increasing the number of new patients, you can increase the amount of revenue being generated per new patient.
Refer Family or Friends: This is a fun way to get your staff and patients involved in your practice. A “Enter-to-Win” drawing is a great way to gain new patients. Let the staff pick the “give-a-way” and display that prize in the waiting room for all to see. Keep the prize fresh and exciting by changing them often. When the prize becomes stale, the staff and patients will lose enthusiasm and the referrals will suffer.

We hope that this gave you some great idea to help make your dental practice profitable!

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8 Tips to Make Your Dental Practice More Profitable

Let’s be honest, no one really likes going to the dentist. Why would they? The appointment always comes at the wrong time, it’s an unfamiliar environment that potentially can cause pain, and potentially your insurance company (if there is any) doesn’t cover all the costs. Part of being a successful business owner is recognizing obstacles by appealing to all your patients. Here are 8 tips to make your dental practice more profitable:

Be the Best at What You Do: Being known for a specialty can have many benefits. First, your profitability will increase when you identify your practice to a niche audience who are looking for a special service. specialty doesn’t have to always be a trained skill set. A specialty can be “The No Pain Doctor” or “The Happy Doctor”. With a little bit of creativity, everyone can have a specialty. Second, don’t be shy about your specialty and TELL EVERYONE about it. Make sure all your marketing materials highlight your specialty, as this will attract new patients by “word of mouth” advertising.
Be Organized and On Time: No one likes to wait, especially in a dentist office. In today’s society, everyone is busy, so respecting your patients’ schedules will go a long way. If your appointments start stacking up, then a simple courtesy phone call or text alerting your patients of a delay will display your office professionalism and your respect towards their schedules. Make sure your appointment time frame is realistic and your team is preforming within the allot timeframe. A typical hygienist appointment should run no longer than an hour, so scheduling appointments for the amount on staff and staggering appointments will ensure a smooth workflow and no empty chairs. This will help maximize your patient load and increase your revenue.
First Impressions are Lasting: A warm, welcoming smile and a courteous front-desk personal will alleviate any concerns patients might have about their visit. Make sure the front desk personnel are well trained on how to handle appointment scheduling and phone calls. They need to be empathic towards all situations that occur in the waiting room and with your patients.
Maximize Your Team: Let’s face it, employees are an expense but you can’t do it without them. The hygienists are the ones who spend the most time with the patients, and they know the working of the practice and set the tone when dealing with the patients. Happy employees will go above and beyond the call of duty by ensuring the demands of the patients are met.
Don’t Let Them Get Away: Pre-scheduling appointments is good business practice. Having the front-desk personnel pre-schedule future appointments fills the books and overcomes the challenge of forgetting to schedule the next appointment.
May the Enforcer Be With You: When cancellations occur (and you know they will) you lose money; it’s that simple. Making sure your appointment books stay full is a tricky job at best. Make sure your front desk personnel knows your policies on cancellations and they are enforced. Additionally, posting your cancellation policies in conspicuous places around your offices will alleviate any miscommunication between you and your patients.
Make it Fun with your “Refer A Friend” Program: Every practice should have a referral program in place. Word of mouth advertising is the most powerful form of advertising and the highest compliment your patients can give you. But don’t let the referral program get stale by just posting a sign at the front desk. Ask your patients what they would like as a referral program. By keeping this program fresh and fun, more patients will be engaged in the program to refer their friends and families. As a result, more chairs will be filled and your paractice will be more profitable.
Top of Mind Awareness: Top of mind awareness is a very powerful marketing concept. Ever notice that most restaurants love to provide doggie bags to all customers, and some even have their logo printed on the bag. This is a brilliant marketing concept that restaurants figured out a long time ago. They want their customers to think of them when they eat those leftovers from the doggie bag. Do the same in your practice and send your patients out the door with a little “goodie” bag. Your patients will think of you when they use their new toothbrush and toothpaste. Also, don’t forget to put a refrigerator magnet with your practice phone number and address in the bag. This is a great top-of-mind awareness trick that will ensure your patients return.