Levin Group, Inc.

Remember the Essentials… If you want to get serious about practice growth, then it’s important to start with the essentials. For dental practices it is essential to have excellent systems in place. Your clinical systems must be excellent of course, but that is not enough. If you don’t have enough patients and you don’t have the right business systems in place, the clinical systems will remain woefully underutilized. Comprehensive systems with checklists and scripting to support your marketing and operations are essential. Does your team have the right systems to attract patients and run the practice? Businesses are about constant refinement, and dental practices are no different. Just as you upgrade your clinical procedures regularly you need to upgrade and rebalance your management or marketing systems also. For more practice management resources visit us at levingroup.com.

One of the main reasons that schedules have open time is no-shows and last-minute cancellations. No-shows will cost you millions of dollars in lost revenue over the course of your career – literally $3,000,000–$6,000,000. Unfilled chair time can never be recovered. And a last-minute cancellation is the same as a no-show. If you can’t fill it in, you’ll still lose chair time that can never be recovered. Set a target of no-shows being less than 2% and work to achieve it.

Know Your Codes! If you want to increase practice production, make sure you are using insurance codes properly. We meet practice after practice that is still submitting either outdated codes or incorrect codes for procedures, frequently for lower reimbursements. Keeping the team up to date with insurance coding is a critical element in increasing production, especially when insurance companies are lowering reimbursements. Insurance coding is not a game. It is a critical part of a responsible practice.

Capturing new patients Your new patient system is one of the most powerful to increase practice production. It should have three parts: ?1.?Scheduling the new patient ?2.?Having the new patient show up for the appointment ?3.?Having the new patient accept recommended treatment Each of these parts must be analyzed, broken up into steps, given the appropriate scripts and measured for results. For example, do you know how many of your new patient callers actually end up scheduling an appointment? And of those, how many show up? In many practices up to 15% - 20% of new patients that call of practice never make an appointment. This means that in some practices one out of every five new patient callers never schedules, depriving the practice of the opportunity to capture them as a new patient. It is ESSENTIAL to know your numbers when it comes to new patients. Once you do, you will know exactly where you can improve performance and increase practice product.

The best consulting idea? Know your numbers. While presenting a seminar recently, I was asked for my best thought on how to understand your practice. My answer, as always - know your numbers. Having real data, numbers, targets, measurements – all the same thing – allows you to truly understand what is happening in your practice. It is not the most dentists don't understand this, they simply don’t take the time, and that is a classic mistake. After 39 years as the CEO of dental consulting company, if I have learned one thing, it is that dentists need to understand their numbers. They will tell you exactly what needs to be improved and exactly where you stand at the moment. Ask any consultant at Levin Group and they will tell you that the first thing you must work with are the numbers. Production, collection, overhead, staff compensation as a percentage of revenue, etc.. Once you start to understand your numbers you can take all the necessary steps to create an incredible practice and move in the right direction.

The attitude of the leader defines the attitude of the team. You may be familiar with an old joke about how a members of a dental team will eventually start to physically look like the doctor. Well, this is just a joke. What is not a joke is that the team will definitely start to behave like the doctor. If the doctors are positive, the team will be positive. If the doctors are negative, the team will be negative. If the doctors talk about patients behind their back or make fun of patients, the team will do the same. If you want a team with an outstanding attitude, then the doctors have to lead with an outstanding attitude. Every day when you come to the office do the following three things. First, give everyone a nice greeting and smile. Second, compliment team members throughout the day on a job well done and make sure everyone is included. Third, recognize and appreciate the team in different ways like an occasional surprise lunch, filling the refrigerator with snacks, giving out gifts certificates or other fun simple ideas that say, "You are appreciated."

Compliment every team member every day. Creating a culture of positivity and gratitude is a powerful way to motivate, inspire, and stimulate people. Team members today want to be part of a vibrant and energetic practice, where they feel appreciated. It's your job so show them how important they are to you and the practice.