After working with dental practices for more than 25 years, I’m certain that the most successful practices have structure and a culture where every team member feels part of the team and every role is clearly defined. 

The most common issues we see in practices today are missed opportunities over the phone, broken appointments, and the lack of effective systems. All of these create unnecessary stress for the practice owner. 

Every day prospective patients are calling practices and if the call is not handled correctly, marketing dollars are wasted, and existing patients change dentists.

Do the following to schedule more new patients:

• Have a live person answering the phone during office hours.
• Make sure the person answering the phone is promoting the practice.
• Block off time on the schedule for new patients so you can get them in fast.
• Get the name and phone number of every caller at the beginning of the call so you can follow up.
• Ask how they heard about the practice.
• Listen to what the caller is inquiring about and acknowledge them.
• Avoid slang and informal language.
• Don’t get technical and go into detail about the procedure over the phone.
• If a patient seems apprehensive or a fear case, consider having the doctor call them back.

Keeping patients on the schedule can be a problem for some practices. Broken appointments by patients that pre-scheduled their hygiene appointment six months earlier are out of control. They disrupt the schedule and cost the practice thousands of dollars in lost time and missed opportunities each month. Many of these patients that cancel are repeat offenders with a half dozen or more previous broken appointments. Start paying closer attention to the broken appointment history at the time of scheduling. It may require putting them on a Call List or different verbal skills at the time of scheduling. Flag the repeat offenders and put them on recall and call them when they are due versus saving valuable time for patients that will end up canceling last minute. Many teams tell me they can look at the schedule and know which patients are going to cancel. That is the problem right there. Assign someone to oversee the schedule, making sure it is productive, and patients are confirmed and actually show up. Relying 100% on texts and emails is not always the best solution for confirming all patients. Be aware of patients that owe the practice money, they are more likely to cancel. 

So many doctors feel the need to micromanage their team. They want to know what their team is doing and if certain things are being done at all. It is important to know, and it works well for the doctor and team when accountability is built into the systems. Practices that want to get organized, have less stress, consistent actions by their team and more predictability in the schedule, need the following:

• Clearly Defined Roles
• Job Descriptions
• Checklists for accountability and consistency [less micromanaging]
• Systems written like recipes, so they are easily followed.
• Effective Phone Skills in writing
• Someone appointed to be in charge of the schedule.
• Internal Marketing, focusing on the People Part of Practice” to improve patient retention and gain referrals.
• Ongoing training for every member of the team
• Improved hiring protocols to find and keep the best team.
• KPI’s
• An effective leader

It’s more important now more than ever before to have an organized practice so teams can learn and contribute. This will help retain more team members. They will get along better, and it will be less stressful for the doctor.  If a practice runs like a well-oiled machine, it will certainly enhance patient experience and help the practice retain patients, get more referrals, and become more productive.