Cure Your Scheduling Headaches
Is your schedule driving you crazy?
Scheduling is one of the most important elements of your practice. It is intimately tied to your profits, stress level, and patient satisfaction, yet I see practice after practice allowing their schedule to reduce their income, create work chaos, and drive patients away.
Is this what is happening in your practice?
Do you ever wonder how your hygiene schedule was full at the Morning Huddle and within an hour, has four openings?!
Are you frustrated when these opening aren’t filled yet your hygiene department is booked solid for six months?
Are you pulling out your hair because you are overbooked, or do you find yourself pacing your office floor because you are under-booked?
How your schedule is designed and filled determines your income, stress level, employee turnover, patient referrals, and the number of Google stars your patients feel you deserve.
In fact, your scheduling processes determine four of the most important contributors to your practice’s growth level. If ignored, it will have devastating effects.
The real cost of not implementing strategic systems
Realistically, you will never consistently maintain a schedule that is 100% free of no-shows, cancellations, roller-coaster income levels, and stress, but that is no excuse for not implementing systems and process to reduce the damage of letting it run a muck.
For instance. say you are an average solo practitioner with two hygienists who last year each had one hour open chair time per day. You worked 48 weeks last year, four days week, and your hygienist was producing about $200.00 per hour. Would you believe, at the end of the year, you lost $76,800!!! WOW, what a chunk that is!
The right systems positively impact the bottom line
Say a new scheduling process (aka, a Strategic Scheduling System) was designed for your practice using best practices, it was trained to your entire team, and properly executed with the results in reducing you open hygiene time by one-half. Hey, your practice just received a $38,400 raise! Assume you and your team follow this Strategic Scheduling System for five years. Now your practice bottom line has increased by a total of $192,000.
A Strategic Scheduling System involves a number of important subsystems addressing common scheduling problems. Generally there are around nine subsystems, depending on the needs of the practice.
Patient Confirmation Subsystem
Late-Patient Subsystem
No-Show Subsystem
Pre-Blocking Subsystem
Scheduling Goal Subsystem
Morning Huddle Subsystem
Same-Day Calls and Appointments Subsystem
Effective Appointment Scheduling Subsystem
Filling Openings in the Schedule Subsystem
Get out of the scheduling nightmare with practical ways that work
There is no doubt your Scheduling System is critical to the success of your practice. I see so many practices (and we did it in our own for a while) allow the schedule to run without many boundaries. If allowed to do this, your schedule will turn around and start running you, your life, and your team in the ground.
Don’t let this happen to your practice. Act now to reign in your practice so you control it and it doesn’t control you!
© Baird Concepts
About Sandy
Sandy Baird, M.B.A., is a dental consultant and speaker with over 35 years of hands-on dental management experience. She is a Trusted Advisor who has worked with hundreds of dental practices, providing practical solutions that positively impact bottom-line results. Contact Sandy today to schedule your complimentary consultation.
