Is Your Dental Practice Sick?
FOCUSED, PERIODIC, COMPREHENSIVE… 0140, 0120, 0150. We are all familiar with these oral exams for our dental patients. We use them daily and know how important they are in detecting and correcting problems and disease in the oral cavity.
Have you ever thought about how they can benefit your business, too? Yes, just like your patients, your dental business can develop decay, cancers, and diseases preventing it from running smoothly, efficiently, predicatively, and productively.
Just as an organism has vital signs of overall health and symptoms of illnesses, so does an organization. If one or more areas of your business fall ill, it affects your patients’ experiences in your practice. That all-important experience they use to decide whether you are a “great”, “ok”, or “terrible” dentist. It is not your flawless crown preps, your state-of-the-art implant system, nor your advanced techniques they use to decide if you are the dentist for them. If during their experience with your practice they encounter broken, diseased, or cancerous processes, it blemishes their experience and opinion. They may decide you are not the dentist for them, their family, or their friends.
Can’t think of any decay, cancers, or diseases your practice could possibly develop? Here are a just two examples of many I see regularly.
Basal Team Cancer: Manifesting this cancer is the presence of one team member who makes everybody’s day miserable, day after day after day. She doesn’t follow the systems, she is always sour, and she is all talk and no action. She regularly demoralizes the team, and her sourness spreads through the practice just like a cancer. The result is not only do you and your team have miserable days, but your patients have negative experiences. Think they don’t notice it? They do!
Internal Practice Bleeding: This is a serious condition, which can go undetected for years. One of your employees found a way to siphon off an average of $200.00 a week or $10,000 a year from your collections. Yes, it’s embezzlement that is causing the internal bleeding. It can cause the practice cash flow to weaken, and potentially to go below your breakeven point. You can’t meet payroll! It can be very painful.
A practice exam can often uncover these diseases. For a dental practice, I recommend the following practice exam schedule:
Focused exam every month: There should be an ongoing, internal examination with you and your team at your Monthly Team Meetings and your Annual Practice Retreats.
Comprehensive exam: At least every 10 years there should be a full comprehensive exam done by an outside, unbiased, trained evaluator.
Periodic exam: At the five year point between the comprehensive exams, there should be a periodic exam completed by an outside, unbiased, trained evaluator.
Just like with your patients, this cycle of exams helps detect practice diseases and concerns early reducing their damage. Take the advice you give your patients, and make sure your practice is getting the check-ups needed to keep it as healthy as possible.
