Spread Some Holiday Cheer

 I know there has been some debate lately about when the appropriate time is to decorate your home and office for the holidays. Many people have already decorated, while others prefer to wait until after Thanksgiving. I’m somewhere in the middle. I’m excited to decorate but am restraining myself until after Thanksgiving. I love the holidays! There’s always such a warm and magical feeling in the air.

No matter when you decorate, now is a great time to think about spreading some holiday cheer to your team and your patients.

Donations

The holidays are a wonderful time to collect donations to help less fortunate people. I know of several offices that are requesting Thanksgiving donations from their team members and patients to share with their local food bank. The spirit of giving makes the holiday season so special. 2021 has been a difficult year for many people. Small acts of kindness can make such a difference in their world. 

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks. It would be a nice gesture to send out a thank you card to your patients for their support over the last year. This could be done very easily and inexpensively by sending a newsletter via email using Patient Engage. Simply let your patients know that your office is thankful for them and you wish them a happy holiday season. This may also be an appropriate way to let them know your office schedule for Thanksgiving week, because many eating-related tooth problems happen this time of year! 

You can give thanks to your team for their hard work over the last year. Some offices may plan to have a meal together. If finances or schedules don’t allow for that, you could write a heartfelt thank you in a card, and it would be greatly appreciated by your team. 

Sharing

The holidays are a great time to increase your social media presence because there are so many things to post about! I once heard that a dental office should post on social media daily to be most relevant. The more visible your office is, the more patients you’ll attract. During the holiday season, there are so many possibilities for posting. Post pictures of your team dressed up in holiday hats. Or post pictures of your office after you’ve decorated. 

Spread the Cheer

A good marketing tool is to run holiday specials for products. For example, you could sell electric toothbrushes or gift certificates for teeth whitening. These make excellent holiday gifts and increase your office revenue. Be sure to create a procedure code in Dentrix for the product, if you don’t already have one, so that you can track the production generated by the holiday special to see if it will be beneficial to do again next year. 

These are just a few ideas of things you can do to incorporate the holiday season into your dental practice. I love the magical feeling that this time of year brings. The holiday season is the perfect time to reflect on all that we are thankful for both at our dental offices and at home. I’m thankful for my readers and appreciate you taking the time to read my weekly blog. I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving! You can always email me with your practice management and Dentrix questions at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com. 

Charlotte Skaggs, Certified Dentrix Trainer

Charlotte Skaggs is the founder of Vector Dental Consulting LLC, a practice management firm focused on taking offices to the next level. Charlotte co-owned and managed a successful dental practice with her husband for 17 years. She has a unique approach to consulting based on the perspective of a practice owner. Charlotte has been using Dentrix for almost 20 years and is a certified Dentrix trainer. Contact Charlotte at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.  

A Wealth of Information Available in the Practice Advisor Report

One of my favorite reports in Dentrix is the Practice Advisor Report. It contains so much valuable information about your dental practice including production, collections, scheduling, case acceptance, and more. I suggest that you run this report on a monthly basis to review your practice statistics for the previous month, the current month-to-date, and the year-to-date. 

The Practice Advisor Report can also be a great tool for your practice consultant. If you don’t have a practice consultant, this report can serve as a practice consultant because it contains advice on how to improve areas of your practice that might be falling short of the recommended benchmarks. 

The Practice Advisor Report includes a range of benchmark recommended statistics. The recommendations vary based on the size of the practice and number of active patients. These recommendations are such a great guide to see if your practice is on track and how it compares to other practices.

Here are some of my favorite parts of the Practice Advisor Report:

Production

Production is broken down by provider type, dentist, and hygienist. You also have the option to view production based on an individual provider. This allows you to see which providers are excelling and which may need to improve. 

Case Acceptance

You can also track treatment case acceptance in the Practice Advisor Report. Based on your diagnosed and accepted treatment plans, you can see if those cases are being accepted by patients. Do you need to spend more time educating patients on their recommended treatment? Or if treatment isn’t being accepted due to financial obstacles, do you need to provide more financing options, like CareCredit?

Scheduling

You can view unfilled hours, which allows you to gauge the performance of your scheduling team. Are they filling holes in the schedule? Are they using tools like the ASAP List to fill last minute cancellations? The Practice Advisor Report also provides a value for those unfilled hours, which will show you lost revenue for unscheduled time.

Continuing Care

Continuing Care statistics lets you see the percentage of recall patients seen that have been appointed for their next visit. This allows you to see if the hygienist or hygiene coordinator is successfully able to pre-schedule appointments, which would save time working recall six months down the road. 

Collections

You can track your collections efforts including collections compared to production, account aging, and percentage of over-the-counter collections. This allows you to determine if patient estimates are being calculated accurately and if your administrative team is collecting at the time service.

Referrals

There’s a referral analysis, which breaks new patient numbers down based on referral source type, by patient, by doctor, or by marketing source. This allows you to easily track how new patients are being referred and if your marketing budget is being well spent. 

The footnotes at the end of the Practice Advisor Report are also very helpful. They give you insight on ways to improve areas where your office may not be within the recommended benchmark range.

The Practice Advisor Report can be a very powerful tool to show you the areas in your practice that are doing well, and other areas that may need improvement. You can use it as an objective source to show your staff where your practice should be based on industry standards and recommendations. Whether you work with a Dentrix Coach, a practice consultant, or you use the Practice Advisor Report and footnote recommendation within your practice, it can be a very beneficial tool for your office. 

For additional information, read the following:

• Understanding Unfilled Hours on the Practice Advisor Report
• Ideas for Increasing Your Case Acceptance Numbers
• Measuring Your Practice's Financial Health

If you have questions about the Practice Advisor Report, email me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com. 

Charlotte Skaggs, Certified Dentrix Trainer

Charlotte Skaggs is the founder of Vector Dental Consulting LLC, a practice management firm focused on taking offices to the next level. Charlotte co-owned and managed a successful dental practice with her husband for 17 years. She has a unique approach to consulting based on the perspective of a practice owner. Charlotte has been using Dentrix for almost 20 years and is a certified Dentrix trainer. Contact Charlotte at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.  

Make the Most Out of Your Daily Huddle

How do you start your day in your dental practice? In my opinion, the best way to start every day is with a morning huddle. Many misunderstandings and missed production opportunities can be avoided by taking ten to fifteen minutes in the morning to discuss that day’s patients. 

Here are some things that are important to cover during the daily huddle to start your day off for success. 

Outstanding Balances

It’s important to be aware if any patients or their family members have an outstanding balance. It’s an opportune time to collect that balance while they’re in the office. If it’s a large balance, it may be a good idea to take them into a private area to answer any questions and discuss payment options. If they commit to a payment agreement, you can enter the payment agreement into the Dentrix Ledger and have them sign the authorization for your office to process payments. With the entire office being aware of outstanding balances during the daily huddle, the team can work together to make sure the financial coordinator has an opportunity to speak to the patient. 

Health History

The daily huddle is also a great time to discuss any important patient health conditions with both the clinical and administrative teams. For example, you could discuss which patients have to pre-medicate, and the administrative team can confirm that the patient did pre-medicate upon their arrival at the office. Or, if a patient has an extensive health history, you could bring it to the doctor’s attention to review before seeing the patient. Make sure to record any updated information in the Health History module in Dentrix.

Office Goals

You can discuss office goals during the daily huddle, including both production and collection goals. You can go over what was completed yesterday, what is scheduled for today, and where the office currently stands in relation to your monthly goals. If there is an opportunity to increase the day’s production with patients that have outstanding treatment, you discuss how to work those patients into the schedule. 

Patient Reviews

Bring patient reviews to the daily huddle. Telling the team about positive patient reviews can boost morale and start the day off on the right foot. 

Daily huddles are an important way to communicate about the upcoming day. By discussing the patients scheduled, you can avoid misunderstandings and missed opportunities to increase production. You can use the Daily Huddle Report in Dentrix to easily find most of the information I mentioned. You could have a team member print a copy to discuss during the morning meeting. The Daily Huddle Report is customizable so you can choose the information that you want to include to communicate to your team. 

If you have questions about the Daily Huddle Report, email me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com. 

Charlotte Skaggs, Certified Dentrix Trainer

Charlotte Skaggs is the founder of Vector Dental Consulting LLC, a practice management firm focused on taking offices to the next level. Charlotte co-owned and managed a successful dental practice with her husband for 17 years. She has a unique approach to consulting based on the perspective of a practice owner. Charlotte has been using Dentrix for almost 20 years and is a certified Dentrix trainer. Contact Charlotte at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.