I’ve received great feedback on the concept of consistency and a big long list of the most annoying frustrations that have to be dealt with day to day. Often times these could be completely prevented through more foresight, initiative, and protocols that are designed to be proactive rather than reactive.
We’ll give it another week for any straggling Doctors to send their lists. Then we are going to dive into the cause and effect of the leverage points for taking more systematic control over your practice results.
Certainly, the big issue here is what I alluded to last week; that ideas are not decisions, decisions are not actions, and actions are not committed change. Until they are habits and required integrations, instead of just options or hopes, you won’t sustain results.
This goes for everything from accurate and effective chart notes to ideal hygiene protocols, from visit flow to information gathered over the phone, from verbiage and agreed upon methods of overcoming objections to talking about insurance.
Again, to reemphasize and state it bluntly: a real business doesn’t have things that ‘just happen.’ They have as much structure and clearly defined expectations for every person and every part of the business as they do for the actual product or delivery – in your case the dentistry itself.
It really is the difference from just getting things done (or what I call going through the motions), to deliberately doing the right things in the most effective way to achieve the desired results.
This is often explained by practices as “take care of our patients” or “do quality dentistry” or whatever other vague generalizations that can be expressed.
That’s maybe the WHAT but not the HOW or the WHY. Ultimately, even the “what you do” must be clearly defined with as much qualitative and quantitative factors as possible in order to be in position to determine what needs to be done to make it happen versus just hoping it happens.
How do you take care of patients? What does that mean and in what ways do you bring it to life? Which team member is it assigned so it’s accounted for and controlled so that it actually does happen?
This is what being proactive is all about.
Now, technically everyone should have a definition of success individually and then with the practice as a whole (including your actual patient outcomes).
One example of this is my saying about when the patient experience is over. Here’s when it isn’t over… it isn’t over when they walk out of the practice on their first visit; it isn’t over when they are diagnosed or when treatment is presented.
It will sound like common sense and obvious as soon as I say it…
I say it’s over when the treatment is completed and when they have referred another new patient to you. The patient experience is technically never over but at least this provides an end to one cycle. The relationship should never cease as it’s a continuum.
Still, until that time when their pathway to health has been accomplished and they refer someone (or many people) to you then there is still a patient experience that occurs.
You must be proactive to the end point of completing treatment and garnering referrals instead of reactive by just hoping they come back, they show up, they do something, they tell somebody, etc.
All of these are just wishes unless they have systematic protocols and clear expectations that embed them, not just into the culture, but into the actual business model of your practice.
Another example: the schedule…
How much production is on the schedule for the next 30 days?
How many days next week are at or exceeding the daily goal?
How many of those patients who make up the daily goal have already paid something?
Here’s a big one…
How much pre-existing, unscheduled treatment is in the patients’ mouths that are expected to come in next week or next month?
If we know that number, we know our “future” opportunity at a minimum and that there is treatment available to help patients get healthy. We are able to control and predict the future instead of hope that we have dentistry to do in the weeks that the schedule is not yet full.
Then the obvious example… how many new patients are in the schedule for the next 30 days? That’s even more important for our Specialists who are predominantly in the “new patient business.”
You see, the focus is often on the here and now. Or worse than that the past… what were yesterday’s or last week’s or last month’s production and collection. While it’s fine to know these numbers, there is no controlling what has already happened and nothing that can be done to change them now.
Instead, focus on creating them before they happen by knowing the opportunity numbers of the future and that is the ultimate proactivity to ensure success.
To add one more note: there are the equivalent of these examples for every single team member and doctor. Whether that’s looking ahead at the schedule and going to work on the days that have not yet happened to very thorough and detailed chart reviews to planning time in visits for the creation activities in the first place.
So, you see where I have taken you, from last week talking about just preventing problems before they happen by being proactive to actually being responsible for the actions that will create the results and goals you want. This is what I call going beyond problems to possibilities. You do the same thing with your patients clinically.
The switch we are making is so powerful. Once it happens and you add not just the commitment but the discipline of consistency, you will experience incredible momentum that will compound and elevate you to levels of success that you quite possibly do not even believe you are capable of right now.
The best news is that you can end up in a position to intentionally create the results you want by changing or improving these key leverage points of success both from the clinical and business aspects of your practice.
It’s where we are going next week as I move you through the cause and effect mechanisms to dental success and put you in control of your own future!
