Today, I’m putting the homework on you.
First, I want each team member to take a turn sharing three things:
1. What I can do to better manage my own time to be more effective in my role and as a team member is…
2. Where I feel we have some inefficiencies in general in our practice (scheduling, patient flow, team member responsibilities, etc.) are…
3. If we were going to save some patient, doctor, assistant time in our schedule to create more opportunity for production and/or creation of treatment, I think we should consider…
These are three powerful and provocative questions that each team member should have a unique opinion on.
Most of the time, we just keep going and going, running so fast and hard we never stop and ask “how can we do this smarter, better, faster, more effectively, efficiently, etc.?”
And that question is important. You ask yourself at least once a year – probably every quarter if you are really cranking.
The point is, we are in a business of minutes. The most valuable of which are the doctors diagnosing and doing dentistry… however in order for those things to happen there has to be time control and productive management over all the parts by all other team members.
Do not get stuck just looking at or thinking about the Doctor’s time. Because it is the effective use of everyone else’s time that will make it more productive as well.
Talk through these and look for breakthroughs.
Second, I will make a big broad statement here… There are three places to play defense on your schedule. You know them all. However, we can easily see how well you are doing at them by looking at the reality of your results.
1. Play defense on when and how you schedule patients (for your optimal success not theirs). If you do a good job on everything else, they will come in when you want them to. It is a big waste of time, space and resources if you schedule outside of your desired and optimal flow.
2. Play defense by closing treatment in-full for a treatment plan (without breaking down the treatment into steps) and then organize that treatment into the schedule in as large of chunks as possible. You obviously want as few appointments worth as much as possible.
This has to be controlled. Most still default to old ways or to insurance steps or to any other scheduling that is piecemealed and not big picture. Pay close attention to your average visit value if you want to see how well you are doing.
3. (and this loops us back to your original questions that you are each working on) Where is the doctor or anyone underutilized? Where can you shave off minutes or increase dollars or remove steps or procedures or reduce post op time and so on and so forth…
Some people are still blocking emergency time slots in the doctor’s schedule. Very elementary school there and a giant waste of time. An emergency is not production. It can turn into it, but you shouldn’t be reliant on it to hit your daily goal; that ought to have been prescheduled. Additionally, the doctor is there to produce all day long, not visit with people that ‘might’ have treatment. Triage these through your clinical team and then make game time decisions. Don’t squander minutes by blocking the schedule at the consequence of losing money and productive opportunity.
Defense is about protecting the schedule and your time. You want to always be at the highest and best use of it.
