As we roll full steam ahead into the new year there is nothing smarter than revisiting the basics and the fundamentals of success.
I’m often asked to talk about the commonalities of successful practices. While there are more variables than there are constants (which is why I do not believe in cookie cutter one size fits all approaches in dentistry or business or any other part of life), there are of course proven principles that must exist in every practice as a foundational base in order to build your practice upon.
Still, even these do vary depending on the vision you have for your practice, your clinical philosophy and especially your definition of success.
We put a lot of time into vision, clarity, purpose and reverse engineering last month. For the smart and ambitious doctors I have been doing my 2019 Personalized Practice Success Blueprints for a couple weeks now and have just a few more opportunities available this month; if you want to start your new year off right…
Get Your Personalized 2019 Practice Success Blueprint Plan
So, we move on to core areas in your practice that must be optimized, performing consistently and of course set up to get you the results you want. Each of these areas, which we’ll cover over the next several weeks, deserves careful assessment, thought, focus and commitment. The purpose is to refine, improve and adjust their execution; that is, if you want profitable growth to come at all, let alone without stress, frustration, pain and more work.
Today, we’ll begin with the most obvious (and yet commonly overlooked and undervalued), a systematic machine that makes your practice work – or not…
Your Schedule
When I first sit down with a Doctor, I ask them to tell me about your “schedule strategy” and any purposes or protocols that are built in.
Sometimes there are concepts or templates in a schedule to say what goes where and when and for how long. Sometimes there is a daily goal that is the least acceptable minimum number to achieve for production that day. Very seldom is there any actual, real, legitimate planning (and following) of a SCHEDULE STRATEGY to achieve said goals.
In the very best case, the schedule (in a successful practice) is built to achieve production goals – NOT diagnostic creation goals; NOT case acceptance and collection goals; NOT how today’s patient flow is going to lead to an even better, more productive, seamless and valuable Schedule in the future.
I always remind our great Team Members and Practices that you are working through the schedule of TODAY and doing the dentistry and producing for TODAY but at the same time you are really living, building, creating, organizing the schedule of THE FUTURE. In order for it to be what it needs to be THEN you have to be focused on, thinking about it and have a STRATEGY for it NOW.
All too often the practice goals are at the mercy of the schedule instead of the schedule being and serving as a catalyst to achieve the practice goals.
It can be your greatest tool, resources and asset or your biggest hindrance, obstacle and stressor. The cause and effect of the schedule is one of those times where it serves both purposes. It is two sides to the same coin.
In today’s Weekly Report I ask you…
What is your schedule strategy?
How does this approach ensure you achieve your goals?
How forward-focused is your schedule?
How do you monitor and adjust the implementation?
Of course, for our Blueprint Practice Transformation Clients, they have my proprietary Value Based Schedule Platform. It is flexible and dynamic which allows it to facilitate growth and profitability on a daily, patient by patient basis. That’s reversed for private training.
However, I will share with you the core reason and purpose that you must have a STRATEGY for your schedule.
It’s not just about hitting the goals. Though that’s part of it.
It’s not just about protecting the doctor. Though that’s part of it.
It’s not just about maximizing and fully utilizing your clinical team.
It’s not just about creating a great patient experience.
It is all of those things. However, above all else, the entire point and purpose of having a schedule strategy is to ensure that you move ABOVE and BEYOND transactional dentistry: one tooth, one procedure, one visit, even one patient at a time.
Instead, you evolve into an organization built on consistency so that every engagement with your patients is about continuing to nurture your relationship with them; build their trust and compliance with you; deliver the education and awareness about the significance of, not just dentistry but, you dentistry; and establish their feelings of satisfaction and peace of mind of belonging to your Practice, not just being a patient.
This is big. It’s a dramatic shift. It’s what leads to the cultivation of more comprehensive case acceptance and growth in quality A patients through referrals.
Your schedule must be engineered deliberately to create and be conducive to building better patients.
That takes time. But that’s what successful practices know how to do – make the most of the minutes in their days: not just for the doctor, for every single team member; not just for the team, for every single patient experience.
That’s why your schedule matters so much.
For the most successful practices one of the greatest commonality is the mastery of “The Schedule” and the first step to that is to realize that there is far more than meets the eye. The depth, scope and impact the schedule has on your practice must not be taken for granted or undervalued.
We’ll get into specific “strategy” and a few ways to manipulate time and patient flow in your favor next week.
For now, on this first week of the new year, realize there are only 51 more weeks. What you will have to show for your practice results and accomplishments will boil down into what you did with all those minutes each and every week with each and every patient.
