Imagine this…
Heavy rains bring a once-in-100-year flood into your city and through several bad coincidences the water pressure around your practice ends up crushing your doors in and flooding your basement. A basement that contains all of your important things, say like your server, every patient record and all of the practice information that you’ve accumulated in your lifetime, of say 40+ years. Everything is destroyed.
The insurance doesn’t cover floods because insurance is meant to take advantage of every bad situation in which you would actually need it.
And the restoration company says it is going to be at least 6-8 weeks or more to be even close to up and running again.
A nightmare, right?
I mean it could be worse; it could have flooded the entire building, all of your dental technology, computer systems, ruined your chairs and ops. So at least there is a bright side.
Well, this isn’t a nightmare, this is the reality for one of our most successful practices just a couple months ago and without question I’m not doing the devastation justice.
The Doctor, just for a fleeting moment, thought maybe this is a sign and time to just walk away; but that moment was ever-so fleeting, because he remembered his 20+ team members, his thousands and thousands of active patients and he remembered his vision and mission.
So the next day, when the waters receded, he showed up to see the damage and what to do next. You know who else showed up… every one of his team members. Without being asked and without any expectations.
Before the insurance, before the restoration crew, before any other person, the team was back at work the very next day – cleaning up – doing things they never thought they would do in their lifetime.
And in two weeks, they beat all odds and were seeing patients again.
Fast forward to today, they have to start over with every patient… no treatment plans exist, no photos, no records of any kind.
EVERY patient is a new patient (to the tune of 60+ a day).
Imagine that. They are forced to do the three things that I preach to every person every single day…
1. Treat every patient like a new patient
2. See their mouth with fresh eyes
3. Show the patient the big picture of what dentistry can do for them
They were hitting records before the flood already. At one point, they had closed more than $200,000 of treatment in a 4 day period. Before the flood, when all systems were firing, they were on pace for a record year.
The question is what would happen post flood. Would that momentum return, would the team come together and persevere?
You better believe they absolutely did and are.
They are hitting giant numbers and having a lot of fun. Their patients are supporting them and they are saying “Yes” to new diagnosis that is the result of being more thorough and complete with existing patients, so they can rediscover all of the treatment that is available to take them to optimal health.
I’m so proud of them.
When I asked all of them about the greatest lesson they learned through all of this, they unequivocally said two things… One: how valued they felt by their father and son owners and how they had no choice but to look on the bright side. They chose not dwell or be negative because out of all the people who had a choice to be upset, disheartened, set-back he (the owner doctor) was the most resilient and that trickled down.
Two: the other thing they said is they have never felt closer together as a team and were grateful to have a chance to bond in this way. They have a new appreciation for each person and their commitment to their career, each other and the practice.
I don’t wish any crisis on you for your team to come together like this; but I wish that you would work harder and bring your team together in order to make the most out of every day. You need to build a culture and the expectation of performance without needing anything like this to give you a wake up call. Make sure everyone knows how grateful you should all be to have each other, to be in your practice and be doing what you do.
Dentistry, an amazing way to invest your life as a vehicle for all you want. Just never forget that a vehicle taking you where you want to go, has to be cared for not just driven. Appreciate the people around you, the leader providing you the opportunity and of course yourself.
