A simple exercise of FOLLOWING THE MONEY… in other words taking responsibility for your Patients’ Health and Outcomes.
It’s really your decision to operate an urgent care dental office or a general check-up clinic OR a comprehensive, complete, experiential, full and healthy mouth dental practice that wows, woos and wonders patients to move forward with the best and optimal care for themselves.
I know what I’d choose, I know what the happiest, highest income earning, most autonomous and lifestyle driven dentists choose, how about you!?!
If we agree then here’s what you should know.
In every (and I do mean literally every) Practice I have ever met, I have at very best seen only a half-assed attempt at what I’m about to day. And in 90+% of the time it is completely NON EXISTENT.
There is no one at the end of every day sitting down looking at EVERY SINGLE PATIENT WHO exited the Practice and FOLLOWING Exactly down to the “t” in treatment plan and the “$” in dollar… what happened, where at in the schedule, and how much of the plan moved from computer screen or piece of paper to cash in hand deposits for Treatment that was diagnosed and presented that day.
THE VISIT ENDS WHEN THE TREATMENT IS SCHEDULED AND THE MONEY IS COLLECTED, NOT WHEN THEY WALK OUT OF THE OPERATORY.
Sorry. Your front desk counter like a hotel check out or fast food restaurant cashier doesn’t count. I promise you at this very moment, I can uncover more than 30%-50% of your Treatment walking out the door on a daily basis.
Enough to DOUBLE your collections, cashflow and production, enough to fill an ideal-day schedule overnight. I promise you this and stake my guarantee on it every single day I talk to, work with, guide, consult, coach, advise, oversee and implement my custom profit blueprint into Practices from coast to coast and border to boarder in North America.
The question for today’s huddle is simple.
When a Hygiene patient exits, who do they sit down with, talk to, review next steps (hopefully bundled treatment plans) and write checks to for their next visits?
When someone has a more complex treatment or a higher dollar figure, where do they go next and how is this monitored and maximized?
When a new patient leaves their exam, has had their treatment conference, makes a yes-no-or-maybe decision – WHO OWNS that outcome and what happens next?
At the end of every single day who tracks, reports, organizes, ensures every single patient was, is, has been accounted for? By time, appointment, treatment plan, payment, and next step.
When you leave this up to chance you get the lowest common denominator, you get patients coming back every 6 months doing the least possible thing, you wait to talk to them again, instead of being proactive.
Most likely you have someone answering the phones, handling the schedule, taking care of hygiene, doing new patient experiences, maybe even presenting treatment, but just how structured is this role of following the money.
If you don’t have someone owning this as their TOP AND ONLY Priority (if you are seeing more than 10-20 patients a day in and out of your entire practice it’s a full time position) then it’s no wonder why you are running volume instead of value and running at a fraction of your income potential and clinical capacity.
I can’t emphasize this enough.
It’s a dramatic shift from being reactive with accidentally (having a little bit of good luck today to get to your goals) and deliberately, proactively, manufacturing ideal-days of production hitting 2 or 3x your collection goals every single day because you are set-up for success, because you have someone FOLLOWING the MONEY.
Next week…it gets even better and I’m going to walk you through the most important shift and the single – dare I say – SWITCH in yours and your teams thinking that with the slightest adjustment can quadruple your Practice in 6 months or less if you let it and get the hell out of the way of progress.
