End of the year: What to work on

If you are in almost any aspect of the dental business, at this time of year, activity has downshifted from into a speed anywhere from slow to nonexistent.  A lot of orthodontic practices have either shut down operations for the rest of the year or are knocking out some final shorts and longs before settling in.  Suppliers are stopping deliveries to start working on year end inventory.  If you have a general dental practice, some folks may be coming in for last-minute, pre-holiday cleanings and whitenings, but major procedures will probably be delayed until after the holiday season.

Rather than shutting things down completely and spending your days watching A Christmas Story, this is the perfect time to work on projects and initiatives to get ready for the new year.

Specifically, here are the things to focus on:

The 3 best queuing statistics

Queueing systems can be nice (see a more detailed description of those) and enable you to identify and unblock traffic jams during the work day.  But those systems also generate a tremendous amount of data and to not use that information to improve your practice would be a waste of another resource to enable you to simultaneously improve the quality of patient service and your bottom line.

When you track every patient’s movement at every step of the process during a patient day, you can imagine the amount of data available to you.  Please do not print and review daily detailed reports.  That will lead you to errors with anecodotal stories (this one time, on a patient day, we knocked out shorts in 8 minutes) and confusion from the excess of data.

And please do not make the mistake I made early in my history by generating tons of data and reports that no one in his or her right mind would spend time poring over.  Rather, compile the data (or have us compile the data) into useful pieces and focus on the exception to norms or threshholds exceeded.  

With that, here are 3 of the top pieces of data you can generate from your queuing system:

Queuing systems: the vitals

In the last post, I mentioned that I would go deeper into queuing systems in the next writing.  As mentioned earlier, a queuing system basically tracks each patient as they move from point to point during a visit to the office.  In addition to noting which patients are where in the office, you can also see how long the patient has been in that area.

At My Practice Engine, the primary experience we have had with queuing systems is building one from the ground up.  Our patient flow protocols were already in place and our IT team built queuing into our practice management system around those protocols.  

In sum, a queuing system, when used properly, can provide extremely valuable information.  The key phrase there is “when used properly” because if used improperly, it is a waste of hardware and software.  We had one manager simply go in at various times of the day and mark every patient in the office as checked out.  So, at a specific time of day, 15 people all left at once.  I hope they had someone to hold the door for the rush of folks.  

When used properly however, there are a number of ways to use one.  One extremely simple way is to note the time a patient arrived at the office and the time that person left.  Now, that isn’t the hardcore “queuing” or tracking that the term traditionally implies, but can give you useful information.  Here’s how: 

Winning the waiting room

In our last post, we unearthed the somewhat obvious finding that people do not like to wait.  If it’s waiting for appointment day or waiting in the appropriately-named waiting room, people generally have better things to do than to sit around.  Here, we address the in-office waits that can cause blood pressures to rise and patient schedules to be upended.

We certainly understand that things happen during the patient day.  Shorts suddenly become longs, unanticipated discussions arise and even impromptu bathroom breaks can turn a day packed with patients into a day and night packed with patients.  Even the most efficient, well-oiled machine of a practice will experience hiccups.  

On the other hand, some practices can somehow take a light, 25-appointment day and turn it into a overtime-generating mess.

Here are some tips and techniques to minimize and soften the waiting room experience.

Here's what your patients are thinking

In previous posts, we’ve discussed polling your patient base via an e-mailed or in-office survey to gauge how they feel about important aspects of your practice.  That feedback can then help guide your future decision-making to provide the best possible patient experience.  

In our practices in Spain and Mexico, we recently surveyed a fair number of patients in anticipation of managers’ meetings in each country.  So that you can combine with your own surveys or get a feel for what patients are saying, here are some key findings that may apply in your own case.

At this point, just before the jump, I’d love to throw a little linkbait at you by telling you that the results are absolutely SHOCKING, but they aren’t.  

Pop analysis: the case of Sauk Valley Orthodontics

In this post, we examine the closing of Sauk Valley Orthodontics, a 2 office practice in Illinois.  If you are so inclined, you can read the news story about it here.  

Certainly, this practice is not the first to close nor will it be the last.   Moreover, I am not going to discuss what seems to be the rather abrupt closure of the practice.  Maybe they had a good reason for having to close with almost no notice or maybe they didn’t.  No need to speculate about that.  Our goal is to take the facts from the story and what we see online to determine what operational changes could have been made to enable the practice to survive.  

To do this, I am going to make one major assumption: the practice had to shut down because the volume of paying patients was insufficient to enable the practice to pay its bills.  In other words, the practice did not shut down because someone stole a bunch of money or major malpractice or a radioactive leak at both offices.

Here’s what I see:

4 quotes that should give you pause

In the vein of our previous post on declining practices, here are some quotes we’ve heard over the last few months that should cause a practice to pause and re-evaluate things.  Unlike the previous post on the topic, these aren’t necessarily indicators that the practice is in trouble, but if you hear them or find yourself saying them, any owner or business manager should take pause and reevaluate the situation.

Annual meeting fails: lessons learned

We’ve gotten several comments looking for more mistakes made during annual meetings and lessons learned from those missteps (aside from the alcohol fueled missteps and mistakes).  We here at the Engine aren’t afraid to admit our mistakes and we’ve made our share so here are more meeting fails:

Doctor’s meeting, New Orleans.  This was around the year 2000 when WiFi access wasn’t ubiquitous like it is today.  But at the time, internet access was prominent enough that we simply assumed that we could plug a network cable into a wall jack and get online.  Big mistake.  I had scheduled a breakout presentation to demo our new online reporting product.  And since this was a Saturday presentation, the one guy in the whole hotel who knew what to do was off and unavailable.  Quite clearly, doing a demo of an online product doesn’t go well when there is no online component.  We muddled through, but I got some poor reviews.

Lesson learned: Test extensively beforehand.  See if the resort will let you into the exact room early to do a quick test of everything.  And have a backup plan.  If something crashes, have something available that doesn’t require you to be online or have power or whatever.

Annual meetings: doing it right

If you have a practice of more than a medium size, you probably find yourself more than a little occupied by the day-to-day of the operation.  Patients need to be seen, fires need to be put out, marketing needs to be done.  That leaves little to no time to take a breather, introduce new products, find out where everything stands with the staff and do some in-depth training.

I know that a lot of practices have morning meetings or weekly sessions, but those are usually to address short term, micro issues.  Patient X wants a refund or staff person Y needs someone to substitute while on vacation.  Things like that.

One useful tool that we have employed over the years is an annual get together of the doctors and/or managers.  We’ve done everything from renting some empty space in an office building to blocking out rooms at a resort in Hawaii and hiring entertainment for each evening.  Whatever the level of opulence you decide, here are some tips for making your meeting successful:

Predicted production report: how to use it

Following up on our last post, you now have a predicted production report with several useful numbers on there.  How do you use it?

Here are the best applications that I have seen.

Use it to set your marketing schedule 

Here’s the primary use for this schedule.  Let’s say that you are looking at the schedule on September 9 and the expected number of contracts is 10.  In September of the previous year, you had 23 contracts.  Unless something strange happened in September of the previous year, your month is going to come up short of where you were last year.  Unlike waiting to review a report at the end of the month, you now have 3 weeks to add marketing, revise your plan or reaffirm confidence in your existing marketing.  

Please do not make the mistake of substituting the predicted production report with looking at the number of contracts signed so far during the month and then simply extrapolating that number out to the rest of the month.  That ignores the consults on the books for the rest of the month, the structure of your schedule and other factors that drive your spending and marketing decisions.

Predicting production

If you run a practice of any size, you want to find problem areas without extensive searching.  If you have a group practice with multiple offices (cheap book plug: advice on building such a practice by clicking here), you absolutely have to summarize results into a meaningful, easily digestible format.

Here’s one report that I’ve found is easy to create, extremely informative and in a compact enough format to keep you from digging through mountains of data.  It’s called the Predicted Production Report and does exactly that.  It predicts what production will be for a given month so that you can make decisions about marketing, staffing and scheduling.

Here’s how it works:

Useful information: this is what we do

In order to have data analysis, you need to have a service familiar with acquiring the data, digging through the detail, removing the wheat from the chaff and just giving you the information you need.  If you do have needs with your data, we have experience with accessing data for the following practice management software:

Carestream/Orthotrac

Dolphin

Dentrix

Salus

Gesden 

Denticon 

Dentalink – Central and South America (Coming soon) 

If you somehow still have a copy of OCA’s proprietary Walrus system, we have more experience with that data than pretty much anyone else in the world.  

Should you use any of these systems, we can access your data in relatively short order and begin reporting areas of potential opportunity and weakness to you in a matter of days.

If you are not on any of these systems, that’s still not a problem.  One of the primary services we offer is to access (legally) virtually any system that is willing to allow you access to your own data, distill that data into usable information and provide you regularly updated results and things to review.  No long lists to sort through.  

One other important note: some systems handle data better than others and all of them have their own way of organizing information.  What matters is that whoever organizes the data for you – us or anyone else—spends the time to make sure that the data being generated is accurate.  We have seen a lot of inaccurate data being generated by entities that provide guidance to practices.  The reasons for this are not relevant here, but suffice it to say that bad reporting will lead you in the wrong direction.   

If you do use someone internally or externally to summarize data for you, please make sure that the person/people/company are reviewing the detail of the data to ensure that it reconciles to some underlying data.  Also, make sure that the information makes sense.  For example, if your revenue is $20,000 per month and the data indicate that you are signing 45 new contracts per month, either those data are completely wrong or someone is walking off with your money.  

If you need help with your data or want someone to check to make sure that your numbers are properly vetted, please let us know by clicking here.  Volume and some big, painful experiences in the past have taught us a lot of lessons that others may have yet to learn.

3 simple ways to improve the quality of your data

If you’ve read more than one post in this blog, you’ll notice that we stress the absolute importance of having quality, organized, data to give you a clear picture of your practice’s results and enable you to make informed decisions regarding changes that need to be made.

We have spent considerable energy discussing the output of statistics and analysis, but none of that will make a difference if the data entered do not make sense.  There’s the old expression: Garbage In, Garbage Out.  The implications of this are rather obvious.  If the data entered makes no sense, it’s difficult to impossible to make use of the statistics and summary of data.  Here are some tips to increase the quality of your input data to ensure the quality of the output:

Taking the patient experience to a new level

In previous blog posts, we’ve stressed the importance of everyone in the office simply being nice.  Don’t have your head down in a schedule book, computer or mobile device.  Smile.  Offer a friendly greeting.

Now, being nice and friendly, is relatively basic and simple, but how can you take that to the next level and be more personal with your patients?  More importantly, how can you separate yourself from your competition?  Everyone does birthday cards and anyone can script a greeting for patients walking in the door.  What makes you special?

Dale Carnegie taught us (or at least a lot of us) that everyone’s favorite topic is themselves.  So, go straight for that angle.  Here are some more specific tips:

Do you know what your patients are thinking?

To introduce today’s discussion, a story for you (some names and irrelevant facts have been changed to protect the innocent).  Some time ago, I visited a dental office for a cleaning.  The service there was less than spectacular.  To be more specific, it was terrible.  I waited at the front desk a good 5 minutes before being acknowledged by the front desk manager (apparently, there was a new LeBron meme that could not be missed).  Upon being acknowledged, I was greeted with all the enthusiasm of someone who wanted to anywhere else than in front of a paying patient. 

After an interminable wait, I was taken to the clinical area by another person not in the mood to be at work.  Not rude, mind you, but just a tone of communication that conveyed something between boredom and “when it is quitting time?”  By contrast, the doctor was extremely friendly, helpful and, to the best of my knowledge, very technically skilled.  But before getting to that person, I had to wade through a phalanx of folks who simply did not care about the happiness of the patient.

Some time later, the dentist, struggling with growth, asked me for some help.  One of the first questions that I asked was, “What do you think of the way your staff treats patients?”  Her response was, “We do very well in that area.”  Now, the visit I made may have come on a bad day, but follow up discussions confirmed that there were lots of bad days around there.

To share or not to share

One of the most frequent questions I get from owner doctors relates to whether or not critical information should be shared with staff.  The argument usually goes something along the lines of the following: “If I show my income statement to my office manager – who is making $20 per hour—and they see that the net profit in the practice is $250,000, they’ll wonder why I am making $250,000 per year while they are making $40,000.  I’ll either get constant requests for a raise or I’ll have to replace my office manager.”  

On the other hand, you can’t expect a manager or key person to make important decisions for your practice while flying blind.  If you ask a person to handle your purchasing, you cannot reasonably expect a person to buy supplies without knowing the budget, historical spending or important product costs.  If you make decisions without information, you’re pretty much asking for bad decisions.  Also, if you are too guarded with information, the people in the office may think you are hiding something shady.  

Here are some guidelines for information sharing:

4 warnings signs for a failing practice

One of the easiest things to identify from the outside is a struggling practice.  You can look at the numbers and see declines in revenue, new patients, net patient outflows, etc. from month to month and see that things aren’t as they should be.

One of the hardest things to do is to identify that practice while you are in the middle of the storm running the practice.  Oftentimes, an owner will not seek help until it’s way too late.  The last patient has walked out the door and the bank account balance has more numbers after the decimal place than before it.  

Over the years, we’ve heard a number of repeated phrases from owners in denial or with a rather Pollyanna view of the future.  Here are some of them.  If you hear them or find yourself saying them, you might want to review things more closely or seek some further assistance (we’re here to provide that assistance if you wish).

Getting patients to show up: the scheduling solution

We’ve discussed the importance of shortening the time from patient call to appointment in order to improve the rate at which patients show up for appointments.  Without requiring you to read the whole article, let me give you a quick summary.  The prime opportunity to get to show up for a new patient appointment comes within the first 7 days after the call.  After the first 7 days, the chances for a patient to show up fall off and after 14 days, the show up percentage drops precipitously. 

As some evidence of this, I’d like to present the case of an office in a city that shall remain nameless, but is within spitting distance of the happiest place on earth.  In 2013, the office had patients showing up at a nice rate: 72%.  In other words, of every 10 patients that made a new patient appointment, more than 7 of them actually showed up for that appointment.  On average, patients waited 10 days from the time of call to their appointment.  Not a bad rate at all.

In February of this year, things changed.  The show up rate fell from 72% to 50%.  The average wait time from call to appointment ballooned to 25 days.  Of the 148 consultations appointed, 98 of those patients had to wait at least 3 weeks for an appointment.  In this “now” society, 3 weeks leaves plenty of time for a patient to find another option or to fill up their schedule so that a new patient consultation gets pushed back.  Clearly, a result of the drop in show up rate, new patient closings fell off as well.  What happened?

Our summer special offer

Over the last year, we've talked about our offer of services in generic terms.  This was done intentionally simply because different practices have different needs and one size does not fit all.  A large group practice in need of reporting has a completely different set of needs than a single office practice that only has enough cash to last one more month.  But this flies in the face of the advice that we've given which says to provide a concrete offer that a patient can evaluate on his or her own terms.

So, in keeping with our own advice, here's a specific, concrete offer for you (if interested, just e-mail us at bpalmisano2@gmail.com).

Where we think we can be of most value is in improving results in struggling practices.  For these practices, we will come in, visit with you and your team, analyze numbers, find the weak areas, apply our expertise and work with you to implement solutions.  Our history is not to come in firing people (unless necessary) or asking you to spend a bunch of money that you might not have.

If the office has less than $60,000 of annual profit (per office) before owner pay, debt service and personal expenses, our services are free.  If the practice grows past the $60,000 threshold, we will take 25% of the growth only.  So, if the practice grows to $100,000 in annual profit, the $40,000 of excess profit ($100,000 - $60,000) is subject to a fee.  We would take a fee of $10,000, while you enjoy the 75% of growth.  This fee is computed and paid quarterly.

Practice rescue: the nightmare dissapates

So, there we were, in a beautiful, fully staffed, heavily advertised, yet almost empty, office.  And we had our data showing a 4.5% conversion rate which was heavily driven by the fact that only 20.2% of patients showed up for their appointments.

Now, when it comes to getting patients to show up for their appointments, a number of different options emerge.  Some experts will advise you to offer something to patients to entice them to show up (a gift, a chance to win something, etc.).  Others say that you shouldn’t give something away when patients should already be fulfilling commitments made to show up.  Others have specific guidance on when and how to contact patients.  As a more general rule of thumb, find a system that you think will provide the best possible customer service, implement it and monitor it.  

In this case, we simply wanted the office to have a system of some kind to follow up on consultations.  They had none.  We asked that the office take 3 simple steps:

Practice rescue: the nightmare opening

Our next story delves into what I consider to be a practice’s worst nightmare.  Here’s the basic situation: a practice puts big money into a great location, builds out that location with no expense spared, spends big dollars on a high profile marketing campaign, opens the doors and…crickets.  You can see the visual right? Nothing but tumbleweed rolling by the office.

We had this very case in a fine Midwestern city. A brand new strip mail had opened up and this practice had put a gorgeous new 4,000 square foot orthodontic and general dental practice in there.  The initial marketing campaign was strong with TV ads, a nice price promotion, radio promos and a semi-formal grand opening (one can only assume that the champagne was Korbel).  With 8 operatories, this place was ready for the flood of patients that would surely be on the way.  

Except that there was no flood, or a nice stream or even a small babbling brook.  The practice had 0 new patients in month 1, 1 in month 2 and 2 in month 3.  Not exactly a rousing start.  On top of that, the practice was fully staffed anticipating a great start so costs were substantially higher than one with a more modest opening.

Practice rescue: Bringing the patients back

When we last left our story, we had a problem with the front desk staff turning off patients by being dismissive and generally unpleasant.  The doctor was busy in the back trying to treat patients and tended to steer clear of the front desk in his quest to provide the best patient care possible.

Very clearly, our first task was to address these individuals who probably had skills applicable to other areas, but it appeared that making folks feel at home was not one of those skills.  Seemingly, the most obvious solution would be to simply terminate these 3 people and replace them with others who had more of a friendly demeanor about them.  

As a general rule, I do not enjoy firing people nor do I ever look to that as a first solution to a problem.  Personally, I've been fired without having the chance to make a situation right, and it sucks.  In addition, these people had experience in the practice and may have had skills applicable elsewhere.  We’ve dealt with a number of staff people who aren’t the super friendly type when patients walk in the door, but may be absolute superstars when it comes to financial, technological or receivables matters.  That should definitely be explored.

The conversation with the front desk staff began very frankly with a discussion of what we had heard and observed within the office.  That was followed by the standard denials and pushback.  That’s never an issue.  No one likes to hear that they are considered to be the source of a problem, but once we let the dust settle a bit, we were able to get into a discussion of the problems.

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Practice rescue: Where did all the patients go?

One of the most perplexing problems for any practice is one in which new patient flow was strong for a period of time and now that patient flow has steadily or suddenly dried up.  

From my perspective, this is even more challenging than the office that throws open its doors and no one shows up from day one.  In that case, you need to change everything up and try a fresh approach.  In the case of a declining practice, you are tempted to hold onto what worked for the practice in the past.  Maybe that’s a good idea and maybe it isn’t.  Figuring out what to change and what to keep in place is a challenging exercise.

To discuss this problem, I’d like to introduce a orthodontic practice that I’ve worked with recently.  In the late 2000’s the practice was humming along nicely signing 20-25 new patients per month.  In 2010, that number dropped to 15-20, and by 2012, the office was consistently under 10 new patients per month. 

In mid 2013, results weren’t getting better so our group took a look at things.  Here are some details on our practice rescue:

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Practice rescue: Steps to start fixing a failing practice

Today, we kick off a recurring series that we like to call “practice rescue.”  In this segment, we discuss stories and lessons from practices that have been struggling to the point of potentially shutting down or downsizing substantially and the steps we have taken to turn things around.  

While we fully recognize that by the time we get to some practices, they have passed the point of rescue, or in some cases, the solutions and/or personalities may not be a great fit.  What you get there is an unsuccessful or laterally moving mess.  And in the coming posts, we are certainly planning to discuss some of those.

In the majority of cases, however, opportunities can be found and grabbed or weaknesses can be rectified.  Then one morning, you take a look at results and you have the makings of a successful, happy practice.

To start, we’d like to discuss some of the key principles employed in effecting a practice rescue.  I am not outright suggesting that anyone use this as a path to implementing their own practice rescue, but if you wish to do so, so be it.

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Call to action: What not to do

Here at My Practice Engine, we are always willing to admit a mistake.  Not only does it make us better as an organization, but it also hopefully helps you to avoid the mistakes that we made as you proceed on your quest for practice perfection.  

Today’s story asks the question: “What’s wrong with this picture?”  The below pictures are from an ad we placed on a bus to promote the opening of our new office in Cancun, Mexico.  

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Marketing strategy: call to action

Photo credit: triplecurve.com

At any given point in time, I get asked for a quick way to get a volume of patients in the door.  My answer is that other than being famous or having lots of friends who need treatment, I haven’t found a one-size-fits-all guaranteed way to get an influx of patients in the door.  Certainly, others claim that they have found a foolproof way and good for them.

But if I’m asked to come up with something that I would highly recommend in just about every case, I, and a host of others, would recommend a strong call-to-action in the marketing message.  In other words, what reason, promotion, opportunity or deal am I offering to get a patient to come in to my office and not that of my competition?

Here are some of the things I’ve learned about calls to action and what might benefit you as a practice owner or key marketing person.

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Your new office: less cost, better results

In our last post, we left off with the question of how, in this day and age, with the level of competition that exists for new patients, how can I possibly keep the cost of construction and equipment under $500,000 - $600,000?  

Here, we discuss some methodologies for you to accomplish just that task. Now, by no means do we intend to suggest that you somehow cut corners or have an office that is less than acceptable.  Nor are we suggesting that you have some bleak, stark office that resembles the inside of an asylum.  

Keep in mind that if you start 20 patients per month in a more expensive location, your return on investment and ability to repay is substantially lower than if you spent 40% less on the facility and started 18 patients per month.

Here are some things we’ve seen over the years that help to keep cost under control while allowing to create a professional, inviting environment for patients.

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New office construction: When does "nice" become too nice?

One obvious observation: you want your office to look nice.  Patients want to spend their appointment time in a comfortable, inviting environment.  Not only does this enhance the patient experience, but it also encourages patients to want to come back and refer their friends for appointments.  On top of that, you and your staff spend a lot of your waking hours in that office and for purposes of morale and energy level, you don’t want to walk into a dump every day.  

The overriding question is what constitutes “nice.”  For some that means Herman Miller chairs, fountains and chandeliers in the waiting room and Italian marble wherever you can put it.  For others, that means clean carpets and a minimum of fingerprints on the walls.  The best solution usually lies somewhere in between those two.

A number of practices operate under the notion that “if you build it, they will come.”  That only works in the movies and only if you build a baseball diamond that people can visit for free.  An uber-fancy office does not necessarily mean that patients will flow in.  This is because patients need a reason to come to the office BEFORE they see the fine interior.  It’s not like a retail store where some great signage and buzz is going to generate walk-in traffic.  For most practices outside of malls, walk-in traffic does not exist.

For some evidence of what I am discussing, a story:

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Getting your new patients to show up

As we mentioned in our last post, one key to getting a patient to show up for his or her new patient appointment is to limit the time between the call for the appointment and the actual appointment date.  After 7 days, potential patients begin to get antsy and look elsewhere for a provider of services.  

Sure, in a perfect world, it would be nice to tell every potential new patient, “Hey come on in today.  We’ll see you whenever you get here.”  And if you happen to have a nonpatient hole in your schedule, you should certainly try to get that space filled with an interested consult.  Of course, the world is not perfect and the reality is that you have days that are full of patients eager to see you.  Simply fitting in an appointment as vital and time consuming as a consult just isn’t always doable. 

So what to do.  Here are some potential methods to ease that backlog:

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New patient consultations: how long is too long to wait for an appointment date?

In doing some deeper analysis on data in the US and abroad, we looked more closely at the percentage of patients that show up for their consultation appointments (i.e. the show up rate) and the percentage of consultations that actually start treatment (i.e. the batting average). 

Intuitively, we would guess that certain events would cause a patient to be more or less likely to show up for his or her appointment and then sign a contract after going through a consultation.  Specifically, if a patient calls for a consultation appointment and is scheduled to be seen that same day, the chances of that patient showing up are much greater than if the patient’s appointment got scheduled 6 months from the date of the call.  Pretty simple, right?  If you make someone wait 6 months for an appointment, they will probably find another provider.  Even if you are a major star in the industry, folks want to get started when they want to get started.

But exactly how quickly do things drop off when it comes to the time a patient has to wait for a new patient appointment.  Like banana left in the refrigerator, things tend to go downhill pretty fast.  Here are some specifics:

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3 tips for hiring and training to maximize staff performance

Unless you’ve hired James Bond, no member of your team is great at everything.  Running your business takes a wide range of skills and finding that absolutely perfect person to handle every single thing is damn near impossible.  Marketing talent may come at the expense of skills with collecting money from past dues.  

We recently had one office manager who had years of experience in the dental field.  She was outstanding in building relationships with patients, handling billing disputes and staying on top of the day to day glitches that befall every office.  But this person did not have a comfort level with the latest tech (like the nuances of digital x-rays) and did not want to push the practice’s social media efforts.  

Clearly, the solution here is not to terminate such a valuable person.  Rather, the answer is to complement the person’s skill set with either the other people or systems.  Note that I did not say to hire someone just because that person may have a skill that no one else has.  Your first consideration priority needs to be on having a properly sized staff.  

Let’s look at some of the considerations in ensuring that your staff has complementary skills.

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Find the right person for the job via a test

In our last post, we discussed the qualities you might want to find in your office manager.  This begs the obvious question of “how do I determine up front, whether or not a candidate for the job has the skills I seek?”  The skills could be the ones we discussed earlier or a skill set that you find to be appropriate for your practice. 

The classic solutions are rather limited in their benefit.  Anyone can fluff a resume and interview questions elicit only so much information.  A short trial work period is usually impractical, especially for an office manager who has to be able to be productive from day 1.  You cannot lose valuable patient trust or potential new patients while someone is in the trial phase (note: this may work better for an entry level position less critical for the daily operation of your practice).  

Here’s one oft-used solution that has provided substantial benefit to us in the past, no matter what the available position or required skill set: a test.  With a test, you provide a standard set of written or oral questions that the interviewee can respond to orally or in writing. For us and our practices, the resume is usually the first hurdle.  The number of candidates can be narrowed substantially from the resumes.  Those who make that cut will get the test.

Some ideas for setting up your test:

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3 qualities to look for in your office manager

Throughout the life of this blog, we have discussed the size and significance of the staffing and employee cost in your practice.  Over the coming posts, we are going to dig deeper into the human resources component of that cost.  We’ll talk about components of costs, characteristics to look for in a new employee, hiring, firing, discipline and much more on incentives.  

Today, we look more closely at one of the key people in your practice: the office manager.  Over time, this person can develop into your right hand for carrying out the business operations of the practice and a trusted advisor on matters of future practice development.  They’ll usually oversee the front desk area, monitor marketing, receivables, cash management, payroll and a host of other tasks.  This person may also be responsible for other hires so his or her personality and preferences will touch every piece of the practice.  

In this segment, we look at some of the characteristics we feel are most important when considering what type of person to put in this key position (aside from the obvious things like not being a psychopath).  This characteristics are ranked in order of importance:

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