Staff training: Reps, reps and more reps

One of the final staff training tips we mentioned in our post from last month involves ensuring that someone learning a role actually has a chance to perform that function.  

Here, the theory is quite simple and obvious: if you do something 100 times, you should expect to be better at it on the 100^th try than you were on the first.  Unfortunately, the simple theory and ostensibly simple practice becomes difficult to execute because various roadblocks keep popping up.  

Here are some of the most common reasons we hear when we find out that a person doesn’t get the repetitions that he or she need to improve:

3 tips for using tech to improve productivity

In a recent post, we discussed using technology to assist staff in being more productive and more accurate.  Here are some specifics on how to accomplish that.  We’ve already talked about using some free software tools for training and basic camera technology to make sure that owners can keep in touch with everything happening in the office. 

Now, we discuss some additional areas of backlog where technology can assist you in keeping the number of staff and hours down while enhancing the happiness of your patient base:

Convenience as a marketing tool

A client in Mexico with a successful single-office orthodontic practice decided to open a second office in a different city.  Because his first practice was so busy, her practice was open 2 days per month in the new office.  After a few months, she called Diversified Practice Solutions looking for a new marketing strategy.  The office had set up some cross promotion with other businesses, had some ads on the inside of buses and a good referral program. The practice only had 6 consultations seen each month and that just wasn’t enough to merit the investment in the facility. 

As we discussed the issues with the practice, I mentioned that the problem may have nothing to do with marketing and that the lack of new patients might be cured with some operational improvements.

The response from the doctor was expected.  How could there be operational problems?  Of the 6 new patient consultations each month, she executed contracts with all 6.  What more could possibly be done beyond that?  Clearly, something needed to change about the budget.

Just need to talk through an issue? We are here for you.

Sometimes you just need to bounce ideas off someone.  In your practice, for treatment decisions, you probably have peers or mentors that you can contact to share x-rays and discuss different options.  But what about business decisions?  You don’t always need the full blown service or to sign a long term contract or even a face-to-face meeting.

Let me give you an example from my personal experience.  We have a general dental client that is trying to find the right balance of insurance carriers with which to work.  Since this was a new state for us, I needed to get some key questions answered about offerings for different demographic groups.  Internet searches didn’t provide good answers so I looked for someone to answer a couple of questions to point me in the right direction.  The result were people requiring fees just to talk (as much as $250 for 30 minutes!) or giving half an answer, but looking for cash before giving the full answer (and if that answer was “I don’t know,” my head would have shot through the roof).  

We were able to get the problem solved with no cost to the client (because that’s what we do), but the fees and obstacles thrown up were completely unnecessary.

That’s where Diversified Practice Solutions and MyPracticeEngine.com come into play.  If you want to talk through a problem in your practice, want a demographic study on a market, have some questions about setting up promotions or electronic marketing, call us.  There’s no charge and no obligation.  Plus, we’ll do our best to answer your question as fully as possible and not withhold information in expectation of payment.  Of course, if the process becomes more involved or you need us to handle something long term, only then would we talk about an exchange of fee for service.

Try us today by e-mailing bpalmisano2@gmail.com.  Doing so won’t hurt financially or emotionally.  

Team training tips

In our earlier piece on giving the proper resources to the staff, we discussed training, technology and repetitions as tools to improve employee performance.  Here, we dig deeper into training.  

Obviously, training takes a number of forms and can be conveyed in a bunch of ways, but we will point out some useful techniques that we’ve seen used.  Hopefully, you can use them to apply within your own practice.  Here are some of our favorites: