Many dental practices can appear very busy, but over the years, when I have drilled down into my client's numbers (pardon the pun), I have found many were underproducing by as much as 40% or more based on their production capacity. For a practice to produce at the highest level it is capable of, the key has everything to do with your staff and your skills in leading and managing them. The practice owner From a management viewpoint, the biggest problem in most dental offices is the practice owner. Why? Because most dentists want to be Dr. Nice with their staff....

1. Typically practice owners do not have or do not follow an effective hiring protocol as they are often in a hurry. Many successful practice owners follow the maxim “Hire slow, fire fast”. By doing so you increase the probabilityof hiring a “good employee”.  2. Hire for ATTITUDE is hiring Golden Rule #1. The right attitude cannot be taught. Everything else can be.   3. Interviews only give you an “outer-view”. You won’t really know if you have a winner until you see the employee in action over a period of time. If the employee does not meet expectations within 90 days, dismiss...

There are a lot of variables, but I think you'll find these numbers close to average plus or minus a few percentage points (based on collections): Staff: 25%Rent/upkeep, cleaning, etc: 5%Lab: 5%Dental Supplies: 5%Marketing, phones, etc: 10% Typically there are not too many places to cut costs other than payroll when it comes to the management of your dental practice overhead. In general payroll is the one area where the percentages are often too high. On top of that most practices are only producing at about 60% of what they could be doing. Consider this: A $10,000.00 monthly increase equals $120,000.00 per...

The best systems in the world are useless if the staff members do not comply. An effective leader and executive knows how to get staff to willingly follow through and comply. Key systemds: 1. New patient phone call. This is the single most important function in a practice.  2. New patient experience. This includes NPs educated on how their specific insurance works so there are no surprises for the patient if they end up with a bill. 3. Insurance accurately and quickly submitted, followed up on and collected. This includes accurate accounts and on time statements. Also firm financial policy that...