Dental-Management-Free-Articles



FREE PRACTICE MANAGEMENT ARTICLES

Authors: Virginia Moore & Debbie Castagna



Schedule for Success: How to Deal Successfully with 11 Common Scheduling Challenges

When it comes to appointment scheduling, the factors that can and will influence your schedule are plentiful. How scheduling challenges and patients are handled also has a profound effect on virtually every aspect of your practice—staff, patient care, productivity and profitability.

The path to ‘scheduling for success’ starts with you—and your team—deciding on the principles and protocols that govern how and when decisions are made regarding your appointment schedule, and then sticking to those principles. If you do this,scheduling becomes a straightforward process with a consistently successful outcome.

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Common Sense Staff Meetings

Dental professionals are busy! Busy caring for patients, sterilizing instruments, scheduling appointments, basically performing hundreds of tasks so that the practice runs optimally. However, doctors and staff will benefit by adding one more task to their list—staff meetings. It’s critical to take time out to work “on” the practice, not just “in” it. It’s common to hear that practices previously held meetings and then stopped. Excuses like, “we’re too busy”, “they were a waste of time”, “nothing was ever prepared”, or “they were gripe sessions” are typical.

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Take Control of Your Overhead (in 7 Easy Steps)

“When I was first introduced to the concept of an annual business plan, I did not fully appreciate the importance of it. Now, after ten years of annual planning sessions with Insight Solution, I would feel totally unprepared without one. The annual business plan is the road map to taking control of your overhead and establishing the dental practice of your dreams.”

Paul D. Ellington, DDS, Potomac Falls, VA

Our thanks to Dr. Ellington,who eloquently summarizes the value of annual planning and goal-setting in order to take control of your overhead. Without this necessary step, doctors very often flounder under the weight of unexpected expenses and unrealistic expectations.

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What Staff Want: The 5 Things Everyone Wants From Their Job

Employers will tell you it used to be easy… what employees wanted from their job was a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, a concept that was understood and shared by all.

Not so today. Labor shortages, a more mobile and educated workforce, advances in information technology, the exodus of the Baby Boomers (through retirement) from the workforce – plus a host of other issues – have made finding and keeping qualified staff difficult, if not impossible, for most employers.

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To expand or not to expand: expert advice on making the decision that’s right for your practice

The decision to expand your facility, whether it involves remodeling, moving, building (or a combination of all three), is one of the most important decisions a practice will ever make. The financial investment is likely to be substantial, and the logistical considerations (How long will it take? Can we see patients in the process?, etc.) need to be considered and planned for as well.

So how do you know when it’s time? While there are any number of excellent reasons that may apply – the desire for a more ‘modern’ facility, or a different location, for example – there is one instance in which the decision to expand is crucial: when your potential for production is being limited by your facility.

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