AADOM DISTINCTIONcast – Stop the Scheduling Chaos: A Simple System for Success

 

Is your schedule running you instead of the other way around? Join us for a free, live-streamed webinar with Ashley Sempf, MAADOM, and discover a proven system to regain control of your time, your patient flow, and your front desk communication.

In this session, you’ll learn how to:

• Streamline your recall and treatment plan systems
• Master patient phone calls with confidence and professionalism
• Implement Rock Block scheduling to boost efficiency and reduce stress

AADOM Members log in HERE to watch the full recording.

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Ready to see the full version of this DISTINCTIONcast and elevate your skills?

Join AADOM now to access the full video and a world of resources. Your next big step is just a click away!

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Read the Transcript Now!

 

Penny: Hey everyone. Welcome to DistinctionCast, where AADOM showcases the best and brightest minds in the dental industry from within our dental management association.

I’m Penny Reed, the Executive Vice President of Membership and Events for AADOM. Thank you for joining us today.

AADOM’s DistinctionCast is more than insights into dental management. We amplify the voices of a AADOM’s distinction holders—the leaders in the trenches of dental management who share their insights, inspiration, and real-world strategies to help you thrive in your practice.

And today, it’s my privilege to introduce our guest, Ashley Sempf. Good morning, Ashley.

Ashley: Good morning.

Penny: So, I’m gonna tell you a little bit about Ashley, and then, of course, we’ll let Ashley fill in the blanks before she kicks us off here.

So, she has a deep passion for healthcare and dentistry, and she graduated with a degree in registered nursing and currently serves as the Chief Operations Officer for two dental practices in Wisconsin.

With over 20 years of dental experience in the field, she’s found great fulfillment in her career in dentistry and looks forward to many more years in the profession.

She’s a lifetime member of AADOM and holds a Mastership distinction, which she received in 2024. Congratulations, Ashley!

And then, a little bit about her on the personal side. She’s happily married to her wonderful husband, Rodney, and they have three beautiful children, two adorable grandchildren. Maybe at the end of today’s session, she’ll let us know what her grandma name is. And in her free time, she enjoys traveling and spending quality time with her family.

So, Ashley, it’s a privilege to have you here with us today and we can’t wait to hear about how to “Stop the Scheduling Chaos: A Simple System for Success.”

So, welcome and we’re delighted to learn from you today.

Ashley: Thank you so much. I’m excited to be here.

Penny: And, wow, that schedule. I remember as an office manager being frustrated that it seemed like you could never get everything done during the day. Right? You might close out the day. There’d be other things that were done, but that schedule was never done.

So, we are very much looking forward to hearing you share with us how to stop some of that scheduling chaos and your system for success. So, we’ll have you take it away, Ashley.

Ashley: Absolutely. Thanks Penny.

So, as you all know, being in the dental field, it can get chaotic. And, I know a lot of the times we’ve looked at the schedule the day before and we know that we’ve gotta have our roller skates on from the time we step through that door to the end of the day because there’s just so much chaos and so many patients on the schedule that we’re trying to accommodate and take care of.

And so, I’m hoping today, with my presentation, that we’re gonna stop the scheduling chaos and make it a simple system for success that you enjoy coming in and you feel like you can get through the day without those roller skates.

Simplifying Scheduling

So, today it kind of starts with managing your recall and treatment planning systems, making sure that you’ve got something set up that’s doable and manageable for your team, and then to fill those schedules with those appointments and phone calls.

And, exactly that. You’ve got so many phone calls in the office going through those systems and contacting patients and scheduling patients and getting those schedules full. You want to do it in a professional and timely manner.

And then learning how to schedule your ideal day—every day—with rock block scheduling. I know it took us some time to come around to the idea of rock block scheduling because if you have never done it before, it sounds scary. But hopefully we’ll work through that today and kind of ease your mind and hopefully get you started with some tools to get that going in your practice.

I’m gonna jump right in with phone skills.

As we all know, dentistry is a phone business. We are constantly on the phone. We constantly have hiring of front desk because we need those phones answered. That’s how you get new patients and patients in the door and butts in the chair.

And so, the biggest thing that I’ve taken away when you’re greeting and meeting people is your presentation. And so, that doesn’t fall short on the phone. You do need to kind of give that personality and that excitement on the phone as well as in person.

So, when you’re answering the phone, pretend you’re looking in the mirror and someone’s walking in to see that face. Instead of picking up the phone, how are you gonna present yourself?

And so, making sure to smile before you pick up that phone so that you’re personable and those patients feel comfortable from that very first contact with your office.

And personalize each call that you make. When you’re talking to patients, use their names. Say, “Hey, Cindy.”

And then also utilizing the provider’s name. So, “Dr. Jones is really looking forward to seeing you today.”

Just using those examples, just using names and making that connection and that relationship and build that trust with patients even on the phone from that very first contact.

And then setting and using clear communication and expectations. We want to make sure that if we schedule a new patient with our hygienist and our goal is to get an exam and X-rays done and probably not fit in the cleaning because we’re not sure what type of cleaning that patient’s gonna need, make sure that you set that expectation.

We’re all on the same page of what we want to provide and then what they’re getting. It just softens that first visit. Patients are anxious. We all know that they don’t love coming to the dental office. So, just being really clear about that and what to expect when they come in for a visit with your office.

And then using words and phrases that are patient friendly. So, we’re investing in them. They’re investing in themselves. We don’t wanna talk about cost, right, because then it’s like, “I don’t want to spend my money on this. I don’t want to do this. This costs too much.” Right?  So, investing in them, and them investing in themselves.

And then, same thing, patients don’t like coming here. So, they usually are past due for their appointments. They know that. So, if we can just say, “Hey, we’d love to get you back on track. You’re due for a cleaning.” It doesn’t matter if it’s been 1 month or 18 months—we still want them in the chair. So, making them feel comfortable and welcome into your practice.

Learn How AADOM Can Help

Using Weekly Reports to Boost Recall and Fill Schedule Gaps

And so we’re gonna dive right into the weekly reports that we’re gonna print for recall and treatment plans and kind of utilize these phone skills throughout when we’re going into these reports.

So, when I first started with AADOM, actually, I went to a class with Dana Moss, and it was on treatment plan and recall systems.

And so, this is kind of like her nitty-gritty of what she presented and then kind of tweaked to what works for our office and kind of our patient flow. So, you’ll probably see some connections to hers as well as kind of some changes that we’ve made that, um, we’ve accommodated for our practice.

But we used to print reports at the, you know, beginning of the month. And we’d print all the reports and put them in a folder and say, “Okay, get these through these in 30 days.”

It’s daunting. Nobody wants to pick up a 10-page report. Nobody wants to pick up a, you know, 16-page report with 53 patients on each page. It doesn’t seem doable.

And so, doing it week by week, it just breaks it down and makes it more manageable, whether you designate it to one staff member or the whole office is accomplishing this together.

It also makes for consistent follow up and in a timely manner. And we’ll kind of go through each breakdown. It’s gonna be a little bit redundant on some of the reports because you’ll print the same reports each week.

But I just wanna make sure that you kind of see it and I’ll be happy to send it to you at the end of the presentation if you would like a copy of this so that you can implement it in your office.

Statistics show that you need to contact a patient 6 to 8 times to be able to retain 85% of your patient population. And this system does just that by doing these weekly reports and having them outline with what reports you print each week.

And they’re also a great resource for those short notice cancellations and leaving holes in your schedule.

I know we used to constantly scroll through who is already on the schedule and try to pull them forward. And then you have to fill those holes.

And so, this kind of avoids that a little bit. Yes, we want to do that. But at the end of the day, we kind of wanna leave those there too and get some other patients on the schedule that aren’t on the schedule already.

Prioritizing Recalls, Treatment Follow-Ups, and New Patient Outreach

So, week one: I always print mine on the first Monday of the week because it’s just an easy reminder. And then we have all week to work on it.

And so, with recall, we print patients that are due next week. Then we print three months past due and six months past due. And with that patients that are due next week, it’s so nice because you can utilize those for if they don’t have insurance, they can be quick fill for this week as well.

Or if you do have those cancellations coming up next week, you can get those patients in there that are due that same week that maybe didn’t schedule at their last recall appointment in the chair.

And then for treatment plans, we print out patients that do not schedule. Last week, so they were in for hygiene. They were in for a toothache. We printed out a treatment plan and they said they were gonna call us back or they needed to check their schedule or what have you.

It’s a great contact. They still have it in their mind. They maybe wanted to check a schedule and we don’t lose track of them, hopefully, right?

Right away, we can get that treatment done. We can hopefully get them on the schedule, answer any questions. And it’s a contact too that if we were supposed to send in a pre-authorization, we can do that at that time. And it’s not too far out or we didn’t lose them in the shuffle.

And then, we wanna print a new patient follow up from the week before. So, this is something that was very new to us. We never did this in the past. We’re a pretty high volume, fast-paced office. And so again, something that you’re like, “Ah, we’ve never done it. Seems like a waste of time.”

I will tell you this is one of my favorite implementations that we have done in our office in the last 22 years. We call new patients and ask them how their visit went. And then get some feedback. If it was great, what a feel good moment to share with the staff and say what a great job that they’re doing in the office and for our patients.

But then also if they didn’t or if we didn’t meet their expectations, to get that feedback right away so that we know how to change or adjust so that maybe at the next new patient appointment we can change something or tweak something or communicate more clearly.

And so, it’s just a great way to make those contacts and make sure that those patients feel good, that we do notice and we do appreciate that they chose us, because they can choose anybody. And so, we just wanna make sure that they also feel welcome and appreciated coming into our practice.

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Ready to see the rest of this DISTINCTIONcast and elevate your skills?

Join AADOM now to access the full content and a world of resources. Your next big step is just a click away!

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Learn About the Presenter:

 

Ashley Sempf, MAADOM

Ashley has a deep passion for healthcare and dentistry. She graduated with a degree in Registered Nursing and currently serves as the Chief Operations Officer for two dental practices in Wisconsin.

With over 20 years of experience in the field, she has found great fulfillment in her career in dentistry and looks forward to many more years in the profession. She is a lifetime member of the American Association of Dental Office Management (AADOM) and holds a Mastership Distinction, which she received in 2024.

Ashley is happily married to her wonderful husband, Rodney, and they have three beautiful children and two adorable grandchildren. In her free time, she enjoys traveling and spending quality time with her family.