Practice Management |4 min read

Keeping Staff Informed on Practice Analytics

Betsy Cord Portis, DAADOM with text, "Real-world insights from AADOM authors"

Dental practices survive on monetary production and collections. We don’t like to think of money as the only reason we come to work, but it’s important to understand that the business can’t continue without appropriate financial support.

The responsibility to keep your office afloat belongs to more than just the owner. It falls on every team member to do their part.

Keeping your team updated on practice analytics should be a part of your regular routine.

Maintaining records

Maintaining a constant record of your key performance indicators (KPIs) is essential to ensure that your practice reaches its full potential.

Production, collections, adjustments, and new patient numbers are all vital statistics that give you a portrait of how your office performed over a specific period of time.

As a practice administrator, you should record and review these numbers daily, allowing you to identify problems before they become serious.

What numbers do I share?

Delivering too many numbers to a group of people who don’t routinely evaluate numerical data can be overwhelming.

Instead:

Focus on a small, significant group of analytics that makes sense to them.

The idea is to empower your team and help them understand that they can make a difference in the everyday success of the practice.

The morning meeting is the perfect place to convey this information.

With your back-office team, focus on production and goals broken down by year, month, and day.

Everyone understands goals, especially when a bonus is attached for reaching certain marks.

1. Production

Identify the production level you’re aiming for each day and how far over/under you are from your goal.

When your schedule is falling shy, your team will be more easily motivated to add small procedures here and there to make up for that deficit.

At the beginning of each month, discuss the production number that is pre-scheduled and what each person can do to increase that amount.

In a general office, this might mean offering to take impressions for whitening trays or a night guard after a restorative visit or performing necessary treatment on hygiene patients while they are in the office instead of appointing them to come back at another time.

Brainstorm with your team about improving production with the patients you already have on the schedule.

Your front-office team will also benefit from understanding production numbers. Being responsible for the schedule gives them abundant control over goal attainment.

Using block scheduling and exceptional treatment presentation skills, they can develop an ideal schedule every day that will set the rest of the team up for success.

2. Collections and adjustments

In addition to production, it’s also important for them to have knowledge of collections and adjustments.

If your office is in-network with insurance companies (that result in large adjustment numbers), it’s crucial to understand how those write-offs will affect the bottom line.

Unless you are a fee-for-service practice, the gross collection number is not always going to match the gross production. To avoid pitfalls, set up your schedule to allow for the average amount of collection adjustments.

3. New patients

When it comes to new patients, you may think the staff has a pretty good idea how many are coming through the office monthly, but it’s always beneficial to discuss actual statistics.

When you’re lacking in new faces, in-house marketing can boost your numbers.

Dental assistants and hygienists can take advantage of spare time while waiting for the doctor by asking patients to check-in at your office online, or post pictures of themselves in the office to their social media.

Train your team members to ask their favorite patients for personal referrals.

You don’t have to wait until that patient pays you a compliment. It’ll make a larger impact if you compliment the patient instead.

“Mary, it makes my day when I see your name on my schedule. Would you send all of your friends in so we have more awesome patients that are like you?”

It only takes a minute or two each day to keep the team aligned with your goals.

Soon, identifying opportunities to increase production will become second nature, and you’ll be on your way to having a perfect day every day.


Meet the Author

Betsy Cord in a black and white blazer and black top, presenting on reopening your practiceBetsy Cord Portis, DAADOM, is the office administrator for Ryan F. Mueller, DMD in Downtown Portland, Oregon. She single-handedly runs the front office of Dr. Mueller’s busy private practice, analogous to an octopus, with a hand in all areas of patient care and practice management.

Betsy also presides over the local Portland Metro AADOM Chapter… This text opens a new tab to the Portland AADOM website….

In 2018, she was named AADOM’s Practice Administrator of the Year, and in 2021, she was inducted into AADOM’s first class of Diplomates.

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