The Value of a Practice Management Dashboard: How to Utilize Dental Intel to Grow Your Practice

How to Utilize Dental Intel to Grow Your Practice

Practice management dashboards, such as Dental Intel or Practice by Numbers, connect to practice management software and then run in the background, tracking all aspects of the practice, analyzing, automating, finding opportunities, and communicating with the user all day, every day. These metrics are displayed on the desktop or through the app on a phone in graph form which makes the information much easier to read and interpret.

The hours that were previously spent pulling reports from practice management software are now non-existent. The dashboard user can glean information that enables them to know where their practice stands in real-time. A dashboard is extremely useful for multiple location practices as it is very easy to look at the real-time metrics for all of the offices within a matter of minutes rather than remoting into each practice management software.

Dashboards are used to enhance daily basic management protocols, such as:

• Morning Huddles
• Patient Follow-ups
• Metrics and Reporting

Morning Huddle

Morning huddles are the single best tool to get the entire dental team focused on the day ahead.

Reports generated by the management software are needed to make the meeting useful and effective. The information pulled is used to inform the whole team of:

• How much production is on the schedule and whether the target production number is being met.
• Are radiographs needed at the huddle, or is this case-by-case ordered by the doctor’s chairside?
• Outstanding treatments pending for patients who will be in the office that day.
• Reviewing holes in the schedule that need to be filled, including overnight cancellations discovered on the answering machine.
• Identifying patients with difficult management issues.

Daily huddles maximize awareness and minimize surprises for both the clinical team and the office management team. All these things can be reviewed smoothly and quickly utilizing the information produced by management software.

Follow-ups

It is easy for patients to fall through the cracks when it comes to unscheduled treatment, past due hygiene appointments, broken appointments, past due accounts, and even outstanding insurance claims. The amount of time it takes to run five different reports in your practice management software is valuable time that can be dedicated to doing other tasks.

Dental Intel communicates with the office every single day on whom to call and why. The software auto-generates call lists that are completely customizable in each area and are proven to fill the schedules and immediately boost production. It is also able to assign follow-ups to certain team members and it shows you the results of their work. This program can show how many patients have been called and how much production was scheduled during those calls.

Metrics and Reporting

How long does it usually take to find out the key performance indicators in the dental practice? How many different reports do you look at, over five, maybe even up to ten reports?

Imagine cutting the work of pulling these reports simply by clicking one button and instantly viewing a dashboard that shows production (net and gross), how many unscheduled patients are in the practice, average restorative and hygiene appointment cost, number of new patients, hygiene re-appointment percentage, how many cancellations and no shows the office has had, all broken down into the current week and the previous week, months, and years. Then being able to click a second button to see the dashboard with the office collections, accounts receivables and claims aging report, ninety-day collection percentage, and how many days it takes your office to collect on past due accounts, all broken down in the same timeframe.

The ability to spot negative trends and catch bad habits early is game-changing.

Finally, in today’s world, measuring the health of your practice in real-time and even on the go with your phone is perhaps the most important competitive edge you can possess in successfully managing a modern dental practice.

About the Author

McKenzie Berry, MAADOM graduated from Ouachita Baptist University in 2015 with her bachelor of the arts degree in business management and marketing. After graduation, she moved back to her hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma to work as the office manager for her step-dad’s dental practice for over five years. During her time at the office, she was fortunate enough to work with her two step-brothers who are dentists, her step-sister who is a hygienist, and her mom who is the practice administrator.

Recently, she moved to Oklahoma City to work for Catalyst Dental Allies as a practice performance coach for seven dental practices in the OKC Metro area. McKenzie is a member of the American Association of Dental Office Management (AADOM). She received her Fellowship (FAADOM) in 2018 and most recently received her Mastership (MAADOM) designation at the 2022 Conference. In her spare time, she loves to cook, travel, and spend time outside with her dog.