Do You Ever Think About Who You Were Before AADOM? I Remember…
Every workday, I transformed into the dental office octopus who juggles check-in, check-out, phone calls, emails, schedules, claims, reports, insurance, doctors, team members, etc. …
There’s more to our role than the tasks, though. We are the co-captains of the office, working hand-in-hand with dentists to produce the vision they had when they opened a business meant to serve others. We are the encouragers of our dental teams, keeping morale high and their focus on patients. We are also the concierge for our patients.
Always wanting to improve, I asked myself, “Where could I learn how to be better: for my team, my patients, my doctor, and myself?”
I attended a women’s enrichment course and realized during the event that I needed to be accountable for investing in myself professionally. I started seeking professional development on a higher level. An internet search of “Dental Office Management” yielded articles and job listings, and then there was the American Association of Dental Office Management. Excitedly, I explored the content of the AADOM site and found a plethora of educational modules, a distinction program, and photos of happy beaming faces at a conference that gathered like-minded people from across the nation. Without hesitation, I joined AADOM, and within the first few months of becoming a member, I had fulfilled all requirements to become a Fellow of AADOM except for attending a conference. I was soaking in every delicious morsel of education AADOM offers, and I still am!
Some of my very favorite courses were Peoplework not Paperwork by Debra Englehart-Nash, Customer Service that Gets You Noticed, Winterizing Your Practice by Teresa Duncan, Must Have Metrics by Penny Reed; the OM101 series, Manager Moments series, Phone Skills 4-Part Series; Courageous Conversations by Katherine Eitel Belt, and Creating a Healthy Work Environment. Every team member at your practice should take the Phone Skills 4-Part series; its value is immeasurable and can be applied to communicating with the patient in the office. Through the education provided within these courses, I have stopped being a dental octopus and enjoy a more productive daily workflow. I improved my phone skills with better vocabulary, applied metrics to manage the practice’s health, learned techniques to make patients and the team feel valued and appreciated, and used tools to implement changes within the practice to achieve the dentist’s goals. I’ve learned which systems work best within my software to accomplish a seamless delegation of tasks. Luckily for us, AADOM continually adds educational content to keep us updated with recent changes and technologies in dentistry.
Once I found AADOM, took all the modules (available to members for free), and prepped for my fellowship induction, I thought: I wish I had known about AADOM sooner! Aside from becoming a Fellow, I earned Coding Certificates from the ADA. I was among the first 40 people to earn the DISIPC (Dental Industry Specialist in Infection Prevention and Control) designation through OSAP before it became available nationwide because of AADOM.
We have access to the best educators within the industry, a plethora of web-based CE, certifications to earn, designations to pursue, and a TRIBE to lean on! Come LEARN, GROW, AND CONNECT with us; we mean it, literally!
About the Author
Lora Graetzer, FAADOM, DISIPC, is a lifetime member of AADOM and is dedicated to professional education and personal growth. She was one of the first 40 nationwide candidates to earn the designation of Dental Industry Specialist in Infection Prevention and Control. She is also the Vice President of the Baltimore/Annapolis, Maryland chapter of AADOM, lovingly known as AADOM BAM. Check out the educational opportunities that await you at www.aadombam.com…Click to open link in a new tab….
