2020. What a year, right? For many offices, 2020 meant survival. For ours, what started as a traumatic year with a pandemic and the tragic, unexpected loss of one of our beloved doctors, turned into a year of thriving. By committing to focus on constant and never-ending improvement, our office was able to consistently meet and exceed our goals. In 2020, revenue produced in our hygiene department alone increased by nearly 40%. In fact, had we not encountered a 6-week hygiene shut down, our hygiene department of 4.25 hygienists working 4-day work weeks, would have surpassed the six figure mark in production.
How, you ask? VISION! We thought DIFFERENTLY. We excelled at training, accountability, empowerment, and consistency and we established SMART Goals. SMART stands for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Based.
You must be thinking, what in the world is this crazy lady talking about?! She just cleans teeth and does some payroll during admin time. Oh boy, would that be so much easier!! The first step in my process of growth was figuring out where we were as a team. Our amazing software helped pull a multitude of stats. It allowed me to look at production, appointment rates, perio acceptance stats, open time tracking, and so much more. Call lists for existing patients who had already been vetted to schedule and keep their appointment were assessed. After studying our monthly, daily, and hourly production numbers for my team, I quickly realized that I needed to look differently at these numbers. I needed to figure out what problem I wanted to solve. I started looking for our key performance indicators (KPIs). For my team, these were our overall periodontal percentages, treatment acceptance rates, open appointment times, reappointment rates, etc. Once I figured out where we were, it was time to decide where we wanted to go. I used the tracking features in my software to help set SMART goals for our team.
When tracking KPIs within our periodontal therapy program, we certainly did not want to become one of “those” offices where we recommended localized SRP on isolated third molars and sell every patient 10 different products. What we did want to do was to make sure we were giving our patients the care they deserved and had entrusted us to give them. To start the process, we collaborated and trained hard as a team. Together, we set our specific periodontal therapy protocols. We went over our standard procedures for every aspect of periodontal care including:
- Diagnostics
- Probing calibration exercises
- In depth exploration of the oral systemic links
- OralDNA® salivary diagnostic options and protocols
- Benefits of different medicaments and products for our patients to use both in and outside of our office
We focused hard on consistency and benefit centered treatment solutions. We created VALUE for our patients. We sought out WELLNESS for our patients! OralDNA® is one of the keys to successfully doing that. For years as a profession, we have talked with patients about the oral systemic links and genetic predispositions. Now we can show them on paper, in a pretty, colorful, easy to understand lab report! Y’all! This is the future of dentistry! I feel that it would be a disservice to my patients to not offer this innovative testing. I encourage you to delve deeper into the options available with OralDNA® Labs. Use this information not just to change your patients’ oral health, but to change your patients’ overall health and to SHOW them the impact their oral health has on their entire body. One of my favorite features of the Alert 2™ test offered by OralDNA® Labs is the MyPerioID® IL-6 portion. How many times have you asked a patient if they have a family history of gum disease? MyPerioID® IL-6 specifically identifies the genotype at the Interleukin 6 gene marker to determine the genetic risk of periodontal disease. This is groundbreaking information to use for periodontal treatment personalization and acceptance.
Once our initial training was complete, we began tracking KPIs weekly to monitor and account for progress. We used this information to investigate what was going well and what could use improvement. We then figured out HOW we would get there. Our weekly meeting is a very positive and constructive opportunity for our team. It encourages creativity and thinking outside the box. It is an amazing thing to be able to trust and empower your team to problem solve in so many innovative ways.
Sheena’s story will continue with Part 2.
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