Problem Summary
- “I don’t need someone telling me how to run my practice. I just need more patients in the chairs.”
- “Excuse me, Doctor. Let me clarify. Is this a marketing issue or a scheduling issue?”
- “It’s not marketing. I have enough patients to be booked out more than two months. The problem is holes in the schedule. Patient appointments don’t get verified. Patients cancel, and no one reschedules anyone in their spot. Today alone, I had over $2,000 in cancellations and so-shows.
Analysis
- “What do you see as the biggest problem, Doctor?”
- “My staff just isn’t getting it done. I can’t tell if they’re too busy, don’t like picking up the phone, or maybe, they just like the breaks in the schedule. Whatever the reason, they don’t seem to understand or care how important this is to me.”
- Employee management of scheduling is a difficult task, with several issues involved:
- Focus. Day-to-day, most employees focus on the tasks at-hand, which usually means dealing with patients and their immediate needs and dealing with doctors and their immediate needs. When beyond-the-immediate-focus tasks arise, it takes a tremendous management effort to get staff motivated to action.
- Quality. The quality of staff in a dental office can vary. Some staff need little supervision to produce excellent results, but most need a lot. This means constant training, oversight, review of results, and feedback. Few offices have the time or resources.
- Motivation. It is very difficult to align the revenue motivation of employees with the revenue motivation of the owner.
- Accountability. When multiple tasks are spread over multiple employees, accountability becomes too diffuse. If a dental office could afford to hire one person to be in charge of keeping the schedule full, the failure or success could be pinpointed. But, this is impractical for most dental offices, and it is all too common for dental office employees, even those with clearly defined responsibility, to point to extenuating circumstances (sometimes very valid circumstances).
Solution
Planet DDS contracted with an ex-office manager of 25 years, Bridget, who had moved to a remote part of Idaho and was excited to work from home. They trained her on Denticon and reviewed telephone technique with her. A Planet DDS account representative, Bridget, the dentist and office manager developed an extensive office profile and workflow process.
Bridget was given the primary task of confirming appointments and filling any holes in the schedule. Because Denticon is a web-based application, Bridget is able to see all appointments online, real-time. Besides being able to confirm appointments just as if she were in the office, she was able to access the short appointment list and fill appointment when cancellations arose.
Bridget’s work is monitored and reviewed daily by the Planet DDS Account Representative and is sent in summary form to the office. Essentially, Bridget became an extended staff member of the office, without the dentist needing to hire and manage her himself.
Result
Within the first month, the holes in the schedule disappeared and production was up over 15%. Planet DDS’s charges for Bridget were less than the doctor would have paid to hire an equivalent position, and the increase in revenue dwarfed the expense.
Post Script
After a front desk staff member gave notice at the office, the dentist chose to forward all in-coming calls to Bridget, and he is exploring other ways to outsource non-clinical tasks to Planet DDS.