Production: Your First Challenge in the Practice Performance Matrix™
Roger P. Levin, DDS | April 30, 2015
You learn quite a lot when you work closely with more than 25,000 dental practices as management and marketing consulting clients. Levin Group has organized its vast knowledge about how to grow a practice into what we call The 9 Areas of Expertise:
- Production
- Collections
- Team Building
- Scripting
- Case Acceptance
- New Patient Experience
- Hygiene
- Scheduling
- Marketing
Altogether, these represent a blueprint for practice success in the new dental economy. To make it easier for doctors to understand and take action in these areas, we created an innovative business tool: the Practice Performance Matrix™. As you can see in the illustration of a portion of the Matrix, it drills down in each area of expertise. By answering the questions posed in the Matrix and then scoring your answers, you’ll get a surprisingly clear picture of why your practice falls short of its potential… and how to break through to the next level. (If you’d like to see how your practice measures up to the full Matrix, you can download it here.)
It All Comes Down to Production
Look at the list of the 9 Areas of Expertise and you’ll see that, one way or another, they all contribute to productivity. That’s no accident. Frankly, until recently, a dentist could focus almost entirely on dentistry rather than practice management and still earn a nice living. Now, faced with serious challenges that have nothing to do with clinical dentistry, you and your colleagues need to find ways to increase production.
Levin Group clients who make a serious commitment to growing their practices achieve average first-year production gains of 15%. Effective strategies include:
1. Attract New Patients by Word of Mouth
For maximum cost-effectiveness, implement at least 15 ongoing internal marketing strategies that encourage 40% to 60% of current patients to refer at least one family member or friend per year as a new patient.
2. Reactivate Inactive Patients
Many inactive patients can be brought back into your office with the right scripting and communication strategy. Following our guidelines, most practices reactivate 60+% of their inactive patients within 90 days.
3. Perform Comprehensive Exams
You should give comprehensive annual examinations to all patients… a Five Phase Exam™, which includes:
- Periodontal exam
- Tooth-by-tooth exam
- Cosmetic exam
- Implant exam
- Occlusal exam
Your findings can then serve as the basis for a comprehensive treatment plan.
4. Present the Benefits of Accepting Treatment
When presenting treatment, emphasize the benefits rather than technical details. By influencing rather than informing… communicating to patients how good they’ll look and feel… you can achieve case acceptance of 90% of all cases, not just single-tooth treatment.
5. Follow Up with Patients Who Haven’t Said, “Yes”
Many people now take longer to make spending decisions. If treatment will require out-of-pocket expenditures, give patients time to think it over. If they leave the door open with comments like, “Not right now,” or “I’ll have to think about it,” follow up. Many will eventually accept treatment.
6. Offer a Range of Payment Options
Make paying for treatment convenient and affordable for patients by giving them choices… from discounts for payment-in-full upfront … to a half-now-half-on-completion plan… to credit cards… to outside financing. Offer all options to all patients.
7. Pay Attention to Hygiene Production
Hygiene should account for 25% of total production. Also, because the hygienist can build the relationship and has the opportunity to communicate with patients about their oral health, she helps set the stage for increased doctor production.
8. Upgrade Your Scheduling Systems
When you implement strategies to bring in more new patients and increase production per patient, you’ll soon need a scheduling template and protocols that will enable you and your team to handle increased production efficiently.
9. Delegate as Much as You Can
Delegation will free you up to produce more dentistry without working longer hours. Delegate all non-clinical, day-to-day responsibilities to members of your staff. Levin Group clients who do so spend 98% of their time chairside.
Working with these and other strategies proven in the field with Levin Group clients, you can begin moving your practice in the right direction developing true expertise in production and the other essential areas mapped out in our Practice Performance Matrix™.
Click here to download a free Practice Performance Matrix™, along with instructions about how to rate your practice and interpret your score.
Dr. Roger P. Levin is a third-generation general dentist and the Founder and CEO of Levin Group, Inc., the largest dental management and marketing consulting firm in North America. As a leading authority on dental practice management and marketing, Dr. Levin has developed the scientific systems-based consulting method that increases practice production and profitability, while lowering stress. A keynote speaker for major dental conferences, Dr. Levin presents more than 100 seminars per year. He has authored 68 books and more than 4,000 articles.
