Productive Scheduling

It is a great misconception that scheduling is the easiest admin job. That’s why when a new person is hired, especially one with no dental experience, this is where they are placed. Then the clinical team complains because the schedule is crazy.

The truth is that this is a difficult job—especially when the phone rings and the patient is demanding that the scheduler find something that fits within her schedule. For example, Mrs. Smith wants to have her crown seated at 8 a.m. on Wednesday; however, Mary, the new office admin, was told that only high-production appointments should be scheduled during that time, so Mrs. Smith goes away unhappy.

Here are some suggestions to make this a bit more acceptable for the entire office.

1.    Declare a daily goal for each provider and/or for the office.
There is a cost for opening your doors. Determine what that is, and set your goal accordingly. If you don't aim for a specific target, you will never hit it.

2.    Have the doctor(s) list out the ideal day.
This is a fantastic team meeting agenda item. Some prefer to do major work first thing in the morning while others don't really wake up until around 10:00. Your dentist may not be fully energized until the afternoon, so perhaps the best time to schedule appointments is later in the day.

Decide what can and cannot be scheduled together. Typically, it doesn't work well to schedule 2 crown preps at 8 a.m. Yet you could put a crown prep and a limited exam together. This would allow the doctor to numb the crown prep while the assistant takes an exam on the emergency.

3.    Put guiding blocks on the schedule.
Once the ideal schedule is determined, put blocks on the schedule as a guide for whoever is answering the phone, and you take the guesswork out of where to schedule that crown seat.

4.    Save time for emergency appointments.
Whatever time these appointments are scheduled, it seems the clinical team is never pleased. We have found that a reasonable solution is to ask the assistants at each morning huddle to identify two emergency times—one in the morning and one in the afternoon. This allows the scheduler to tell Mr. Lee that he can come in at 10:30 or 3:15 with that toothache. 

Of course, there will always be adjustments to the rules, but those should be the exceptions rather than the norm. Understanding the “rules” allows the entire team to work with the scheduler to create that ideal day.

To learn more on how you can improve the processes in your dental office to help you manage your practice with confidence and achieve new levels of productivity join me on my upcoming webinar. The Secrets of a Productive Practice – September 22, 2015, 11:00 AM MDT. Register now >>

Author: Denise Ciardello
Co-founder Global Team Solutions

What Profitable Practices Need to Know: Set Up a Fee Schedule

If you want to be a profitable dental practice, there are a few secrets you need to know. The first secret is setting up a fee schedule for your common dental procedures.

Your fee schedule should include your usual fees as well as the usual insurance coverage for your offered procedures. Setting up a fee schedule and including these prices allows you to do two major things for your patients:

• Quickly estimate what their portion of the bill will be.
• Set accurate expectations regarding the insurance portion of their bill.

This will not only allow you to provide more accurate treatment and insurance estimates for your patients but it will also benefit you by giving you a more precise accounting of your daily practice production. This also gives your front office employees the chance to collect fees closer to their exact amount each day.

When you can, group your patients by employer. By grouping them together it lets you update insurance information on a group basis rather than individually, which saves your staff hours of time. This will also allow you to make fee updates and apply them to the whole group instead of the time-consuming process of updating each individual patient record.

Assess your fee schedule every six months to make sure your fees are comparable with your dental peers. This will allow you to make effective practice decisions as you regularly examine your fees.

It is important that you revise your fee schedule just as often as insurance companies update their coverage tables to make sure you are reimbursed correctly. When you adjusting your fees more than once a year it lets you gradually raise your fees. This will make it easier for your patients to accept the price change. You may not want to adjust your fees, especially when that means raising them, but this allows you to compensate for the rising operating costs you face, such as lab fees, equipment costs and office utilities.

To learn more on how you can improve the processes in your dental office to help you manage your practice with confidence and achieve new levels of productivity join Easy Dental on an upcoming webinar. The Secrets of a Productive Practice – September 22, 2015, 11:00 AM MDT. Register now >>

Author: Cindy Day Hauk

Founder at CKD Practice Management