How to Choose the Right Dental Practice Management Consultant
A dental practice management consultant can help you vastly improve the day to day operations of your practice. While a dental business coach assists with matters such as your business plan and long-term and short-term goal setting, a dental practice management consultant creates systems and processes to boost efficiency and profitability. Yet not all consultants are right for every practice. Here’s how to choose the one that is right for you.
What Dental Practice Management Consultants Do
Your dental practice management consultant will take a hard look at your daily operations and identify the areas that are not working as well as they should. Perhaps the patient flow from appointment setting through check-in through treatment is bogged down. Maybe your overhead is higher than it needs to be, or your payroll system is inefficient. Your consultant will help you develop new systems that are streamlined and profitable.
In addition, your consultant will help you change the office culture to one of accountability and support. This is best done by involving your entire team in developing and implementing the changes. This promotes buy-in, making every team member feel heard, valued, and responsible for making and maintaining changes. All team members should hold themselves and each other accountable, and foster a culture in which everyone is empowered to support each other.
Questions to Ask
In order to make a successful match, it is important to carefully interview potential practice consultants. Here are some questions to ask:
How will you incorporate our core values, mission, and vision into your recommendations, and how can you help us express them?
How do you see your role?
What is your definition of profitability?
How do you view office culture, and what steps will you take to improve it?
How do you promote buy-in and accountability?
How can you improve our communications, both internally and with our potential and current patients?
How will you evaluate and improve our dental hygiene department?
A dental practice consultant can be enormously valuable in helping you streamline your practice to improve efficiency and profitability. However, not all dental practice consultants are the same. It is vital that you find one who “fits” with your practice, and will work with your entire team to create buy-in and accountability without fundamentally changing your core values, mission, or vision. Although interviewing dental practice consultants can be time consuming, the rewards are well worth the effort.
Ascent Dental Solutions is a full-service agency dedicated to helping dentists build their practices and map out their careers. It is the brainchild of Dr. Kevin Coughlin, who earned his doctorate at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and currently serves as a faculty member there. While Dr. Coughlin continues to practice dentistry as the principal owner of the 14-location Baystate Dental PC, he has a strong passion for helping fellow dentists maximize their success. If you are interested in learning how to take your dental practice to the next level, please contact Ascent Dental Solutions today at 413-224-2659 to learn how Dr. Coughlin can help.
