best practices Archives - Page 7 of 9 - Dental practice management consultant, speaker and coach

In this episode Dr. Coughlin discusses the differences and similarities of patients versus customers.

Hello and welcome to Ascent Dental Radio. A program dedicated to the balance between the clinical aspect of health care and the business of health care. And now here is your host, Dr. Kevin Coughlin.

kevin-headshot My name is Dr. Kevin Coughlin, owner and creator of Ascent Dental Solutions. The following podcast is a discussion of the difference and similarities of patients versus customers.

For those of us in the health care industry, my particular expertise is dentistry. For over 34 years I have been practicing dental care in Massachusetts with 14 offices and over 140 employees. I would like the health care professionals, but those particularly associated with dental health to consider patient versus consumer. Is there a difference and should there be a difference? In most cases, I believe the dental profession considers when the mouth is open you’re a patient and when your mouth is closed, you’re a consumer. If you don’t treat both of these in the correct and accurate way, your results to your organization and practice, in my opinion, will suffer.

First during this thought conversation is to consider the patient types. There are generally five types of patients. There are the event-driven, there are the reactive-driven, the proactive-driven, the discretionary-driven and the regenerative-driven.

Of these five classes, the event-driven is when something happens they seek care. If a tooth breaks or they have pain, they come in for a visit. If there is no event, they avoid health care and in particular, dental care.

The reactive-driven patient is they know they should and if something precipitates an issue, they will seek care and treatment. They are simply reactive. They are not proactive.

The proactive-driven patient is tooth-based. The decisions are prioritized one tooth at a time. This tooth is a problem, this area of my health is a problem, I will address it, but they don’t treat themselves systemically or in a whole person type of manner.

The discretionary-driven patient simply says I want to look or feel better and if I have the discretionary income, I will move forward. And the regenerative-driven type patient simply says to themselves, “Is it worth the investment? And if I find value, I will proceed with care and treatment.”

In my opinion, the event, reactive and proactive types are driven by insurance. These patients are a necessary part of a practice but you should understand that in most cases what you will hear for them is the first thing they will say is what does my insurance cover. What is my financial responsibility? If my insurance doesn’t cover it, then I am not going to proceed with care.

The last two groups of patients, which I refer to as discretionary and regenerative types, are non-insurance driven. If they have a problem, they would like to seek care and help and the insurance is just an insularly part of care and treatment.

The following statistics are of interest. The average patient in the United States over 20 years of age spends between $500 and $10,000 per year. If we looked at 1,000 patients, that would equal approximately $500,000 per year. Out of every 1,000 patients approximately 20 patients will say yes to your treatment plan and recommendations. If you could focus on your ability to increase the yes number of patients from 20 to 60, you could increase another $22,000 a year to your organization.

Basically what it boils down to is when you evaluate many organizations and offices particularly in health care, the treatment plan in most cases is acceptable. However, the problem is case acceptance by the patients or i.e. customers, is low. In most cases the poor case acceptance is extremely important for you to focus on to improve the delivery of health care and your overall bottom line to your office and organization.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how well you treatment plan. If your patient or customer is not accepting that treatment plan, your outcomes are going to be poor and your patients and organization will suffer.

In 2009 through 2011, during those two years, approximately 73 percent of the United States’ population saw a dentist. Those between the ages of age 16 and 25 were missing three teeth, and this includes wisdom teeth. Those over the age of 65 were missing nine teeth.

With the population between the ages of 16 and 90, that comes to approximately 60 million missing teeth. In 2011, it was recorded that only 2.1 million implants were placed in the United States. This means that 58 million people, customers, patients missed the opportunity to replace these missing teeth. Again, this is a glaring amount of evidence indicating that the treatments were planned but patient acceptance of doing the treatment was certainly lacking.

You should understand vision and purpose. What is actually in the best interest of your patients or customers; their oral health, systemic health, social health, lifelong health?

In my opinion, when you start as a practitioner or a health care provider and your goal is to focus on lifelong health rather than just oral, systemic, social, you will get a better outcome. Patients or customers will be moved when they understand the value and the value is the goal of lifelong health.

When you evaluate consumers in the United States, data indicates that the majority, 80 percent, will finance purchases over $1,000. If your practice or organization is not offering adequate financial arrangements, whether it’d be through CareCredit, Wells Fargo or other opportunities, this could possibly be part of the reason why case acceptance is poor.

You should also be able to understand and distinguish trust and value. As I like to say, if your patients do not believe, like and trust, or BLT with you, then it is very difficult to get case acceptance. And when you do get case acceptance and the patient does not believe, like or trust in you, I question whether you should provide care and treatment because ultimately it will lead to problems.

My suggestion is you should be focusing on aesthetics, function and structure. If you combine these three elements, you will significantly see an improvement in case acceptance. Understand that some of your patients will do nothing, some will do something and others have to do something.

In the end, to determine whether your case acceptance is adequate and you’re doing a good job communicating and your patient base actually believes, likes and trusts in you, you have to provide tracking. You must understand are your patients making an appointment, yes or no? Are they accepting your treatment, yes or no? Are they referring family and friends to your practice or organization, yes or no? Are they paying for the care and service on the way out of your office, yes or no? What is the revenue that you are generating per day? This data will tell you whether you’re heading in the right direction and whether you’re moving forward in the direction you should be.

In the end, health care providers are held in high esteem. Keep in mind that selling is not negative. If the product has value and service and you’re providing value to your patients, then it is your utmost goal to make sure that not only is your treatment plan acceptable, but your patients are accepting your treatment plan and moving forward.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the podcast. You can get more information on my website www.ascent-dental-solutions.com. My name is Dr. Coughlin and thank you for listening.

Hello and welcome to Ascent Dental Radio. A program dedicated to the balance between the clinical aspect of health care and the business of health care. And now here is your host, Dr. Kevin Coughlin.

Welcome. My name is Dr. Kevin Coughlin, creator and owner of Ascent Dental Solutions, with a focus on developing your team, product and service, education, knowledge, training and the creation of the appropriate processes and procedures to make your product, service or organization better.

The following podcast talks about good profits and true growth, why do we do it and how should it be done.

The first step is understanding the culture of your organization or business. That culture may be focused only on money, working faster, working harder, seeing more clients, more patients, more customers. Your company many deal with problems rather than avoiding them. Individuals or team members may do a job but don’t understand their job.

You should next, understand the strength of your company and hopefully the single largest strength should be the great people that make up your organization. And if you don’t have great people, it is your responsibility as leaders and management to improve your team members’ strengths and decrease their weaknesses.

The next is focusing on your infrastructure, the location. Make sure you have committed leaders who really understand leadership and they understand the difference between leaders and managers. You need a team that is hardworking, dedicated and motivated. I suggest that a varied ethnic group and leaders in the field that you’re promoting and in the services you’re recommending be part of your team.

Next, understand weaknesses; the weaknesses in your products, your service or your organization. Almost all weaknesses can be overcome by extensive and correct training and complete and total understanding of the correct processes and procedures to deliver a final valuable product, service and getting the message out clearly and consistently. Over and over I have seen organizations that their single weakest link is poor or limited communication. I wished organizations could work on autopilot, but in the real world, excellent and consistent communication is necessary. Failure to provide it will be a guaranteed failure in your organization, products or service. You have to understand how to achieve these goals and you must be motivated to want to achieve these goals.

Start by looking at all your processes and procedures and in almost all cases it should start with the first point of contact with your customer or patient base. Review, assess the strengths, the weaknesses. Review, review again, train and improve until the process and procedures are perfect.

What’s most important for your business to succeed are the relationships amongst team members, leaders and managers. This relationship also must extend to your customer base or patients. How do you cultivate this? It usually occurs with time, but in most cases it will occur with excellent processes, excellent procedures and outstanding communication.

What are bad profits? These are profits that are earned at the expense of a customer relationship. Whenever a customer or a patient feels misled, mistreated, ignored or coerced, then the profits from that customer or patient are considered bad profits. They arise when a company tries to save money by delivering a lousy customer experience. The company extracts value from customers instead of adding value to their customer or patient base.

Companies that focus on bad profits will have growth suffer, reputations will become hurt, customers and patients become alienated and employees become demoralized. You become vulnerable to your competition and over and over I have seen competition will win out. Your business, many times, when it focuses on short profits or bad profits will not succeed in the long term. They may get initial success in the short term but ultimately failure in the long run. In order to avoid bad profits, leaders, managers, team members, all have to focus on aspects of the organization that create an excellent customer or patient experience. This comes once again with outstanding communication and outstanding leadership.

In the end, what you really want to do is treat your customers the way you’d want to be treated and that’s the same for products or services. What can we do? Start by changing the message and sometimes it’s necessary to change the messenger. If the culture is bad, action steps must be taken. Know and understand not only your job but the jobs of the team members around you. Be not just good but attempt to be the best and a relentless effort to excel at whatever product, service or organization you’re in. It’s critical not only to know your strengths but understand your weaknesses and get help with those weaknesses.

What are good profits? Good profits are earned when customers or patients become enthusiastic and cooperate. They occur when their customers or patients want to continually come back for additional services and products. They can’t help but want to tell friends and family and acquaintances about their excellent experience. They become what we refer to in business as promoters. Promoters are individuals that market your business, product and services. They are loyal individuals who you see over and over again. They believe, like and trust in you, in your organization and they provide the most cost-effective growth for your company. They are loyal.

Bad profits create what we refer to in business as detractors. Detractors hurt you, your company, your services and your products. They drive up cost by reporting numerous problems and wasting company time. They bad-mouth your company and your company’s reputation. They strangle growth, they demoralize an organization and the people in it. How can you avoid detractors? Service, better service and even better service and communicating clearly. This comes with written processes and procedures that if proven over time to be successful and that all team members, managers and leaders understand what these processes and procedures are and what the ultimate goal is, is to provide a high final valued product. Once this is achieved, you will not only have a promoter but you will have an extremely successful business.

There’s a third group of customers or patients and they are called passive groups. The three groups; promoters, detractors and passive individuals. The focus of the passive individual is someone who is not really a detractor but not really a promoter. They can be satisfied but they are unenthusiastic. They can be easily wooed to one or your other competitors and can easily be moved into a detractor or promoter category if not handled carefully. Most businesses should understand what their Net Promoter Score is or NPS. This is simply promoters minus detractors will equal Net Promoter Score. The goal of all organizations is to attempt to have 100 percent promoters which is unrealistic or worse 100 percent detractors, which is almost impossible because you will no longer be in business. Most companies fall somewhere between 40 and 80 percent. The closer you can get to 100 percent, the better your processes and procedures are, the better your organization is and the better your long term success will be.

The ultimate question is how do you create the appropriate processes and procedures? You must review not only your organizations, but your leaders, your managers and your team members’ strength and weaknesses and understand your company’s strengths and opportunities. The goal is to create a high Net Promoter Score. This will create for your business high retention rates, high margins, high annual spending, cost efficiencies, excellent marketing through word of mouth and an increase in market share.

Start by measuring what matters. Understand what makes your customer or patient satisfied and happy. This comes with quality assurance and quality assessment on every point of service. Start by reviewing and improving your existing processes and procedures and not only focus on your customers and patients, but focus on your team members and leaders and managers. All areas of an organization need constant improvement and that will come with constant communication, improved communication.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast and you are interested in more information, please go to my website www.ascent-dental-solutions.com or email me at info@ascent-dental-solutions.com. Thanks, I hope you enjoyed the podcast and I look forward to speak with you in the future. My name is Dr. Kevin Coughlin.

Your front line team members are the first client/customer facing representatives anyone comes into contact with when they call or enter your dental practice. Hopefully you’ve trained them to be both empathetic and professional. Let’s say you’ve gone a step further and they are also well – versed on best practices surrounding customer care. That’s it, you’re done!

Not so fast.

What happens where they’re engaged with a real life customer and the phone rings? Is your answering system as good as your staff? If not, then you have a big hole that needs a filling.

First off, the phone should be answered within four rings. If staff are too busy to do so, let it go to the answering system. Nobody wants to hear, “this is Dr. Smith’s office. I’m going to have to put you on hold.”

If it isn’t possible for any member of your team to grab that phone call within four rings, your message has to be the next best thing to speaking to a real person.

First, the answering system should allow patients a choice. They should be allowed to leave their name and phone number along with a request or question. Alternately, the caller should be able to opt to stay on the line and wait. But if they do so, it is vitally important they are reminded every 30 seconds that you haven’t forgotten about them and that someone will be with them shortly. If, after two minutes, they are still waiting, they should have an additional option to leave a message. Here is where you differentiate yourself by promising to return the call within 15 minutes. Why is this important? That 15 minutes buys your time before they call another practice to set up an appointment.

Still not convinced about the importance of this seemingly minor issue? I’ve got a simple test for you. Do you remember the last time you were put on hold for a long time? Did you call back? I would guess you might have moved onto another provider.

We are all busy. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have time for clients. How you treat someone when you are busy speaks volumes about how much you would value them as a customer.

If you want to talk about how I can transform your dental practice into a customer service dynamo, please get in touch.

So you’ve got a dental office with technicians and great patient care specialists. Who’s the most important person in your business?

The answer is surprising to some. The surprise is that it’s not you. It’s actually the front-desk person. They are a patient’s first and last point of contact. They set the tone for the patient’s experience at your practice.

Female patient coming to dental surgery check-up appointment reception

He or she must possess patience, knowledge, grace under pressure, and the ability to show empathy, along with being efficient and effective.

When recruiting for this crucial position, the following skill sets are of key importance:

∙ Sales skills

. Telephone skills

∙ Gathering and interpreting data

∙ Patient orientation

∙ Developing and providing information about a comprehensive treatment plan

∙ Reviewing financial options for the patient to receive care and treatment

∙ The ability to generate reports to assess the success and progress of your business team

∙ Review and make necessary adjustments to procedures and processes through daily, biweekly, weekly, or monthly meetings and discussions

As you can see, this is a position that goes well beyond “receptionist.” Your front desk person has to wear many hats throughout the day, and it all starts with how they answer the phone.

If you want to talk about how I can make your dental practice a dynamo in customer service, please get in touch.

To me, T.E.A.M. means “together employees achieve mastership.”

It’s a convenient acronym. But it’s more than that. In order for it to work leadership has to
make sure its team has the tools to succeed. Training, education, attitude and money are
the building blocks. Take away any of those elements and your team is just a gathering of
paid employees.

What-are-the-factors-of-successful-leadership

Medical team of three professional woman at dental surgery portrait

Experience has taught me that people, who both want and need employment, are the ideal candidates for building a great team. I’ve seen how people who hate their jobs and those who don’t need their jobs are never really fully committed to them.

Commitment, loyalty, trust and a desire to work are the ingredients for fantastic employees
who become integral parts of amazing teams. And at the risk of sounding somewhat agist -
and having been a former member of this cohort - I’ve found people in their 20s go through
so many of their own changes that the odds of them still being with your team into their 30s
is not great. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give young people opportunities. But do so
knowing that your job is probably seen as a stepping stone to something bigger and better.

The average dental office will have fewer than ten employees. That works in the owner’s
favour. Managing and coaching a small staff provides excellent opportunities for
mentorship and skills development while also delivering exceptional service to the patients.
But that tidy size comes at a price. Fewer staff means difficulties in times of family
commitments, illness and such. However when you have a real TEAM they pull together
and help each other out - so that your patient experience doesn’t have to suffer.

Another quality I look for when building a team, is a person’s marketing, sales and
business experience. Knowing the field of dentistry is a nice but not necessarily essential
skill for an employee to have. If forced to choose between someone who is knowledgeable
and one who has great sales and management skills, I will always pick the latter. Clinical
skills can be taught; teaching management and sales are much more difficult.

That doesn’t mean your team should be devoid of dental experience. You will always need
to have individuals with a background and knowledge of the dental business and dental
hygiene. I would be lying if I said it is easy to find such individuals; in fact, it is extremely
difficult. In some cases, it may appear impossible, but it can be done.

There is an old adage in business that for every $10,000 you pay a person, you should
spend a month to find the RIGHT person. What that means is that if you’re going to pay
someone $50,000 a year, you should be willing to spend five months on the hiring process.
I can’t emphasize that enough. It is a critical step in accomplishing your goal of developing
the ideal dental business. Not selecting the right individuals when putting together your
team will result in an enormous cost to you and your organization over the long run.

If this sounds like a lot of work - it is. But it’s the kind of work that if done right, will be pay dividends every day you open your doors.

Are you a believer or an achiever? Do you cruise through your day believing you’re doing a good job or do you actually have a strategy to make it happen?

I read statistics recently that showed 92 percent of CEOs believe they deliver excellent customer satisfaction. The reality however, showed that only about 8 percent actually hit that goal.

The 92 percent may be true believers. But belief in itself doesn’t deliver anything other than a false sense of achievement. Making the leap to actually producing results requires something I call the 3Ds: design, develop and deliver.

So how do you do this?

First, take your final product and divide it up into the elements needed to design a complete customer experience. Then hone and further develop and refine that complete customer experience on an ongoing basis. Remember it’s not a ‘do and done’ thing: it requires attention and adaptability to influences both within and without the organization.

Finally, you and your team have to deliver.

Every. Single. Time.

Failing on that third ‘D’ makes everything else pointless. I’ve seen this happen again and again. And the result is wasteful spending on advertising, additional sales staff, acquisitions, products and gimmicks all in a desperate attempt to achieve a goal that is not clearly defined or understood.

Would you set out on a road trip without a map and travel plans? Of course not. So why would you do it in business?

The key is to make the connection between profits and your customer satisfaction experience. Many managers don’t understand this connection and spend their time squeezing staff and customers in pursuit of fast profits over long term success.

They never understand that a satisfied customer base is actually the best street level marketing team a company can have. Customers talk to their friends and colleagues and rave about your service at their dinner tables, social gatherings and family events. These advocates have a level of access and a credibility that no salesperson could ever match. What’s more, they’re free to you if you deliver a great customer experience.

Of course the opposite is true. Deliver a mediocre or poor customer experience and your business will suffer. Instead of talking your business up, people will ask their friends, family and colleagues for suggestions on where to find a better experience. So you’ve not only lost that one customer – but everyone else they talk to.

When developing that customer experience, look at all of it. From your appointment system to the cleanliness of your washrooms to the magazines in your waiting room, all of it is about delivering the ideal customer experience.

Design, develop and deliver. Turn that into your business mantra, your business culture and you’ll see the results in your bottom line.

If you’re a dentist or other healthcare professional and you’d like to discuss how to lead a business that works for you please get in touch.

In dentistry as in most businesses, how your business operates says more about your company than you might suspect.

The culture of your workplace reflects your company values. If staff attend carefully to patients instead of rushing them in and out, then you have a more healthy culture.

Your people are your company’s greatest asset. In order to find continued success you need a hardworking, dedicated and motivated team. But if you do not have a great people-culture, it’s your responsibility to improve it.

I have been in this game a long time. I have found that one of the key factors in success has been the positive relationships with team members, leaders and managers have internally and also with patients. It doesn’t happen overnight. You have to cultivate this over time with excellent processes, procedures and outstanding communication.

Why bother?

Good relationships lead to what I call ‘good profits.’ This is a continuous revenue stream that comes from good customer interactions and relationships. In essence you’re building customer loyalty not on price, but service based on a personal touch. People want to stay with you. When this is done they will tell their friends and family members.

Of course the opposite can true. Bad profits are those revenues earned when you chase after every dollar and squeeze employees at every opportunity. They won’t like you. It will show in the way they act around patients and each other. As they say “you can’t fake authenticity.”

The result is patients don’t feel loyalty and they don’t return. Worse still they may also tell their friends about the experience they had. An unsatisfied customer is more than a missed opportunity – it’s multiple lost opportunities.

Unsurprisingly, what you need to do is treat your customers the way you’d want to be treated.

Good profits are earned when customers or patients continually come back for additional services and products and rave to friends and family about their excellent experience.

These customers become promoters of your business and they’re worth far more than any advertising dollars you’ll spend. People trust word-of-mouth and they are the most cost-effective growers of your business you’ll ever have.

The ultimate question is how do you create the appropriate processes and procedures? Start by measuring what makes your customer or patient satisfied and happy. This comes with quality assurance and quality assessment on every point of service. Review and improve your existing processes and procedures and focus on your customers and patients, plus team members, leaders and managers. All areas of an organization need constant improvement and that will come with continual organizational communication.

The goal is you want your team members and patients to (BLT) Believe, Like and Trust you and your organization.

So what does your business focus on: bad or good profits?

If you’re a dentist or other healthcare professional and you’d like to discuss how to lead a business that works for you please get in touch.

Hello and welcome to Ascent Dental Radio. A program dedicated to the balance between the clinical aspect of health care and the business of health care. And now here is your host, Dr. Kevin Coughlin.

kevin-transparent Welcome. My name is Dr. Kevin Coughlin, creator and owner of Ascent Dental Solutions, with a focus on developing your team, product and service, education, knowledge, training and the creation of the appropriate processes and procedures to make your product, service or organization better.

I hope you enjoy the following podcast, which I’ll refer to as the Administrative Scale. This is basically a scale or a system for success. It is made up of goals, purposes, policies, plans, programs, projects, orders, ideal scenes, statistics.

All of these processes and procedures are to create a valuable final product, whether this is a product, a service, but ultimately the goal is to improve your organization and help your team members for success. The final valuable product can be either good services, but the ultimate goal is a total package or end result that provides value.

My expertise in health care is simple patient satisfaction, which is based on a high quality and a valuable final product, which in all cases simply means your patient or customer has found value in your care, service, product or some combination.

The final product has a series of sub-products that can either make or break you for success. Whether it’d be a patient or a customer, value is simply something that is worth something to someone and exchange is the process of offering something valuable in return for some other valuable product or service. Sales and delivery, always deliver what you promise. And finally agreements, always honor what you’ve agreed upon.

To emphasize this, focus on value, exchange, sales and delivery and agreements. In most cases, there are four basic conditions of any exchange. There is a criminal exchange, a partial exchange, a fair exchange, and the ultimate best is an exchange in abundance, which is almost unknown in today’s society but is the key to success and expansion not just in your business, but in your life. There are similar scales for various conditions and these conditions have power, power change, affluence, normal, emergency, danger and non-existence.

In non-existence, this is an area that doesn’t produce any valuable final product. The group, the organization, the product, the service is not producing, it is non-existent and it means your business has failed.

Prior to this you go through a stage of danger. Danger simply means the end is near and immediate action is needed. Things must be handled now and immediately. Statistics show a continually steady decline in product, service and ultimately the decline in your organization. Statistics will plunge down very steeply. Senior executives or so called leaders find themselves doing the job of another activity because the areas are in trouble.

Following danger is emergency. You know the production and the collection is not what it should be. Stats are unchanging and the trend is going downhill. If no action is taken, things will fall apart. Always remember that nothing stays the same. They are either expanding or contracting.

Normal conditions, things aren’t neither stellar nor poor. They’re fairly normal or static. And keep in mind that this condition is rare. In most cases, a business is either expanding or contracting. And normal conditions are, in my opinion, a thing of the past.

We then move through affluence. This is a steep increase in statistics, whether it be the number of new patients, increase in valuable final products, an increase in revenue, things seem to be going very good. This is important. You and yourself, and your organization should strive to maintain affluence and push above and beyond this particular condition.

The next is a power condition. This is even better than affluence. The statistics have gone into a very high range. There is such an abundance of production that the momentary halts and/or dips cannot pull it down. Your business and organization is flowing quickly and successfully.

The next condition is power change. There are only two conditions for a change when you are so successful. One change is it’s time to turn over to someone else, or you’re so very successful that you’ve decided it is time to sell or retire.

The next condition is formulas. The emergency formula is to create a better product, a final product that offers value. You must constantly, when you evaluate your business, promote it, continue to produce, look to change your operating basis, economize, deliver and stiffen discipline.

If you follow these rules of engagement, your business will always stay in a state of affluence or better than affluence. And that is the goal, not only in life, but in business.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast and you are interested in more information, please go to my website www.ascent-dental-solutions.com or email me at info@ascent-dental-solutions.com. Thanks, I hope you enjoyed the following podcast and I look forward to speak with you in the future. My name is Dr. Kevin Coughlin.

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E8: Podcast: Differences and similarities of patients VS customers

In this episode Dr. Coughlin discusses the differences and similarities of patients versus customers.

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In this episode Dr. Coughlin discusses the differences and similarities of patients versus customers.

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