Kiera and Kristy discuss ways your practice can completely “drain the lemon” of juice (aka, financial opportunity) without becoming completely overwhelmed. This happens by identifying a goal and reverse engineering it. Kiera and Kristy give numerous examples of how this works, as well as other opportunities for hidden value in your practice.

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Transcript:

Kiera Dent (00:00)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is such a special day. I hope you guys are having the best day because I'm having a great day because today I'm podcasting with our one and only Kristy Treasure, one of our incredible consultants. And I am so excited to have Kristy with us. Kristy, how are you doing today?

 

Kristy (00:17)

Gosh, it's fantastic. The first day is spring and we're gonna bring some new life to clients here. Add potential clients, right?

 

Kiera Dent (00:24)

I agree. I completely

 

agree with you, Kristy And honestly, if you guys have not met Kristy, Kristy is incredible. She's been on our team. Kristy, feel is just like the queen of wanting to have these amazing practices, just hit great numbers. Kristy loves numbers. She loves to dig in. And Kristy has this like very delicate leadership style. Like I watch you and I see you just transform practices. You gain their trust, you build their trust, you help team members.

 

I mean, offices who've said, Kiera I only want to work with you, are working with Kristy and loving her. And so it's just really fun, Kristy, to have someone who just is so passionate about dentistry. And I'm just so happy to have you on the podcast with me today. So that's a little intro to Kristy. If you haven't met her, haven't heard from her, you definitely need to. So Kristy, love having you on our team. It's always a treasure.

 

Kristy (01:11)

Thank you. I love being here. It's a great culture and you know what? We just have fun serving clients and that's what it's about.

 

Kiera Dent (01:19)

We totally do. And so Kristy, I want to join the podcast today because I feel I've been watching you consult some clients and I've been seeing it's fun in our morning huddle. Don't worry guys, in Dental Team we have a morning huddle. You can tell I used to be a dental assistant, team member, that's what I do. And so Kristy, we always share client wins and it's really fun because then we can share from consultants like, hey, what are you doing really well? What things are we doing well?

 

And Kristy, I've been watching, she's been posting up some really fun changes that she's been able to do with practices, so much so that offices who have never been able to hit certain dollar amounts in their production, things that they never believed were possible, getting overheads like, Kristy is burning and churning and doing it, it's like, Kristy, you come in with this like delicate wave of authority and it's just beautiful. And so I kind of wanted to talk, not necessarily specific to these practices.

 

But I mean, offices who have never had 100 grand, Kristy's been able to help them. Offices who have never been profitable, she's been able to help them. Offices who feel like they can't get their leadership team on board, Kristy's getting them. People who say like, we'll never be able to make an operations manual. I'm watching and Kristy you're just like getting these offices to navigate along. And so I thought today would be really fun for us to talk about maybe what are some of the tips or tricks. Again, not necessarily specific to these practices, but things you see overarching that really work to add.

 

production to a practice or get a team bought into it. So let's start first. mean, everybody always wants to geek out on numbers. So Kristy, what are some of the things that you've found are just really successful? I mean, you're an office manager of a very, very, very successful practice. You've consulted lots and lots and lots of practices even before coming to Dental A Team. You've got some history with you. So Kristy, let's kind of share some Kristy magic of what are some of the things you've seen that really help impact numbers in a practice quickly and easily with a whole team bought into that.

 

Kristy (03:06)

Yeah, would say first off and foremost, like obviously picking maybe the top five metrics to start working on and every doctor in office talks about production and collection. And so starting with some of the basics that they already understand, but also like.

 

Figuring out that point, what are we working for? Not just in a five year or 10 year range. I mean, you talk about that all the time, but also what are we looking for this year? And then reverse engineering it. Because if we don't have a point to guide to,

 

It's just numbers and even when we're talking percentages, we can have 100 % of collections, but is it enough to pay the bills? Is it enough to do the goals that we're reaching for as a team? So definitely it's about starting where they're at and then letting them see something bigger, if you will.

 

Kiera Dent (04:07)

And Kristy,

 

I think it's such a good thing because like when teams just feel like they're only about today, right? Like it's like, here's my daily bread today, but we don't understand the bigger picture. This is oftentimes when offices get fresher and they're like, my team isn't even looking down the line. They're not taking the ownership. They're not doing any of these things. So Kristy, how do you get a team to look further down the line and not feel the overwhelm, not feel like, cause you know, you come in and start to change. How do you have some tips to navigate with team members who maybe aren't as pro?

 

Getting into it.

 

Kristy (04:38)

Yeah, I would say number one, I mean, we're starting out the year, we're ending first quarter. And so to think, ⁓ I want to hit a million dollars by the end of the year. That's such a big overwhelming number that we literally break it down. We can project out where are they currently, you know,

 

Where are their numbers currently projected to hit at the end of the year? And then reverse engineer that. Guys, my gosh, we're only $1,000 short a week. How could we go find $1,000?

 

right? And do what we do. It's all in the name of getting our patients healthy. you know, let breaking it down to that simple step and letting them achieve something daily, if not weekly, and showing them it's easy. And it all relates back to our why. Why did we get into dentistry? You know, it's to serve and get our patients healthy. So when we do that, and we know where we're headed, it's really easy to achieve.

 

and then just start building in the goals from there.

 

Kiera Dent (05:46)

Mm-hmm, I agree

 

with you because I think in dentistry is so fun I mean a million seems so hard, but let's break it down like if we really want to do I mean Let's just do some fun math here. So we're gonna do a million. All right, so some offices. They're like, I've never hit a million Let's figure out a million. I think these are fun. Kristi and I do love numbers So I hope you do and if you don't I hope you take on our mantra of like I love numbers and numbers Love me. I want the numbers to love me. So let's enjoy that. So if we have a million we divide it by 12, okay

 

And this is just really rough math. There's more sophisticated ways to project this. That's 83,000 per month. Let's bump it up to 84 because it's 83,333. So let's just do 84,000. So if we're at 84,000 and then we know, let's say you're a practice that is only working four days a week, that's fine. You do not need to work five days. You don't need to work six days. Let's just do a four day work week. Cause I like to prove to people and Kristy, I know you do too. We don't have to work harder. Let's just work a little smarter.

 

So with that, let's say it's 16 days a month. Does that make sense? You got four days a week. Most months are four weeks. I get that there's a few more, which is why this is very loose. Don't worry if you do this, you'll slush in the right direction. So what that brings it down to is 52.50 per day. Now let's say in this practice that they have two hygienists. Usually a hygienist is producing about a thousand-ish rough numbers. That's 32.50 per day for an office. And so I think Kristy agreed with you.

 

When we look at that and we're like, all right, if we're only scheduled to 2,700 today, where can we go find that extra $600 or $500? And it's not saying we're over diagnosing patients. What we're doing is we're looking to see, could we add in some fluoride? Could we add in that FMX? How can we do better patient care? Oh my gosh, that patient only wanted to do one filling, but they're about to get numb. And that quad of filling seems a lot more enticing because they're about to get numb. It's crazy how like, you know, when I talk to patients and they say, oh,

 

I think I just want to this one filling. And then when they're about to get numb, it's like, Hey, we can actually do the whole quad. And they're like, yeah, we should actually do that. It's wild. That injection, you guys never, ever, ever, ever underestimate the power of an injection. ⁓ but the reality is this is how you can look for it. This is how it becomes fun. And I think helping teams and Kristy, do an amazing job with this, helping teams have fun with this. That's the whole point of a morning huddle. We go to morning huddle to huddle. How do we win the game? Just like a huddle in basketball or huddle in football.

 

How do we actually win the game? Where are we at? What's that extra five? I mean, I have been shocked when offices will implement pro, ⁓ fluoride, or they'll look for FMXs. We're like doing our x-rays on normal cadences, or we're even doing our comp exams. That will add up so fast for you. Adding a sealant, adding in quad dentistry rather than single tooth dentistry. You can find these things so easily. And so, Kristy, I think you do a beautiful job of that with your practices. And I'm just curious, like,

 

But what happens when you have that one team member in the back who's just like not having it? What do we do with them and how do you get those team members on board?

 

Kristy (08:46)

Yeah, number one, most team members want something more for themselves, right? Whether it's a yearly raise or I don't know, maybe the office doesn't offer insurance and they want to offer insurance. And I'm like, well, let's find a way to offer it. You know, let's figure out how much it is. What does it cost? What do we have to do to show the doctor we can earn our way to doing it? So showing them that they can also achieve what they want. mean, honestly, today I had a

 

a team that was talking about taking time off between Christmas and New Year and possibly paying the team for that time off and surprising them. And I'm like, well, let's reverse engineer it, find out what do we have to do to pay for that. And then we can surprise that gift ahead of time because we can measure if we're on target for it. And...

 

give them that, gift them that time off if you will, but just again showing team what's in it for them and relating it again back to their why they got into dentistry which was to take great care of people.

 

And when you do it, we all reap the rewards. And I love that you said morning huddle because nine times out of 10, we have that treatment in our schedules already. And it's just having conversations with patients in a relationship fashion.

 

Many people think you have to have more new patients, right? We don't need more new patients. They're in our schedule and we have the opportunity to just do more on the patients we have. And if you don't believe me, have them run their unscheduled treatment report.

 

Kiera Dent (10:31)

Amen to you, Kristy. And I agree with you tenfold. And that's why we consult so well together. And I really love that you said like, let's show them, let's gift them, let's figure out what our team wants. And that's what's actually so fun. Like this is why I love numbers. I hated numbers because I didn't understand them. But when you realize that numbers can just be the way to get whatever you want in life. Like it's just truly this really, really fun, dreamy, like you said, if they want to take time off between Christmas and New Year's,

 

Fantastic, let's figure out what that production would be. Let's figure out the cost of paying all the team members. It's very simple, it's not a hard equation to do. Then let's add that amount, divide it amongst the rest of the months of the year. You can literally pay for it. So offices who wanna go on trips, offices who wanna add in bonuses, offices who wanna pay for scrubs, like you name it, all these things can be paid for. And for people listening, this isn't too overdiagnosed on the patients. It's not like we're going hunting because we're like, we wanna go on that trip.

 

it's we are looking for the best patient care like Kristy said. We are looking for the little opportunities that we're not doing. And every practice is like, no, we're doing all this already. Yeah, right. I promise you, I've yet to see one office who has done every single thing perfectly 110%. And so I think like, let's drop that ego as well and look to see where it can be. And Kristy, I love that you bring it. As you were talking, I'm like, Kristy to me feels like the analogy of like squeezing the juice out of the lemon or squeezing the tube of toothpaste.

 

And Kristy is the gal who looks at your practice and you're like, my tube of toothpaste is empty. And she's like, yeah, let me show you. got like three more months where the toothpaste in this tube, like we are squeezing it rather than just going and looking to buy a brand new tube of toothpaste. And within your practice, there's so much more opportunity to like squeeze the juice, squeeze the opportunities rather than having to look outside. Yes, we still need to work on the outside pieces too, but then when we look inside, and I think that this is where you do such a great job, Kristy like.

 

Kristy (12:04)

Yeah.

 

Kiera Dent (12:25)

I tell you, Kristy can turn to practice so quickly. It's been magic to watch you, Kristy I'm like, this girl comes in and she just like hangs out. She's working with the team. She's tracking the numbers and la la la la la. The doctor's like, oh my gosh, we hit this and I didn't even know that was possible. But Kristy's squeezing juice. You're looking for the juice constantly. And so I'm just curious, other squeeze the juice, squeeze the tube of toothpaste? You said like new patients, you're looking for unscheduled treatment plans.

 

Kristy (12:30)

you

 

Kiera Dent (12:53)

We don't need the new patients. We're looking for just little, what are some of those other opportunities, Kristy, that like I spy with my little consultant eye, what do you see in there?

 

Kristy (13:02)

Yeah.

 

Obviously there's a few areas, but one of the things too when we have limited coming in how many of those do we work to convert? I mean how many times do we schedule them for a half hour appointment when really if we just schedule them for an hour and trained up our assistants to have a conversation on the front end my gosh, if we could avoid future emergencies like this while you're here We could take a look at everything come up with a plan and still treat that tooth that's bothering you right so and if they're swollen

 

or in pain, at least scheduling them back to make sure, hey, you know, we could avoid future emergencies like this. Let's get you back and take a look at everything, but get you out of pain today. that's one area. And again, it's just taking and using what's already there and doing what's best for the patient, right? I mean, people only lose their teeth for a few reasons. Trauma.

 

Kiera Dent (13:53)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kristy (13:59)

Extensive decay, you know, so if we can avoid that just like you said the power of the shot if we could avoid Future damage and more cost wouldn't you agree we should take care of it today?

 

Kiera Dent (14:06)

Hahaha!

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Also, did

 

you hear what Kristy said? Wouldn't you agree? And that's a very like amazing line to take into your practice if you're not using that right now. I love the LOEs being converted into a comp exam. It is one of the most incredible things that if a practice will take this on. And so we were like, but Kiera, Kristy, they're just coming in for pain. Like they're not gonna like it. Yeah, right. A, you have to remember no one wants to come to see you. And I'm sorry, dentist, but this is the reality. And there's like 1 % of the population who's a little bit odd and they actually love to come.

 

But that's like truth. And so they don't wanna come anyway. They're already in pain. So let's do them a service. Let's do them a favor. Let's take pictures of their entire mouth, AKA x-rays. Let's do a full comp exam. Yes, we're gonna take care of that problem tooth. Absolutely, 100 % we're gonna do that. But odds are, and every doctor and every team member knows this, if I've got one tooth that's looking pretty wild, odds are there's probably a few other places in that mouth that are going to have the same problem come upon them pretty soon. But I think it's also,

 

training the front office to say this, training the clinical team on how we present this and how we can do this, but also realizing this is a huge service and benefit to a patient. No patient wants to come back. They really do not. As much as they love you and as fun as you are and as great as your coffee bar is and as fun as your movies are, being at the dentist, even for me, I had to go to the dentist and I was like, gosh, really? Like this place. And I work with dentists. Like I've been a dental assistant. People just don't enjoy having their

 

someone awkwardly put their hands in your mouth. It's weird. It's a weird thing that we do and yet we love it. So Kristy, I love that. What are some other ideas that you have around? Because yes, convert the limited to comps. Any other things that you have around? And again, I don't want you to give all away your Kristy Sparkle. So like what's one or two more that you have of like being able to squeeze that juice, squeeze that tube of toothpaste?

 

Kristy (15:59)

Well, I would say many times, especially for the dentist coming in or newly starting out having firm financial arrangements, know, and it's not firm doesn't mean strict necessarily, but it's it's comprehensive finances. You know, it's it's finding a plan to get all their treatment done. Even if you're phasing it out over time, but I would say really there's usually that low hanging fruit in AR or insurance that we can

 

just put in simple systems that go after that and stop it bleeding into, you know, aging out, if you will. So many times that's an area to start and just look at what our processes are. How are we collecting? Are we getting the good estimates to get the correct amount collected over the counter?

 

Kiera Dent (16:52)

Okay, so

 

in that, agree with you, Kristy, because a lot of times people are like, we need to make more. And I'm like, you don't even need to make more. It's just hanging out in your AR. Like you've already done the work. We just need to collect the money for it. So you mentioned making sure that when we do this, we have good treatment plan estimates, which comes from good insurance verification, which comes from good entering of that. That's gonna help a lot. What are some of the other financial policies that you've found that tend to work really, really well for practices?

 

Kristy (17:17)

Yeah, well, let me be clear that treatment plans are different than financial arrangements. Treatment plans are what we're going to do. Financial arrangements are how are we going to take care of it? And many times people are missing the how we're going to take care of it. They're like, yeah, they know the cost. We gave them the printout. But are we really solidifying how we're going to take care of it? You know, are you the type of patient that needs

 

to pay over time? Are we capturing exactly what they're doing, if you will?

 

Kiera Dent (17:50)

Yeah, which is really smart because otherwise

 

it's a lingering, it's are we paying with cash? Are we paying with credit card? Are we paying with financing options? What are we doing with that? That's going to firm this up and I agree as soon as that gets dialed in and people panic. Like I don't wanna put this out there. And I'm like, where do we feel like we went back to the 1800s to where it's like, just put it on my tab. Like I still do not understand why dental practices get so nervous to ask patients to pay for something that they just received.

 

99 % of the time in today's world, we're having to prepay for these treatments before services are done. And I feel like dentistry, let's, let's come to the playing field. Let's get a little more current. Let's get a little bit more on the same page of the rest of the world. It's not weird. It's weird. The fact that we think it's weird. That's what's weird. Like it's okay to ask patients to pay for it. It's okay to expect them to have financials before they come in for treatment. That's normal. And then what we do is for all the patients that we've been like,

 

lollygagging on in the past, it's okay, it's all right, there's no judgment here. Those patients we start to collect when they come in. So we start to collect on that side, we can send statements to them, we can run our AR and we get better for future and we have them sign on those financial arrangements so that way there's no confusion. The only reason patients get frustrated with you is because expectations were missed. So I love what Kristy said with these financial arrangements. It's a beautiful way to not have expectations being missed and a really good way to squeeze some juice in your practice.

 

to find those little missing opportunities. Kristy, you've been a freaking dream. Are there any other little like secret nuggets that you feel like you wanna leave with our audience before we say goodbye today? Because honestly, I just have loved this and I enjoy the imagery. I'm gonna like have you, every time I see you now, I'm gonna think of you like squeezing the juice. Like I'll just think of you like, Kristy's over there taking lemons into lemonade. So any other last thoughts you have as we wrap up today?

 

Kristy (19:32)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, actually you mentioned the financial arrangements and I just want to challenge people. literally, I almost love the practices where they say, see you later, send me a statement and flipping them to actually getting down payments or reservation fees for appointments. Like I've watched a practice go from literally that.

 

Kiera Dent (19:54)

Yeah.

 

Kristy (20:04)

to, my gosh, they're so excited because they are using Pre-Collect. But I also want to flip people's thinking. Just like you said earlier about patients not wanting to stay, don't put our own bias in it. Because I hear people say, well, we'll do a reservation for large appointments. I just want to challenge you that

 

allow that same opportunity even for the smaller payments. If I had $500 in my savings and you offered me to pay $250 today to reserve it and $250 when I come in, I very well may appreciate having that so it doesn't drain my savings or my checking or wherever I'm pulling that money from versus, hey, you could pay $50 today and now I have $450 to pay when I come back in. So I just challenge you to, you know, try.

 

gamify it a little bit and have fun with it and I promise your patients will appreciate it.

 

Kiera Dent (21:02)

Kristy, I love that you said gamify it. I think I heard once at a conference I attended and they said, business is just a game. Like it's truly a game. And when you look at it, it takes the stress out of it. think running a successful practice can be a game, not our dentistry being a game for the patients, but a game of how we think about things. I mean, I look at like chess or my brother used to play strategic or.

 

There was another game like Clue. loved playing Clue. That was like my favorite game. mean, I was the Clue master. I won that game all the time. I would love somebody to like challenge me on it. But the reason those games are fun is because we challenge our thinking. We think outside the box. We make it fun. And so I love, Kristy, these ideas you brought to the table today are how can we think outside the box? How can we make it fun? And I agree with you, Kristy. It's crazy how when you just change your thinking,

 

Just a smidge, we're not asking you to like completely and obliterate who you've been all this time, but just a smidge, you will see magic happen in your practice. You will see more patients saying yes to you. You'll see more patients scheduling. You'll see your AR being chipped down. Doctors, you'll see more money coming into your bank account. So many wonderful things this way just to change it. And I love that you said like offer it to even the smaller ones. Why not? Cause you're right. That is a benefit to these other patients. They might say no, but they also might say yes. And then collections become so much easier. So Kristy.

 

It was so fun to have you on the podcast. I love you on our team. I love practices who get to work with you. I always feel like practices who get to Kristy truly get just such a treat to work with you because you really do find these little simple ways to help them hit goals and possibilities that they honestly never believed was possible. So thanks for being on the podcast with me today and being on our team. Of course, and for all of you listening, thank you for listening and we'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.

 

Kristy (22:42)

Thank you.