https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8218sVLg_Q

Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Workflows for Maximum Efficiency

Carrie Weber:

Welcome to the Jameson Files. I'm your host, Carrie Weber, and it's so great to be back with you as we have an amazing guest with us. Dana Johnson is with us today. Dana is a good friend of mine. We've known each other for several years now, right, Dana?

Dana Johnson:

Many, yes.

Dana Johnson and Novonee Consulting

Carrie Weber:

And you know when you're all in the same realm in dentistry and in consulting and working with dental practices, you can't help but become friends when you're on the road speaking in consulting. For those of you that may not be familiar with Dana, Dana has a consulting company called Novonee. And Dana's background is pretty incredible as a Dentrix trainer moving into consulting. Some of your accolades are Dentrix Trainer of the Year and Top 25 Women in Dentistry. So it's a real honor to have you on as a guest. Dana, thank you so much for being with me.

Dana Johnson:

Well, thank you for having me. When you were talking about me being on the Jameson files when we were at Hinman, I'm like, oh my gosh, that sounds so fun. And I am super excited to share some experiences with all your audience.

Carrie Weber:

Yes. And you know, for those of you that are wondering, “What's Novonee?” There are times when I'm talking with practices and their specific need is around getting team onboarded and utilizing Dentrix in a maximized way, and becoming more efficient, more effective in their work, especially in the business side of the practice with their practice management software. And boy, that's when your name comes up a lot, Dana, because you excel in your expertise and in your ability to give instruction that's not only helpful for the team to learn, but you also help them know how to apply it and implement it, which is the key. 

So that leads us to today's conversation. Something that you've been talking about a little bit more and more recently is workflows and what that means in dental practices, what practices are struggling with. So as we step into that conversation, which I'm actually really excited about, I'd love to hear what's led to this element of what you're instructing and teaching practices. What is it that you're finding in the dental practices today that has really put an emphasis on helping them build out workflows in the practice?

Why Proper Workflows are Important

Dana Johnson:

Yeah, thank you. There have been three layers that I've been noticing across our industry– new team members coming into dentistry for the very first time. I have several practices, and so do you, probably, with new team members who are coming from retail or they're coming from medical or they're coming from another industry and they have no idea how to work the front desk in a dental practice. And so a lot of times what happens is you hire this new team member and you kind of throw them out to the sharks with no training, no onboarding. And they're wondering what to do. So these new team members are really looking for help. They're looking for onboarding, they're looking for training and that. So that's the first layer I'm seeing a lot of.

And then we're also seeing a lot of team members, whether they're a dental assistant moving up to the front desk, or maybe somebody that started out as an amazing receptionist and now she's being promoted to a treatment coordinator, and she's asking, “What is this job supposed to do? Help me.” 

Then the third layer I'm seeing is a lot of doctors reaching out to me and really wanting to be more involved with what their team should be doing every day, every week, every month. They have no idea. They’re in the back treating patients, but they really want to have a more hands-on approach. And so I've been having a lot of doctors reach out to me saying, “What should the daily, weekly, monthly workflow even look like?