The Best Practices Show with Kirk Behrendt

680: Staff Management vs. Team Leadership - Dr Jim McKee

Have you ever thought that you need a better way to lead and manage your people? How do you even go about finding the right people? That’s what this episode is all about. The guest is Dr. Jim McKee, a Spear Resident Faculty member, lecturer, author, educator, and mentor to Kirk. You’ll hear about why the right team is key to the success of your business and the difference between management and leadership. Jim shares his tips on team leadership and the one ‘magic question’ he asks every employee. This episode highlights the importance of fostering a positive and collaborative work environment through effective leadership and well-defined systems in business practices.

Episode Resources:

• Subscribe to The Best Practices Show podcast 
• Join ACT’s To The Top Study Club 
• See ACT’s Live Events Schedule 
• Get The Best Practices Magazine for free! 
• Rate and review the podcast on iTunes 
• Dr. McKee’s Facebook Page

Main Takeaways

• Understanding the Financial Impact: Dr. Jim McKee emphasizes that a significant portion of a business's expenses goes towards employee wages. Acknowledging this financial aspect is crucial for business owners.
• Shift from Management to Leadership: Traditional staff management is considered outdated. Today, the focus is on team leadership, creating a collaborative environment where everyone strives for excellence rather than a hierarchical, autocratic approach. 
• Recognizing Strengths and Weaknesses: Acknowledging that every team member, including business owners, has strengths and weaknesses. The goal is to amplify the positives and minimize the negatives to enhance overall practice performance.
• Positive Reinforcement: Encourage a positive work environment by recognizing and praising employees for what they do right, fostering a culture of appreciation rather than just pointing out mistakes. 
• Team Leadership Through Systems: Dr. McKee emphasizes the importance of creating effective systems within the practice. These systems serve as guidelines, making it easier to identify and correct deviations when things go off track. 
• The Power of the "Are You Happy Here?" Question: Asking employees about their job satisfaction is a powerful way to gauge their engagement. This question serves as a starting point for discussions on how to improve and ensure mutual satisfaction. 
• Systematic Approach to Position Roles: Dr. McKee suggests outlining responsibilities for each position in the office and establishing clear guidelines on how tasks should be handled. This systematic approach facilitates effective team management. 

Quotes:

“As a business owner,  when you look at your profit and loss statement,  the largest percentage of money going out the door is going to the people that work for you.” [2:42 - 2:52]

“Staff management is kind of the old term, where it's autocratic, where you're the boss and they are the servants. That's not what it's like today.  I think today it's team leadership. I don't think people want to be managed. We want to lead. We want to create excellence in our practice.” [4:10 - 4:29]

“We have to recognize that every person who works for us is going to bring strengths and they're going to bring weaknesses, and that includes us as the business owners as well.  The goal Is to try and accentuate the positive and try to  limit the negative things that people bring to the practice so they can't hurt them too badly.” [6:27 - 6:52]

“Find something [your employees] do right. Because most of the time, people who are in a superior position talk to the people who work for them when they do something wrong. So it became really easy to find something they do right.” [18:08 - 18:28]

“That's really what team leadership is - it's about systems. So as a business owner, if you can create the systems in your practice, then all of a sudden when something gets off the rails, just go back to what the system is and figure out where the deviation was.” [19:17 - 19:40]

[asking the question] “‘Are you happy here?” It's just kind of a line in the sand and it's so powerful because a lot of times you go on all these tangents, but that's really the essence. And if they say, yes, I am happy here, then I say, then here's what we need to do to make sure we're both happy here.” [22:23 - 22:48]

“Ultimately you don't have to be a chest beater your entire career for everything. It really is a strong message to choose the things you're good at.” [24:08 - 24:12]

“If you walk in the door and you're excited to be there and you're willing to share information and you start the day that way,  most of the time people are either going to self select “in” or self select “out”.  Most of the time they're going to self select in because especially if they've worked in other practices in dentistry, this is a far more engaging style of practice and for us, for a team member, it's a way more fulfilling position than simply being a staff member somewhere who does a lot of suction.” [27:00 - 27:35]

“I always say nobody wants to work for you. You’ve got to be somebody that they want to work for.” [29:20 - 29:251]

“Every practice  should sit down and write down everything related to every position in the office - front desk, answering the phone, making deposits, submitting insurance, emergencies, all that stuff. Then make an outline and figure out how all that languaging should be handled. That's the job of the dentist. So if we really want to have a team that functions on a really high level, if we can provide that for them, then it's an easy way to sit down and have a discussion and say, here's what we need to do.” [32:40 - 33:28]

“If you can create systems in your practice to manage the people who work for you, your job becomes easier.” [34:36 - 34:45]

Dr. Jim McKee Bio

Dr. Jim McKee is a member of the Spear Resident Faculty. He has maintained a private practice since 1984 in Downers Grove, Illinois, where he treats a wide variety of cases with a focus on predictable restorative dentistry. He is a member of the American Academy of Restorative Dentistry and former president of the American Equilibration Society. He has lectured both nationally and internationally for over 25 years and directs several study clubs. Dr. McKee graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1980 and earned his dental degree from the University of Illinois College of Dentistry in 1984.

679: The Dentist's Blueprint to Perfect Hiring: Ensure Every Team Member is a Perfect Fit - Miranda Beeson

In the latest episode of The Best Practices Show, Kirk welcomes guest Miranda Beeson to discuss the critical issues of dental staffing shortages. The episode sheds light on the predominant concerns of dental practices—staff shortages and hiring difficulties, onboarding, and the interview process. Kirk and Miranda discuss the need for intentional onboarding strategies, the importance of assessing a practice's capacity before bringing in new team members, and caution against hastily replacing departing team members. They also delve into the critical step of determining the purpose of hiring. This episode serves as a comprehensive guide to navigate the complexities of dental staffing and will help you emerge with a winning team. Don't miss this essential episode!

Episode Resources:

• Subscribe to The Best Practices Show podcast 
• Join ACT’s To The Top Study Club 
• See ACT’s Live Events Schedule 
• Get The Best Practices Magazine for free! 
• Rate and review the podcast on iTunes 

Main Takeaways

• Maximizing current team members through skill enhancement and clear expectations is highlighted as a priority.
• Focus on Who, Not Just What: Embrace a hiring approach that prioritizes the "who" over the "what." Dental practitioners should focus on the individual's values and cultural fit before considering their skills and capabilities.
• Visual and video elements, internal team recruiting, and strategic use of social media are crucial components of modern recruitment.
• Transitioning from hiring to recruiting involves adopting a proactive mindset, always scouting for potential team members.
• Customer service and patient experiences are pivotal in dental practices, with the team playing a crucial role in creating positive outcomes.
• Community outreach serves as a form of networking to discover potential team members beyond traditional hiring methods.
• Crafting standout hiring ads involves avoiding generic language, incorporating visuals, and focusing on the practice's culture and core values.
• Quotes from current team members can add authenticity to the hiring ad, offering unique perspectives on the workplace.

Quotes:

"Even when you find the right person and you're certain that they're going to be in the right seat for your practice and bringing that productivity, you have to be intentional about how you onboard them." [10:49 - 10:57]

"A level four leader gets people to follow them. A level five leader gets people to follow a cause. Your team is your brand." [12:56 - 13:03]

“This is a phrase that you say often that I love - are you throwing people at inefficiencies? We want to look at: are we really needing someone else or are we just inefficient? And we're going to throw another body at the problem to see if we can't try to solve it. So before you do that, you really want to evaluate if everyone on your team is currently the right person in the right seat, and do we have accountabilities in place for those people to ensure that they're maximizing their potential within their role. Before you consider hiring, you want to make sure that you are fully maximizing the people that you have. Are there people on your team who are looking for a little bit more? Have we done check-ins? Have we talked to them lately about what they're hoping to get out of their career?” [17:11 - 17:55]

“What might a job description look like? What does it need to entail? It does need to be detailed. We say often, specific is terrific. Vague is the plague. And this helps us to have really clear expectations when someone's coming on board to make sure that they know what they're getting into. And we also can interview and assure that we're finding the right person to accomplish those tasks.” [22:50 - 23:11]

“One of the things that you shared at the top was creating a unique employment proposition. We have to make ourselves stand out in the same way we need to differentiate our practice to our patients. We have to differentiate ourselves to future and potential employees. We have to make sure that we are well aware of. What we're offering, not only in compensation, although that is important, but what else are we offering that's going to create a fulfilling, fun, ideal job work environment for our potential candidates that exist.” [28:22 - 28:57]

“One of the first things I encourage a team to do when you need to bring someone on board is ask your current team who loves working here to spread the word. And if they spread the word and they ask their friends to share and spread the word, it's really going to be great. And you're more likely to find people who you know are going to fit the values of the practice because the people that are working there fit the practice, and they know what you're all about.” [30:57 - 31:23]

“Customer service is the biggest piece. We're creating patient experiences every single day. And that's really what feeds our business. If you're the dentist, you don't pay your team. The patients pay your team. The income is coming from the patients, not the doctor.” [34:50 - 35:10]

“What improves culture and helps team members feel really good about being in your practice is predictability. Efficiency and the sharing of information. This one is huge, really efficient cascading and sharing of information, not the game of telephone, but a method to how we're making sure we're sharing information.” [57:58 - 58:17]

“If we're just being nice all the time. Are we really being nice to that person if we're not being clear about where they stand and what we need from them. And in the end, there's a great story about someone who had a leader who was just so nice and gave such positive praise and feedback and they ended up getting fired by the person above that person.” [58:38 - 58:57]

“Here's something to think about. Say more with fewer words. Be calm. The key is to be calm, be consistent, be clear, and you can still be nice.” [1:00:03 - 1:00:14]

Miranda Beeson, MS, BSDH Bio:

Miranda Beeson, MS, BSDH, has over 25 years of clinical dental hygiene, front office, practice administration, and speaking experience. She is enthusiastic about communication and loves helping others find the power that words can bring to their patient interactions and practice dynamics. As a Lead Practice Coach, she is driven to create opportunities to find value in experiences and cultivate new approaches.

Miranda graduated from Old Dominion University, and enjoys spending time with her husband, Chuck, and her children, Trent, Mallory, and Cassidy. Family time is the best time, and is often spent on a golf course, a volleyball court, or spending the day boating at the beach. 

Send Miranda an email: [email protected]

Follow Miranda on ACT’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/actdental

678: Unlocking Time: Reclaim Your Hygiene Appointment with These 5 Masterful Tips – Angela Heathman

Are you and your hygienists always running out of time? Do you want a way to stay on schedule? If you're struggling with time, don't miss this episode! Kirk Behrendt brings back Angela Heathman, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, to share some time management tips for a smooth, stress-free schedule. Stop working through lunch to make up for lost time! To learn how you and your team can take control of your schedule, listen to Episode 678 of The Best Practices Show!

Episode Resources:

• Send Angela an email: [email protected] 
• Join Angela on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/angeheathman
• Follow Angela on ACT’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/actdental
• Send Gina an email: [email protected] 
• Subscribe to The Best Practices Show podcast: https://the-best-practices-show.captivate.fm/listen
• Join ACT’s To The Top Study Club: https://www.actdental.com/ttt
• See ACT’s Live Events Schedule: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/act-dental-live-workshops-306239
• Get The Best Practices Magazine for free! https://www.actdental.com/magazine
• Write a review on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-best-practices-show/id1223838218

Main Takeaways:

Track how long each task takes to complete.

Set expectations on how time should be spent.

Always prepare for your day with a morning huddle.

Embrace technology. It will save you time in the long run.

Have open communication between team members and doctors.

Use the bib as a “seatbelt” until you schedule the next appointment.

Quotes:

“Pete Dawson used to say this all the time: you could build a practice just by being on time . . . When you're not on time, it screams, ‘I don't care.’” (1:56—2:06) -Kirk

“If you're a dentist, please listen to this. You completely over or underestimate time all the time. You tell your team members, ‘Oh, that'll be an hour. That'll be five minutes,’ and it's never what you say it is. So, we, as your team members, are constantly running around, making excuses for your inadequate estimates.” (2:09—2:33) -Kirk

“The first step is actually knowing how long you're spending on different things within your appointment. I would recommend doing a little bit of a reflection exercise or a little time study to see, during my appointment time, where am I spending my time? How much am I spending during the exam? How much time am I waiting for the doctor? How much time am I spending during mechanical debridement? How much time am I spending reviewing medical histories, X-rays, patient interviews, all that kind of stuff? What we often find is that we aren't really estimating accurately. We might think that we can get through that medical history and that patient interview in a minute or two when it may be seven, eight minutes.” (2:46—3:33) -Angela

“If you're going to build a business that makes promises and keeps them — like a great dental practice — you have to know how long things take you. And then, if you don't like the data, you can work hard to improve your systems so that it gives you better data. That's a thought. So, a time study is a really important thing. Now, one of the things that people leave out of a time study . . . a lot of times, people don't do a time study from when the patient arrives and when they leave. Make sure you bookend it with that. So, you don't know that the patient came in 15 minutes early prior to the appointment, and we saw them 15 minutes after they were supposed to be seen. And then, the dentist — and again, I'm speaking mostly to the dentist — was in there for five minutes, and they don't have any idea what happened the rest of the time.” (3:45—4:40) -Kirk

“You bring up a really great point, and that is having open communication between the hygienist or the doctor. Sometimes, that amount of time gets pushed down from the doctor like, ‘You need to shorten your appointments,’ or, ‘Instead of having 60 minutes, now you're only going to have 40 minutes.’ And sometimes, it's just kind of dictated. But that communication needs to happen about why the doctor might be feeling pressed to shorten those appointments, and why the hygienist might be thinking that they need longer amounts of time.” (6:17—6:52) -Angela

“Far too often, doctors don't communicate with team members, and they don't understand the why.” (7:11—7:15) -Kirk

“When you can see the whole picture, you can see that efficiency, being on time, having systems, and keeping promises are really important to building a great dental practice.” (7:22—7:32) -Kirk

“The most important thing, in my opinion, is being really prepared for your day. Sometimes, we don't like to look at our day before we go in. But really, we need to be extremely prepared for it, knowing what patients are coming in, what procedures they're coming in for, if you need to take X-rays, if you need to do scans, photos, if they have family members that need to be reappointed, making sure you find out all that before the patient arrives. Because let's face it, you're going to have to find out all that information before the patient leaves your chair. So, as much as you can figure out before the patient even sits down in your chair is going to save you time.” (8:16—8:57) -Angela

“So many times, these great patients of yours share these thoughts, these concerns, these stresses to your team member who's answering the phone, but you don't even hear about it. They tell your team member, Nancy, at the front, all this stuff. Then, they come in, and they tell the same story to the hygienist, and then they repeat the story to the dentist, and they're thinking, ‘Does anyone listen to me here?’ So, I think it's really important that in the huddle you give space to make it about patient care in there.” (8:58—9:28) -Kirk

“The better prepared you are, the better these appointments go. You know what's going to happen. You can predict what's going to happen, for the most part. You can also call out when patients in hygiene owe you money and they have to make a stop at the front. And towards the end of the year, or the beginning of the year, or any time during the year, you might find out patients need additional restorative work, and they are here today, and you're talking to them today, and you have an adjacent column in the restorative room that's empty. So, what a great opportunity to not only make it on time, but make it more valuable to them and the practice. We see it all too often — people slow down, and they go farther. I know that's a contradiction in terms, and that's hard for people to understand. But the better you are, the slower you have to be sometimes. I'm not talking about slow in complacency, but I'm talking about making sure we do it right and not fast.” (9:31—10:26) -Kirk

“If you're preparing the day before and you find out that the patient does have a treatment plan, then you can give the doctor the heads-up at that morning's huddle that this might be a little bit of a longer exam, or I might page you a little bit earlier to do the exam. That way, the doctor can have a heads-up and not be surprised in their day either.” (10:27—10:49) -Angela

“I like doing the exams any time in the appointment after I've gathered my data. So, as a hygienist, I always like to page my doctor or alert them that I'm ready for an exam after I've done the data gathering. So, for me, data gathering means my patient interview, my medical history, my X-rays, my perio chart, my dental hygiene screening, anything that I can do assessment wise, and get that out of the way at the beginning. And then, what I'll do is I will page my doctor, letting the doctor know that I'm ready for an exam — not that I'm done with my appointment, but that I'm ready for an exam at that point. And then, what I'll tell my patient is, ‘I'm paging doctor for your exam, and he or she . . . will come in when they're available.’ And I would also tell them, when I hear doctors starting to walk down the hall, ‘I'm going to raise your chair up.’ That way, they could meet each other sitting up. That was the way my office liked to do it. The doctor liked to meet each other eye level with the patient. But I know every office is a little bit different.” (11:55—13:12) -Angela

“Think better about how you use your time. So, if you're doing restorative work and your restorative blocks are on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, what a great opportunity to pair them with perio blocks right next to them so that you don't have to get up as many times and you can stay in the focus zone.” (13:50—14:06) -Kirk

“If you have a dentist who's a chatty Cathy or a chatty Jim, which a lot of them are, these things never are five minutes. It's 15 minutes. We're talking about barbecue, and how the football team did this weekend, and it's raining outside, it was slippery on the way to work. Man, they chat forever. So, I like the idea of rapport second as much as possible. Come in and share with the doctor what you've already learned before the doctor says, ‘How's the game?’ because now you're going to sit there and wait for four minutes so that you can politely interrupt, and that's hard to do. But you just have to get creative with this. And then, also, if you’ve got a chatty Cathy who keeps chatting, and chatting, and chatting, and they're slowing down the other hygiene appointments, it might be a good idea to put your hand on their shoulder and say, ‘Okay.’ It's a nonverbal cue that I have to take him or her somewhere else, type of a thing.” (14:13—15:05) -Kirk

“I love it when offices embrace technology instead of thinking that it adds extra time to their appointment with all the photos, scanning, and things like that. Really utilize those things to make your appointment more efficient. You mentioned voice-assisted perio charting. There are applications that you guys can use. You put on a headset, and it records all your perio charting for you. You prep the patient with what they're going to be hearing before you start doing your measurements, and then the patient can be part of that experience as well. So, you're kind of talking to your voice recognition, but really, you're talking to the patient at the same time. And what that also does when you've prepped the patient in advance is you've taught them about what they're supposed to hear. So, you're kind of diagnosing at the same time. You don't have to set the patient's chair up and say, ‘This is what I found.’ Instead, they're hearing at the same time, not what you found, but what their measurements are and what their periodontal condition is. We always talk about a picture being worth a thousand words. These scans that you're taking, these intraoral photos that you're taking, consider them a time-saver if you can use that to show the patient and cut down on the amount of talking that you have to do by simply showing them. And it's amazing, they're able to almost diagnose themselves, if you will.” (15:22—16:56) -Angela

“Pay attention to how much you're talking. If you, as a dental team, are talking 80% of the time and they're only talking 20% of the time or 10% of the time, I can guarantee you, this is what they hear . . . They tune you out after a while, and they're just moving their head up and down. So, you want to make sure it's very interactive. Maybe use my name once in a while. If I'm a patient, that'll get me out of my non-thinking zone.” (17:00—17:28) -Kirk

“You, as a dentist, if you don't have any expectations on how the time is supposed to be used, people come up with their own expectations as they come into your practice. Now, I get it. Everybody has a different style, a different speed, a different demeanor. They should. They should always bring their individuality. But there should be, somewhat, milestones that you should be able to hit. For instance, if you have a hygiene appointment in an hour — so, think about this. If you have three hygienists and you don't give them any expectations, and you say, ‘Do your thing,’ they're all going to do it differently, which has challenges for you.” (17:39—18:13) -Kirk

“There needs to be a conversation on what that appointment flow should look like, and also how long things should take. For years, we've been teaching the 20-20-20 based on some courses that we took years ago with Rachel Wall, and that that appointment should be split into thirds where that first 20 minutes is the assessment. And then, I won't say the second because I've already taught you about exams on demand, so it doesn't necessarily have to be the second part of the appointment. But about 20 minutes of that appointment should be the mechanical debridement of that appointment. And then, about 20 minutes should be the exam, the reappointment, and everything. So, if you set that expectation with the team that that's what the flow of the appointment should look like, then when you're doing your time study and you're looking at the results of your time study, you can see like, ‘Oh, gosh. We're way over in our assessment. Our assessment is taking 30 minutes,’ or, ‘We're waiting for the exam for way too long and that's extending that 20-minute section.’ Or, what happens sometimes is that we're spending too much time in that mechanical debridement.” (18:17—19:36) -Angela

“It's an unpopular thing for me to say that it shouldn't take more than 20 minutes to do a mechanical scaling of a patient. But what I mean is that, in this appointment, it's for a healthy patient that we're talking about. Our regular six-month hygiene appointment is what we're talking about. If the patient truly is healthy, I would argue that that shouldn't really take very much time, that 20 minutes should be plenty of time to get that part of the appointment done.” (19:50—20:23) -Angela

“Not just because of time, but it does throw our schedule off when a patient comes in and we're scheduled for a regular prophy, and maybe we don't want to have that conversation about perio, or maybe they're borderline, or maybe they're perio and we haven't been treating them. And sometimes, as hygienists, we've been known to do more aggressive therapy on that patient during that appointment. Sometimes, our coaches call it a bloody prophy, where we're going as deep as we can into these six and seven-millimeter pockets, debriding them as much as we can. And then, we wonder why we don't have enough time. Or we blame the patient that, ‘Their mouth was a mess. It took a lot longer. They came in with a poor condition.’ But also reflecting — yes, that's the patient's responsibility. But it's also our responsibility to flip that appointment into an actual perio procedure then, and not just continue to do bloody prophy after bloody prophy if that's not actually what the patient's condition is.” (22:06—23:19) -Angela

“Hygienists have a great heart for taking care of people, and sometimes we take care of them at the expense of time or the ability to do it the way we should do it.” (23:28—23:38) -Kirk

“Schedule some time with your doctor, with your team. Tell them that you're challenged. They can't help you if your team doesn't know that you're stressed out and you're running behind schedule, and they won't be able to provide solutions for you either . . . It's not just the hygienists that are facing this. The dental assistants, the dentists, they're always stressed with time as well. So, I think using this as an opportunity to have some open conversations and problem solve as a team.” (25:14—25:47) -Angela

“Another thing that you can do to reclaim your hygiene time and better use time is for the future. You know that thing that they have around their neck called the bib? We like to affectionately refer to it as a seatbelt. So, don't take the bib off until you do one valuable thing . . . because here's the thing. You know how this is. You take off that “seatbelt”, man, they are like the best defensive lineman getting through the offensive line. They’ve got the swim technique. They’ve got the rip technique. They're going right through there, and they're out of there as fast as can be. When I've got a bib on you, it's clear you're not going anywhere. And if they touch the bib, go, ‘No, no, no, no, no. Don't touch it. No one touches the bib. Only I touch the bib.’ And so, what you can do is you can better protect the future time by making sure that you have this great patient tethered to the practice with their next valuable appointment. You get them locked in the schedule. Don't let them float to the front, and then float outside. No. If I'm a hygienist, I'm getting you in here. I'm going to keep you in here.” (25:57—27:04) -Kirk

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction.

1:20 Why this is an important topic.

2:37 Track how long things take to do.

6:17 Have open communication between hygienists and doctors.

7:32 Prep for appointments in advance.

10:50 Start exams strategically.

15:12 Use voice-assisted perio charting.

17:30 Set expectations on appointment flow and time.

21:51 Don't overtreat with perio maintenance.

25:01 Last thoughts.

25:48 The bib is a “seatbelt”.

Angela Heathman, MS, RDH Bio:

Angela Heathman is a Lead Practice Coach who works with dentists and their teams to help them accomplish their goals. She believes the hard work you do on your practice is just as important as the work you do in your practice!

Angela has over 20 years of clinical dental hygiene, dental sales, and practice coaching experience. When she transitioned from her role as a clinician to her role as a sales account manager, she realized both her passion for education and practice development. Angela holds a master's degree in dental hygiene education from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

677: Finding the Best Learning Around Dental Sleep Medicine - Dr Steve Carstensen

In this episode, Kirk Behrendt explores the world of dental sleep medicine education with Dr. Steve Carstensen. With a plethora of choices available for dental professionals seeking to expand their understanding of this vital aspect of dentistry, Dr. Carstensen shares insights on how to navigate through the overwhelming options. From historical perspectives to the current landscape, this episode sheds light on the importance of dental sleep medicine and the evolving educational opportunities. The conversation also delves into the profound impact of collaboration, finding one's professional tribe, and the transformative power of education beyond dentistry. Dr. Carstensen shares valuable resources for continuous learning, encourages dentists to embrace adjacent fields, and highlights the importance of being evidence-informed practitioners.

Episode Resources:

• Subscribe to The Best Practices Show podcast 
• Join ACT’s To The Top Study Club 
• See ACT’s Live Events Schedule 
• Get The Best Practices Magazine for free! 
• Rate and review the podcast on iTunes 
• Book Recommendations: 
• "Brain Rules" by John Medina: Dr. Carstensen recommends the book "Brain Rules" as a valuable resource for understanding the relationship between 
• "Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear" by Elizabeth Gilbert: Dr. Carstensen recommends this powerful book for its insights on overcoming fear and fostering a mindset that propels success.
• "Outlive: How to Set Your Mind to Transform Your Life" by Peter Attia: Mentioned in the episode, this book explores the concept of evidence-informed medicine and applying knowledge to improve patient outcomes.

Main Takeaways

• Paying It Forward Ethos:
• Dentistry is a noble profession where practitioners are encouraged to pay forward their knowledge and experiences for the betterment of the profession and the next generation.
• Finding Your Professional Tribe:
• Emphasizes the importance of connecting with like-minded individuals, study clubs, and communities that resonate with your values and language.
• Transformative Power of Education:
• Education extends beyond the acquisition of knowledge; it fuels passion, enhances patient care, and brings meaning to the dental profession.
• Global Impact Through Teaching:
• Dr. Carstensen shares a heartwarming story about his involvement with the World Sleep Academy, illustrating the global impact of sharing knowledge and expertise.
• Collaboration Beyond Dentistry:
• Encourages dentists to explore adjacent fields, collaborate with physicians, and adopt an evidence-informed approach to healthcare.
• Continuous Learning and Nuggets of Wisdom:
• Recommends a focused approach to continuous learning, emphasizing the importance of gaining small, impactful insights (nuggets) rather than overwhelming oneself.
• 
  

Quotes:

“The first thing to do is to look at your dental sleep medicine part of your practice and think, what's missing here? What don't I know? What do I need to learn to be more comfortable? Is it the literature? Is it the medicine behind dental sleep? Is it the appliances? Is it the testing program? You know, what's missing for you? And when you've identified what's missing, okay, now where can I find that component? And then you go looking for the best place to learn that component.” [12:00 - 12:37]

“If you're going to invest money and we've said it on the podcast many times, you're going to bet on anything. Don't bet on technology. Don't bet on marketing, bet on you. You know, like go all chips in on you and your team. And, um, when you start to do that, you're going to see the investment, not only in the return on the outcomes, but you're also going to see like you'll find it keeps the fire lit.” [15:13 - 15:36]

"It's important for you to choose a time that you're going to be a learner and then be really disciplined about that. Make that sacred time. If it's Friday morning for two hours from nine to 11, then your world becomes that on Friday morning, from nine to 11. And you don't let anything interrupt it. If somebody calls and says, Let's go play golf. No, your time is from 9 to 11. And then you become a disciplined learner. Another reinforcement for your brain that way. [21:39 - 22:11]

“If you can exercise first – so, if you're nine to 11 on Friday, for example, you get up that morning and you do a little bit of light exercise. Then your brain is just so filled with oxygen and ready to go. That helps out. If you can do your timing that way, just make sure you're doing exercise a couple of days a week. Your best learning is going to be around those times when your heart rate's been up for a little while, and you're coming back down.” [22:46 - 23:14]

“A little tip that you can do that I love to pass along is, for a dentist who wants to learn this is - get a focus time. I've made up Fridays from 9 to 11, whatever time works for you, but you do have times that every day you think about a sleep problem, a dental sleep medicine issue, a question, you talk to a patient, you're curious,  find a book, open it, read, learn something, read a paragraph, read a chapter if you can, read, just learn one fact per day, and you're going to gain a bunch of knowledge that way. Just have that in your head all the time.” [35:45 - 36:22]

“The other thing we need to do is get outside of dentistry and learn about learning, learn about, uh, creating a good kind of an attitude about what we want to do in life.” [37:22 - 37:32]

676: The 3 Top Lessons I Learned About Social Media – Dr. Christian Coachman

Even today, word of mouth is still the best way to grow your practice. But what if you want to leverage social media? To help you effectively generate content that will grow your business, Kirk Behrendt brings back Dr. Christian Coachman, founder of Digital Smile Design, with his key insights about social media and how to be online. Share useful information, not “show-off” information! To learn more, listen to Episode 676 of The Best Practices Show!

Episode Resources:

• Join Dr. Coachman on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christiancoachman
• Follow Dr. Coachman on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriscoachman
• Learn more about Digital Smile Design: https://digitalsmiledesign.com
• Register for DSD Residency 1: https://digitalsmiledesign.com/dsd-residency-1-on-demand
• Subscribe to The Best Practices Show podcast: https://the-best-practices-show.captivate.fm/listen
• Join ACT’s To The Top Study Club: https://www.actdental.com/ttt
• See ACT’s Live Events Schedule: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/act-dental-live-workshops-306239
• Get The Best Practices Magazine for free! https://www.actdental.com/magazine
• Write a review on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-best-practices-show/id1223838218

Main Takeaways:

Be effective in sharing and consuming information.

Know your intent in sharing your information.

Strategically develop your persona.

Be consistent with your content.

Don't overvalue social media.

Quotes:

“The amount of information out there is so big, and the amount of useless information is huge. One of the words that I prefer the most is effectiveness. We need to be effective. Life is short, time is short, and we need to be effective — effective if you're sharing an idea or sharing content, and effective as you absorb and listen and learn. So, you can filter, you can say no, you can prioritize so that you can really make the best of your time. Useless information is the easiest thing to do, right? You see that on social media all the time. Of course, it's impossible for you to know how useful your information will be. But you need to at least stop and ask yourself how this is going to help others. It's not just putting something out there because you think it worked for you, but to structure that information into recipes, steps, and simple, take-home messages.” (8:46—10:00)

“Always start any kind of information sharing with the question, why are you sharing this with others? Why? . . . So, start with why you're sharing means that you are caring about the impact of your information, caring about how this is going to help others. You're putting yourself in the position of the listener and asking yourself, ‘What is BS, and what is not? What is show-off, and what is not?’ because there's too much BS, too much show-off.” (10:02—10:43)

“There are not many people that are actually putting energy to structure the information in a way that others can absorb and do something with it. So, how can you take something that you think is important, and you pick your words, and you create recipes, and tutorials, and 123, ABC? How can you be effective in a short period of time? Because if you take too long to explain, people will not listen online. So, it requires a little bit of rehearsing, of you saying, ‘Okay, I have a great idea. I know this idea is not bullshit. I know this is useful. I know that it's not show-off only.’ Of course, I want to look good. Of course, I want people to value my information. But it's not only about showing off. I know this is useful but let me spend some time rehearsing in my mind how I'm going to translate this in a useful way — instead of taking a minute, taking ten seconds to translate that idea. How can I distill this into a simple recipe? How can I organize this into steps? How can I express myself in a more effective way?” (10:45—11:58)

“Step one is the intention. What is the intention? What is the intention of your social media, in general, the big-picture intention? What is the intention of that post? What is the intention of that message, that image, that picture? What is the intention of that video? ‘I'm here filming myself. I'm here in Boston, on Congress Street, and I'm going to be’ — why? Why are you saying that? What is your intention in telling people that you ate steak with fries? What is the intention? Be a little bit more strategic with your intention. Clarify your intention. Start with the end in mind is, for me, the first lesson because, honestly speaking, if there is no intention, don't do anything. It's a waste for you and the others if there is no intention. So, start with the intention. You're going to see that 95% of the time you're not going to post anything, and you're going to start forcing yourself to have a better intention, a more meaningful intention. So, that's number one, when people start to see that everything you post has a noble intention, has a practical intention, has a useful intention.” (12:47—14:11)

“It's very important to identify two types of people that succeed on social media. One is people that really have amazing intentions. It means that they became famous on social media because they have a very useful intention. [The second] type of people that are famous on social media are the people that were already famous or very successful, and they are just there on social media. And because they are very famous or successful, they are successful on social media. That's a big problem because everybody watching says, ‘I want to be famous like this guy. I want to have a social media like this guy,’ and they are copying and following somebody that has no intention on social media. They are just big and successful because they are big and successful because of other things.” (14:45—15:33)

“You can follow people because of two reasons. You can follow people because they are famous anyway and they are successful anyway, and you can follow people because they are very good on social media itself. So, you want to learn from people that are using social media in a useful way. They are becoming more successful because of social media, not despite social media. Most people are admiring people on social media that didn't do anything useful on social media at all. They are just very famous because of other reasons. So, try to balance.” (15:38—16:17)

“After you have the why, the intention is very clear, the big-picture, and in every little post the intention is very clear, number two is you need to define what is your character. What is your persona? You need to build your persona. You cannot be all over. The more you structure yourself in a way that people can connect to that character — of course, we don't want to be fake. We don't want to try to be somebody that we are not. But as normal human beings, we are all over. We can be more this one day, more that another day. We can change. We can be one person at work, slightly different at home. With friends, we are different. So, you need to pick which one that you want to promote, which one you want to highlight. So, building your character on social media and defining it requires a little bit of exercise. You need to sit down and write down, who are you there? Of course, it's totally connected with the why and the intentions, so you're going to emphasize the pieces of you that can help you with that intention.” (16:32—17:52)

“People want to connect with you, right? They want to connect with you. They want to see that there's a human connection there. So, understanding your lifestyle also helps. You want to blend — again, as part of the strategy, you need to define your strategy. Some people are 100% technical, clinical, and they succeed completely on their social media. People are following me a lot because they see that, somehow, I'm succeeding with what I'm doing, and my success is not a technical, clinical success. My success is part of the lifestyle that I was able to build, the balance between health and work, the balance between family and traveling for work. And so, it's part of a strategy. It's real. It is me, and there is an intention. I'm intentionally sharing my personal struggles with my lifestyle and with my achievements because it's part of my overall success.” (19:09—20:18)

“I only started to share these weekly Reels with a summary of the week when I started my personal challenge to get to 50 in better shape than when I was 40. So, I created a cause. I created a movement. And you can do that. You can define a certain challenge to yourself, and establish some landmarks and some goals that you want to achieve, and share that with your community. People love to see you working hard for that idea, for that goal, and getting closer to that goal. That's the reason why I was never posting my daily life on social media until I had a reason, until I had a purpose, until I had an intention. That's when things started to work better with my content.” (20:19—21:16)

“Another thing that’s very important, and you see that on social media, is to be consistent with your content, repeating over, and over, and over again. It's almost like a TV show that, once you have that same show every week, that same time, with the same direction, same intention, week after week, month after month, year after year, you slowly build an audience of that show. So, your content is the same. You want to create that consistency so that people, little by little, can start connecting and, as you said, expecting that. Not that they will intentionally, ‘Oh, I'm waiting every week for Christian's week summary.’ No. But unconsciously, when people see that, they spend a few seconds more because, ‘Oh, Christian just came out with that weekly video, so I'm going to enjoy these seconds and I'm going to watch it.’ So, you have the intention, and you have the consistency. It's a long-term plan. You don't have these things happen like magic. ‘Oh, I'm doing great. I have a great plan, so in three months it's going to explode.’ No. It’s little by little.’” (21:36—23:02)

“Perfection can be a huge enemy in many ways in our life, and one of them is when it comes to content generation because it can always be better. You can always edit better. You can always produce better. But the important thing is that you have an intention — a true, honest, useful intention. Useful. I'm going to repeat that word — a useful intention because, honestly speaking, my life has no use for somebody else. People don't give a damn, right? People are worried about themselves. ‘What is in it for me? How can this help me?’ So, there's too much content that is just there because people are showing off or showing whatever. When you start with the intention and you have an honest intention towards the other one, then your content is completely different from inception. Even as you're recording yourself or doing a selfie — it's amazing. When you start with the intention, the real outcome that you want, the real message that you think will be useful for people, you even change the angle. You change the content. You change the words. You change everything because you are constantly thinking, ‘How can I generate value to the other?’ Not showing off — value to the other.” (23:53—25:24)

“Don't be fake — but be the best possible version of yourself. For good or for bad, be honest, be transparent, and show your weaknesses. Don't be a superhero. Don't always be right. Don't always be cool. Be yourself, be honest, be transparent, but explore the highlights of you, as a person, focusing on the other, connected to the intention.” (26:09—26:36)

“Number three, you cannot delegate content generation. People don't want to follow your social media team. People don't want to follow your company. People don't want to follow your practice. People want to follow you. They want to connect with you. If you have an intention and a cool character, they want to follow you. So, that's why personal social media accounts are always much bigger than company social media accounts. So, you need to be the one behind your content. Meaning — I know you're super busy. If you're a clinician, practice owner, you're crazy, insanely busy. Don't waste your time and money. If you don't have a solution to be in charge of your content, don't even waste your time.” (26:39—27:40)

“The goal here is to find a system that you can have the final word, and the content can represent you in the best way possible without wasting too much time — unless you have somebody on your team that is good and has more time and becomes the face of your business. That's also cool. You're the practice owner. You don't need to be the main character of your practice. That's a very smart move, by the way. And many times, if you can control your ego to put somebody else as the persona and explore — maybe a young associate, or maybe the hygienist, or maybe somebody that has great communication potential — and you use that person as the ambassador of your practice, maybe as the character, then you build and you invest on the character of that person. But if it's going to be you, you need to be the one controlling the content generation.” (27:44—28:50)

“You need to organize sessions. The best way to do it is to pick an afternoon and create content for six months. But again, that content will be useless if you don't start with the intention, if your persona is not clarified, and if you don't have a clear reason why you're spending energy with it. Where do you want to send people? Because you're not making money from Instagram. Instagram is paying you zero. That's not your business. Why are you wasting time on social media? What do you want from it?” (28:52—29:30)

“It's hard to stop every week for a few hours to create content. So, the more structured content, you can batch it. Of course, there are things that are happening, and in that exact moment you want to be able to capture that moment that is not preplanned. So, also in combination with the more structured content that you want to organize in batches. And I believe that two times a year, half a day, or maybe a full day, focus on that if the scripts and the stories and the topics that you want to cover are already pre-organized. In one day, you can record so much content to be able to spread during the whole half a year.” (30:33—31:26)

“There are many things that are happening right here, right now, so you need to find on your team that person — it’s not easy — that has an eye to capture moments before you even say. I see that in specific people on my team. For example, if something interesting is happening, as it's already started, those few minutes something cool is happening and I look around, that person already has the camera on. That person was able to identify the opportunity. It's usually natural storytellers, people that love capturing stories and sharing stories. They usually have an eye to capture these moments. Many times, this skill, that is amazing for me, is dormant inside people. So, you need to identify that, empower that, and give freedom. Say, ‘Look, your phone is one of the most important instruments for our business. Your phone and your eyes, your capacity to identify moments is key. It doesn't mean we're going to use everything that you're recording. It doesn't mean that every moment will end up with a great ending. But don't miss the opportunity. Don't be shy. I'm empowering you, and I'm asking you that if you do this properly, this can become something huge for us, for the business, and for you. So, do it.’ And that person will be able to capture moments that, afterwards, you can edit quickly here and there. These are usually the best pieces of content.” (31:29—33:19)

“Many people love doing social media content. But don't confuse people that love doing social media content with this person that is a natural storyteller. One way to differentiate them is that somebody that loves doing social media content but is constantly putting himself or herself in the center of the story is not a storyteller. So, the selfie thing — no. People with the dormant storytelling talent are the ones that do it quietly, and they are not jealous about the fact that the main character of that little story is not themselves. They're capturing the story. It's the difference between the main actor and the director. The director loves capturing, even if people don't have a clue that he's the one behind the scenes capturing it. The actor wants to show up in front of the camera. Most of the people doing social media content, they are in front of the camera, showing off. That's not the person you want because they will not have the eyes to see the stories of others. They only see their own story, and they only capture their own story.” (33:44—35:08)

“The storyteller is the one that loves capturing these moments, and you may find somebody on your team that has this naturally. Many times, it’s not the marketing person that you hired. Many times, it’s not the one in charge of the social media. Sometimes, it’s somebody that is cleaning the instruments, or the technician in the back of the room, the front desk person, whoever. Do a little bit of research, and I'm pretty sure you're going to find somebody on your team that has that dormant, natural talent to capture special moments.” (35:59—36:37)

“Human connections will become more and more important. Knowing exactly who you can trust will become more and more important. So, as a professional, we want to emphasize our ethics, our morals, and emphasize the fact that we are so good on topic A, B, and C, and we really know how to express ourselves in topic A, B, and C that people can trust us. So, how can you become the most trusted voice in the topics — not in dentistry, in general. It's too big. Pick your battles. Find the topics that you love the most, the topics that you know [that make you] unique, special, [and] different. Find those topics and become an amazing, ethical communicator about those topics and become the most trusted voice in your area in those topics.” (41:32—42:30)

“It doesn't matter how good or how bad you are with social media. As a practice owner, by far, word of mouth is still the best way to grow your practice. Everybody talks about social media, but it's a smaller piece of the puzzle of success. Don't overvalue it. And if you don't feel like doing it, don't even go there. You're not going to disappear. If you are focused on transforming patients into fans for real, in the real world, in person, and you're transforming effectively your patients into fans and your fans into promoters, that's, by far, the number-one way to...

675: How Do I Respond Within My Core Values When Bad Things Happen? – Katrina Sanders

Sometimes, things don't go as well as you planned. What can you do to not lose your mind? Your first step is to have core values, and Kirk Behrendt brings back Katrina Sanders, The Dental WINEgenist, to share how her core values helped turn one of her failures into an opportunity. Challenges will always happen — so choose how you respond to them! To learn how, listen to Episode 675 of The Best Practices Show!

Episode Resources:

• Send Katrina an email: [email protected] 
• Join Katrina on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katrina.sanders.948
• Follow Katrina on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedentalwinegenist
• Learn more on Katrina’s website: https://katrinasanders.com
• Subscribe to The Best Practices Show podcast: https://the-best-practices-show.captivate.fm/listen
• Join ACT’s To The Top Study Club: https://www.actdental.com/ttt
• See ACT’s Live Events Schedule: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/act-dental-live-workshops-306239
• Get The Best Practices Magazine for free! https://www.actdental.com/magazine
• Write a review on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-best-practices-show/id1223838218

Links Mentioned in This Episode:

Register for Katrina’s live workshop (March 9, 2024): https://www.eventbrite.com/e/act-dental-hygienists-live-course-march-9-2024-tickets-732186328017?aff=odcleoeventsincollection

Read The Trust Edge by David Horsager: https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Edge-Leaders-Relationships-Stronger/dp/1476711372

Main Takeaways:

Challenges are opportunities to demonstrate your core values.

Communicate your core values consistently to your team.

Let your reaction to challenges echo your integrity.

Learn to listen and validate during conflict.

Ask your team for input.

Quotes:

“Dentistry is a terrific example of where there are complications that arise consistently. How many times [are we] sitting in the morning huddle and it's like, ‘So-and-so is in for their crown seat, but we haven't gotten the crown back from the lab,’ or, ‘So-and-so is coming in, and their stitches are coming out, and they're not happy about this,’ or, ‘So-and-so is coming in. Their insurance didn't pay for this, so they want to sit down and talk to you, Doctor, about what the issue is?’ Dentistry is this beautiful balance of — we're performing art. We're also treating human beings where failure happens because we, it turns out, can't control what our patients are going to eat. There’s stress, hormone levels, tobacco habits, whatever is going on.” (13:05—13:51)

“Our schooling taught us how you run a dental practice, or how you treat patients when everything is going perfectly, when you've got plenty of time to sit down and talk to that patient about their medication list, when you've got plenty of time to talk to the patient about how to realign their denture the correct way, et cetera. What we are not fully prepared for or have not been trained to do is, how do you show up when those things are not in perfect alignment? And I implore you to consider, they rarely are in perfect alignment. We have processes in place. We build the scaffolding, we build the process, we build the templated schedule, we build who is in charge of this — but things still happen. There are errors, there are human beings involved in this. And so, the conversation now becomes how do you show up when a stimulus happens, and you now have to choose how to respond?” (13:56—14:50)

“I used to do theater, so I feel quite prepared if anything happens to me on stage. I'm ready to go with how to respond to that. But how do we do that in dentistry? How do you show up when your patient is not happy, or when the procedure didn't go the way — and it can be anything from as simple as you drop the saliva ejector on the floor, and it's like, ‘Augh.’ How do you respond to that? Because here's the thing: people are watching. Your team members are watching. Your patients are watching. This is where you have the opportunity to demonstrate the true essence of what your core values are.” (15:40—16:16)

“It's the concept of thinking about buying a red Honda, and then all of a sudden on the road, it's like you see red Hondas all the time. And there is a power to that, the attention of what your brain or your mindset is pointing to that you've now called out an awareness around. The same is true inside of a dental practice. What you put your focus on will amplify.” (18:19—18:46)

“The deeper question that I would like to ask these doctors or these professionals who are saying this is, are you inspecting what you expect? And by that, I mean, in our practice, we will talk about our big, hairy, audacious goal for the month, and how close we are to our BHAG, and what patients accepted treatment yesterday, and let's look at the schedule, and talk about the bottlenecks. We do those things. But then, we also have a segment of our morning huddle where we have the ability to highlight or amplify somebody who showed up inside of our core values within our practice. And every time, it's something like, ‘I want to call out Jenna because yesterday, I was running behind. This patient had a failure. I couldn't get the suture out, and Jenna came along and said, how about I do this? That showed up inside of the core value of excellence and integrity. Jenna, thank you so much for that.’ That is called out. That is measured alongside how much money we're bringing into the practice, or how much money we want to bring into the practice.” (18:48—20:08)

“David Horsager in his book, The Trust Edge, says if the leader of the practice, the leader of the business, the leader of whatever you want to say, if you are not communicating what your core values and your mission statement are to your team every 30 days, they will not be able to recite it back to you. They can't. And it's one of my favorite activities to do where I'll sit in a lecture hall, and I'll look at the lead hygienist, and I'll say, ‘What are the core values of your practice? You're the lead hygienist. You should know,’ and the lead hygienist is like, ‘I have no idea.’ Okay. So, it wasn't communicated. And then, also, how is it being communicated? How are you actually demonstrating how these core values are showing up? Because they're fine if they're just listed as a bulleted list on the wall. That's like me, as a speaker, just standing there and reading off of my slides. Nobody wants that. You want me to give you the meat, the essence of what all of these bullet points mean. So, inside of a practice, as a leader, are you showing your team or are you even calling out?” (20:13—21:14)

“I think you would see a lot of surprised faces if at your next morning huddle you said, ‘You know what? I'm going to call out this one person,’ because the first thing they're going to think is that you're going to say something negative, right? ‘I want to call out this one person because they showed up inside of our core values in this way yesterday. Here's the experience, here's how this happened, and I want to acknowledge you for that.’ When you create that call, now your team is aware of it. They're looking for the “red Honda” they want to see. Or, rather, they have the opportunity to deliver that red Honda to you. So, you're creating an essence of putting attention on the correct things inside of your practice.” (21:15—21:53)

“The main message here is challenge will happen. It's how you choose to show up inside of that that will let you continue to soar, or that challenge will just break you.” (23:36—23:43)

“I, too, have gotten reviews like that. I've gotten the, ‘Katrina Sanders is bad news. Don't ever bring her back.’ And it's like, okay, come on. We've all gotten that. There's a difference between, am I going to hold on to that and have that one review or that one person be the thing that breaks the Jenga blocks of what I've built inside of my business, or am I going to use this, fuel it, and make this something that makes me greater, better, stronger, et cetera.?” (23:44—24:10)

“There's this quote that I remember early on that I think about a lot when I run into a challenge, and that is, ‘Don't let your reaction echo their integrity. Let your reaction echo your own integrity.’ Like, how many times do you get an angry, belligerent patient or somebody who is just unreasonable, and they're frustrated? And doctors, they're talking about your work. They're talking about your training. They're talking about your skills. They're talking about how beautifully you placed that composite, or how well you seated that onlay. Or hygienists, they're talking about your ability to scale and root plane, whatever it is. Oh, that hits so personally as a speaker when you get a terrible review. Oh, that hurts because I built this course. I built these slides. I thought about who is sitting in the room. I thought about the heads nodding because I did a great job with this research point. I put myself on the plane. I picked out the outfit I was going to wear. I picked out the shoes. I did the whole thing. I took this so seriously. And, oh, doesn't that hurt your soul a little bit when it hits you like that? But don't let your reaction echo their integrity. Choose how you want to respond, and you get to do that inside of your core values.” (24:11—25:32)

“Things happen. Now, I will say, when adverse events happen — when we're talking about a medical emergency, okay, a little bit different. That is not your time to sit and have a one-hour pity party while a patient is having cardiac arrest — within reason. But when do you get to dance with that and say, you know what? It sounds like that patient was having a difficult time yesterday. I'm going to give him a call and say, ‘Hey, I hope everything is okay. Can I send you a $5 Starbucks gift card? I'd love to send a coffee, on me, because you matter.’ What are the things that you can do? Let's have fun with this. And ask your team, doctors — you're not alone in this. I ask my team this all the time. We just had a challenge with that this week. I asked my team, ‘What are some of your ideas about how we can show up inside of our core values with this client situation? How do we do that?’ Now, you get to see that sizzle. You get to see the team show up, roll up their sleeves, and go, ‘Well, we could do this. We could do that.’” (26:35—27:36)

“When you have the privilege of playing with — something is not perfect, aligning, whatever that might be, when you have the privilege to do that, it is a telling aspect of your brand.” (29:25—29:38)

“My brand is, I'm going to make sure that, at the end of the day, I take full responsibility and accountability. I will apologize when I screw up. I do. I don't apologize if I didn't screw up. Dentistry, we're not good at that. We like to apologize for things when we didn't screw up. ‘I'm sorry that your gums didn't heal from that SRP.’ I'm sure you're sorry. But the patients, medical, all these other things, are impacted in that. We apologize for a lot of things that are not entirely our fault. And yet, there are, ‘You know what? I'm sorry. We scheduled you before we could confirm that your crown came in from the lab. I'm sorry. This was absolutely a misstep on our part. Your time is valuable to us, and to you.’ So, apologize for the things you are apologetic for, and be kind and high integrity around the things that you do have control over and you can fix and repair.” (30:52—31:45)

“There are two key factors to what the person on the other side of the conflict actually wants. The first is to be heard. And so, reflective listening is so important. We always want to talk and say the things to fix it. I think dentistry, we're healers. We're fixers. We want everybody to be fixed and happy. ‘Did you have a great time? Send us a good Google review. Thank you. Bye.’ We want that. So, we want to talk our way out of this situation instead of that reflective listening, making them feel heard.” (33:16—33:46)

“We are taught conflict resolution. ‘These are all the things you should do, or how you do them.’...

674: The Hidden Secret to Patient Loyalty: The First Phone Call – Robyn Theisen

Do you want more loyal patients in your practice? Of course you do! To help you attract those high-value patients, Kirk Behrendt brings back Robyn Theisen, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, to share the secrets of the first phone call. Win people over before they step into your office! To learn how a phone call can get patients to stay, listen to Episode 674 of The Best Practices Show!

Episode Resources:

• Send Robyn an email: [email protected] 
• Follow Robyn on ACT’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/actdental
• Send Gina an email: [email protected] 
• Subscribe to The Best Practices Show podcast: https://the-best-practices-show.captivate.fm/listen
• Join ACT’s To The Top Study Club: https://www.actdental.com/ttt
• See ACT’s Live Events Schedule: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/act-dental-live-workshops-306239
• Get The Best Practices Magazine for free! https://www.actdental.com/magazine
• Write a review on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-best-practices-show/id1223838218

Main Takeaways:

Put the right person on the phone.

Make a habit of taking physical notes.

Always start by finding out your patient’s name.

Find out the things that are important to your patient.

Ask every patient where they heard about your practice.

Learn about your patients’ expectations and lay them all out.

Have patients experience value before they come into your office.

Insurance should be the last thing you talk about in your conversation.

Quotes:

“We have been doing this a long time — myself personally, 30 years — and I'm still underwhelmed by talking to dental offices at how flat the phone call is.” (1:42—1:52) -Kirk

“In dentistry, we’re in a relationship business, so this first phone call is an opportunity for us to learn more than their name, their insurance, any of those standard things that we ask for. It's an opportunity to learn what's important to them, like, why are they choosing you as a dentist? What made them call you? What's going to make them stay? All those things can be such important things that we can learn from the first phone call with us.” (2:26—2:51) -Robyn

“The ultimate question becomes, is your practice relational or transactional? Now, everybody listening to this would say, ‘It's relational!’ But let's call out the inherent challenges of working the front desk. You, as a dentist listening to this, never worked the front desk. You have no idea how difficult it is. There's a lot going on up there. The second challenge is it becomes a very left-brained process because we have more software than ever — you have Dentrix, Eaglesoft, and Open Dental, and everything is about filling a box from left to right in the software. Active listening has kind of gone away as we've trained team members they’ve just got to fill the boxes. So, they're not really listening. It's their agenda against the patients’ agenda.” (2:53—3:38) -Kirk

“In a day and age where PPOs are flooding dental practices now at a higher speed, let's give the team members up front a little bit of grace because they often have to be able to slow down, listen, and connect with patients enough in order to even start this conversation.” (3:40—3:59) -Kirk

“To have an actual piece of paper is really helpful. Like you said, [teams are] filling it in in Eaglesoft, Dentrix, whatever that is. It's nice to have a piece of paper to write on and to make notes so that you gather all the information. I also see teams that will have the new patient form on a brightly colored piece of paper. That's an indicator for anyone walking up to them that they're on the phone with a new patient, so give them the time and the space to be able to talk to patients and potentially find someone else to work with on the business team to help them with what they need at that time.” (4:06—4:35) -Robyn

“Having the uniquely colored piece of paper is one of the most brilliant systems in a dental practice because when you have a fluorescent orange or a fluorescent pink — and I've even seen them in the fluorescent yellow or bluish colors — those are great because that is a visual cue for, ‘Stay away from me. Don't come near me,’ because all too often, if I'm a chairside assistant, I'm parking a patient right at the front, and they're staring right at you while you're trying to listen to the new caller. So, it's really important.” (5:18—5:48) -Kirk

“It is amazing to me how often [finding out your patient’s name is] missed. Typically, a patient will call, and they are asking you a question right out the gate. So, instead of taking the time to circle back and understand what their name is to create that relationship, we go right into answering the question. So, I would say regardless of what that first question is from the patient, take the time to reintroduce yourself and ask them their name. Find out what their name is. It is the sweetest sound that anyone can hear, is their own name, and people really love to be referred to by their name. Have that conversation. That starts that relationship.” (6:03—6:35) -Robyn

“We talk about cancellations all the time. You get one shot to make a deep connection with this patient. I highly suggest you use their name. Create that bond right upfront because people don't cancel on their friends.” (7:04—7:17) -Kirk

“[Using your patient’s name] is the first opportunity to start building that relationship — the trust and the loyalty that they will develop with the office.” (7:33—7:40) -Robyn

“Find out what's important to [patients]. ‘What’s the most important thing about your visit with us today? What prompted you to call us?’ Find out what is important to them and what made them choose you. That is going to give us a lot of information about what they are looking for in an office, and it also gives you a lot of information about what they're potentially running away from. So, if somebody says, ‘The most important thing is I want to be seen on time,’ now I know what's really important to them and what is going to keep them loyal to me. Also, if we're consistently late with them, that's also going to push them away. So, you can learn information on both sides of things when you ask them what's really important to them. And it's more than a dental visit. What is really important? How do I build the relationship with them? I think that question is so often missed.” (7:52—8:39) -Robyn

“[Finding out what's important to your patients] gives you an opportunity to really understand, are they a good fit for the practice? Do they have the same value system as you? What do they look like for a long-term patient? What do we need to do to be able to keep them loyal for the things that are important to them?” (9:42—9:54) -Robyn

“Your favorite people that you'll ever bring into your practice care about the same things that you care about. So, as you slow down, you ask the right questions, ‘Why us? Why now?’ somebody is trained upfront to ask those questions, actually collect that information, and share it with the team, over time, you're going to find you're filling the schedule with the right type of people.” (9:54—10:12) -Kirk

“You have to be somewhat unique, if not very unique. In order to get outside of the PPOs, you have to be really different. You can't just be a little bit different. There's got to be something unique and special about you, and that's the thing that gets missed a lot of times when people are trying to get away from PPOs. You’ve got to create some value on the phone.” (10:13—10:38) -Kirk

“The referral source is a really important piece to ask. I believe that's something that's missed often, is asking patients how they heard about you . . . When we talk about scheduling people based on insurance and limiting some of that as you're trying to make transitions with insurance, one of the big things, a delineation is, if you're referred by a patient of ours and a friend of our practice and you have Delta Dental, that's different than the patient that calls in because they saw you on a list. And so, finding out that information, where they were referred from, gives you an idea on the loyalty to the practice or what they're looking for from your practice and if it's a fit or not. It also is a marketing piece. So, if you are tracking where your marketing dollars are going and where you want to put those to attract other patients, tracking that for marketing reasons is really important to know how many people we're getting from different sources.” (10:45—11:42) -Robyn

“Don't just take their first answer when you ask, ‘Where did you hear [about us]?’ [Always ask], ‘Where else did you hear about us?’ because they might have seen something else. People usually need multiple points of contact, or they didn't just hear it one time. They heard your name a second time, a third time. ‘Oh, I think I . . . I've heard a lot about you guys,’ and it's important to collect all that information.” (11:56—12:18) -Kirk

“Don't just be so focused on the information. Give some energy to the information like this: if my [patient] said, ‘Mike, my neighbor, he's a patient there and he loves you guys.’ You have to say, ‘Oh, we love him too! We take care of the whole family,’ because that's called transfer of trust. It implies that my friend that I love, that you love, we're all going to love each other when we get to know each other, and that's a really, really high IQ moment for anybody that's answering the phone, is to make those connections.” (12:21—12:54) -Kirk

“Google is a referral source that we hear often, where patients are hearing about us. A question I like to ask is, ‘Yeah, I hear that a lot from patients. Share with me what you read on Google that was important to you. Share with me what stood out to you.’ Again, it's another indicator of what's important to them. What are the things that stood out in the reviews that were really important to them that brought them to you? Those are great things to know about patients and things that you can build on in conversation.” (13:36—14:00) -Robyn

“It's taking the opportunities, like you said, to ask that one next question. What's that next question to really learn more about them, what's important to them, what we're looking for, what they're looking for, what we need to avoid, or what we need to provide more of? Those are important questions and important things to know.” (14:18—14:33) -Robyn

“Another big piece of this is we've got to find out what [patients] expect, and we've got to tell them what they can expect.” (15:36—15:42) -Kirk

“Patients, or people in general, like to be parts of groups. So, if you can let them know what they can expect coming in or orient them to what they can expect coming in — new patients come in in different ways to different offices. So, if it's that they come in to see the hygienist first, or they come in to see the doctor first, whatever that is, I know one challenge that we run up against too often is patients expect a cleaning, or they expect to come in and see the hygienist and have a cleaning. That isn't always possible. So, I find if you can give them exactly what's going to happen before they come in, you have less conflict with that.” (15:44—16:21) -Robyn

“Back to the group thing, that's really important because we never want to feel like we're so unique and we're a unicorn out there. I want to know that I'm talking to somebody, and they get me. So, if I have some jaw pain that's turning into headache pain, I want to talk to somebody on the phone who says, ‘Listen, we have a lot of people that call for this exact reason. You're not alone, and you're calling the right place. Our doctor is an amazing doctor, and she's an even better human being. Let me share with you how this works at the first appointment.’ We want to know what to expect. Your patients should never hang up feeling confused, thinking they're going to get a cleaning, and they're getting a comprehensive exam instead, or that they're not going to get their teeth cleaned at all when they were thinking they were going to get their teeth cleaned. It is so cool when you can make promises and keep them. Isn't that powerful?” (16:52—17:43) -Kirk

“Typically, your patients are going to expect that they're going to be there for an hour. So, I find with offices that are having you there for 90 minutes, for two hours, where you may say, ‘Expect to be here for 90 minutes,’ I follow up with, ‘You can expect to be here until 9:30 a.m.’ That's how people put it in their calendar. They block out times in it, so being specific about the time that they are going to be there, I have found, has eliminated or cut down on that variation of, are they going to be here for an hour, hour-and-a half, when we say 90 minutes? Adding a time has really helped with patients knowing exactly what to block out on their calendar.” (18:27—19:00) -Robyn

“[Another question to ask patients is] the insurance piece or the more transactional information. You've gathered all of this information for you to be able to build the relationship, and now that there is pertinent information in their insurance benefits, if they plan to use any of those, what relationship you have with that at the office . . . Patients focus on the things that we do. And so, by having this at the end of your phone conversation, you've gathered all this information, now you can ask that information before you know where to schedule them and where to put them into your schedule.” (19:15—19:52) -Robyn

“We've trained patients to think that [insurance is] the first question they should ask. I think patients ask that question at the beginning because they don't know what else to ask, and we feed into that by continuing to make it a huge ordeal. So, if that's the first question for a patient when they call in to me and I'm answering the phone, it's like, ‘That's a great question, and I will get to that. Would you mind if I ask you a few questions to learn more about you before we get to that?’ so that I can assure them we're going to get to that information. I want to know more about them before I jump into, ‘Do you have Delta? What's the subscriber number? What's your date of birth?’ all of those things. I want to build the relationship first, and I lose the opportunity if I go right into the insurance piece.” (20:38—21:17) -Robyn

“If you don't train your team members to think during these phone calls, they're going to react because they know you want those chairs full. So, they're going to take all these phone calls that are coming in at record speeds from these PPOs and less desirable ones, and they're just going to fill them because they haven't been trained. So, what we're encouraging you guys to do is just slow down, think, create a relationship, teach your team members about your schedule, what matters to your vision, and you can start to create the practice that you really dreamed of year, over year, over year as you start to do this.” (22:21—22:55) -Kirk

“Now, we've gathered all the information. We know where they're going to fit best within our practice. What are the optimal times to put them? By saying that, of where they're going to fit best in our practice, I also want to put them in a place that I know they're going to have the very best experience in our practice. We've got times that are reserved for different types of new patients, or we have new patient times that are reserved. And so, it's fitting them into that right spot to make sure that it works best for your team so that they have the ultimate new patient experience when they come in.” (23:02—23:30) -Robyn

“Whoever is teaching this in dentistry, ‘Get them off the phone as fast as possible, in three to four minutes,’ that's crazy. I don't get that at all. If you pay attention to metrics in any other industry, you'll find that the longer people are on the phone, the more that they spend in any business. Now, I realize in a dental office you can't be on the phone for half an hour. That's not what I'm saying. But I think if you care enough, you do what Robyn is talking about, I find the right time slot for you.” (23:34—24:01) -Kirk

“Don't just schedule them and hang up. Do something really special. People remember what's said first and what's said last. Ninety-nine percent of all phone calls in dentistry are like, ‘Well, you're scheduled for next Tuesday at one o'clock. We'll see you then. Please arrive early. We're going to email you your health history forms. Have a great day.’ Say, ‘Listen, you're scheduled for next Tuesday at one o'clock. If you have any challenges, I want you to call me. I'm here for you. I'll be the first smiling face you see. I'm going to send you your health history forms. Please fill them out beforehand. And hey, before you hang up, can I share one thought with you?’ What is every patient going to say?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘I want you to know, I know you were scared a little bit before you called. You called the right place. You're going to meet our dentist on Tuesday. She's awesome. You're going to love her. And what you're looking for, that's what we do. So, I want you to have a great day — oh, wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait.’ I'm going to throw a curveball. ‘Before you hang up, who else may we schedule from your family? I know you're new to town.’ That's the bonus round.” (24:19—25:21) -Kirk

“When you practice this, and you have a system for this, and you feel confident in how you're asking the questions, it doesn't have to take a lot of time — and it's so worth it. The time that you spend to not be hurried and to really be invested in the relationship with people, it is worth it. So, be confident and ask the right questions. Ask that one more question and build the relationship with those people from the very beginning.” (25:26—25:51) -Robyn

“Whoever is answering the phone, make sure that they enjoy answering the phone, because we do see that people are just thrown into this position. They're like, ‘I hate talking to anybody,’ and they have to fake it all day, which causes a huge energy drain for them. When you find the right person who enjoys creating smiles on the phone, you're going to see it's going to be so easy on everybody, and you'll have a practice that's busy forever.” (25:59—26:25) -Kirk

“[The first phone call is] a really important two or three minutes in your day, so take the time to be invested in learning about people. It actually is so much more fun when the phone — when I was a business team member, when you ask questions like this and can really get to know people, the conversations and the phone calls are so much more fun than the transactional, ‘Let me tick off my list of all of the things I need to gather from you.’ So, practice it and

673: Red Flags to Green Lights: Strategies for Transforming the Top 3 Dental KPIs – Miranda Beeson

If you want to grow your practice, you need data. But which numbers should you track, and why? To help you answer those questions, Kirk Behrendt brings back Miranda Beeson, ACT’s director of education and amazing coach, to share the top three KPIs you need to know and what to do when your numbers aren't great. Take your practice from red to green! To learn the secrets to transforming your practice, listen to Episode 673 of The Best Practices Show!

Episode Resources:

• Send Miranda an email: [email protected] 
• Follow Miranda on ACT’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/actdental
• Send Gina an email: [email protected]
• Subscribe to The Best Practices Show podcast: https://the-best-practices-show.captivate.fm/listen
• Join ACT’s To The Top Study Club: https://www.actdental.com/ttt
• See ACT’s Live Events Schedule: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/act-dental-live-workshops-306239
• Get The Best Practices Magazine for free! https://www.actdental.com/magazine
• Write a review on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-best-practices-show/id1223838218

Links Mentioned in This Episode:

Register for ACT’s To The Top Study Club (April 19, 2024 and April 26, 2024): https://info.actdental.com/golden-ticket

Download ACT’s Roadmap to Practice Profitability: https://www.actdental.com/free-resources/money-tool

Download ACT’s PPO Roadmap: https://www.actdental.com/free-resources/ppo-roadmap

Download ACT’s PIT Stop: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14RC6hKURo0wu0qJmTAYtt-XEPVnwpKA4/view?usp=drive_link

Watch Episode 664: Winning With Data – 7 Practice KPIs to Illuminate Practice Health – Robyn Theisen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80Zrm8oLMS0

Main Takeaways:

Know your production.

Know your write-off percentage.

Know your collection percentage.

Know the countermeasures to apply.

Quotes:

“A thriving practice relies on key data metrics in order to have an objective representation of what's happening in your practice and the performance of your team, and not basing it on feelings. A lot of times when we're looking at data, the immediate thought we have is towards money and profitability — which, don't get me wrong. I want nothing more than to help people be as profitable as possible. But sometimes, what someone is aiming towards might not be profitability. It might be one of the things we talk about, which is working less days but maintaining our profitability. And so, whatever the outcome is that the practice is moving towards, the data and the metrics are what help us to know if we're on track or off track.” (2:31—3:11) -Miranda

“We're going to start with production as our first KPI that we're talking about countermeasures for. So, if you have a production goal that you've intentionally set for your practice per day, per month, for the year and it's off track, we have to look at strategic ways that we can work effectively to shift or change that. The very first thing that I would say as a countermeasure here is performing a fee analysis, taking a look at your fees — especially if you have not in a long period of time. I would say at least once a year, evaluating your office master fee schedule and comparing that to a national database or your regional average.” (7:11—7:53) -Miranda

“It's amazing to me how many people don't put in their master fee schedule. They're putting in something else, or they don't even know what it is. You should always be billing out your full fee — even if you're 100% PPO — because you can show patients the difference. You can see the difference.” (8:43—9:00) -Kirk

“The other inherent challenge with gross production is that you have all these friends from high school, and you have a big family — all these people that ask you to do dentistry for free. And you say, ‘Don't put it in the schedule. It's my sister. I'm just going to prep her uppers today,’ all day, and there's no production at all today. So, you have to put everything, all the time, in the computer at full fee so that you can account for your time and growth potential.” (9:05—9:33) -Kirk

“I go to a lot of conferences. If you're listening to this podcast, you do too. You go to some conference, and some dentist goes, ‘Well, I produce $1.8 million,’ and it’s one doctor. And you think, ‘Oh my gosh, $1.8 million.’ Well, two practices that both produce $1.8 million where one practice collects all of it and one practice writes off 33% of it, it's not the same deal. One practice has a lot of money. The other practice has no money. The practice that's writing off 33% . . . you're working one out of every three days for free! You come home, you look at your significant other, and you go, ‘Honey, I'm doing this for us.’ And your significant other says, ‘Thank you so much, because you're working so hard for nothing,’ type of a thing. So, I'm having fun with you here on this podcast — but it is no fun to work that hard and not make money.” (9:46—10:46) -Kirk

“I was talking with a client recently, and she is primarily contracted with insurance. It's like, ‘Well, why do I need to raise my fees? I'm going to be writing it off anyway. It's just a bigger write-off that I'm going to end up showing on paper.’ But what I shared with her is, when you do go to renegotiate your fees with the insurances that you're contracted with, if you're renegotiating and they're looking at your master fee schedule and you're in the 30th or 40th percentile for your region, they don't feel a need to raise your contracted rate. So, there are two different pieces to what you just mentioned. One is, always bill your full fee. I agree 1,000%. Always make sure that what's being posted in your office is your full fee, not the contracted fee. A lot of times, what clients will share is that they send the full fee to insurance. But that's very different than posting and billing your full fee because, again, the patient doesn't see that, and it's not indicated within your software as your master fee schedule for future planning purposes.” (11:15—12:16) -Miranda

“Step one, do a solid fee analysis on at least an annual basis. And if you find yourself in the 40th or 50th percentile and you know in your heart that you are in the top 90% in your area in terms of the services that you provide and the care that you provide your patients, you have to incrementally make changes and raise those fees to where you do get closer and closer to what you believe your true value is.” (12:17—12:42) -Miranda

“To boost your production, another thing to do is two things around non-covered services. One, if you do live within an area that allows you to charge your full fee on non-covered services in terms of your state legislation on fee capping, then most certainly charge your full fee on those non-covered services. I'm going to say to do your due diligence, because in your state legislation, there are some insurance plans that if you are contracted with self-insured plans that are part of larger conglomerates like a Walmart or Coca-Cola, really big organizations, you actually have to follow their guidelines. But if you can look at your state legislation, determine if you have fee capping legislation or not — and certain or most insurance plans, you can, in fact, charge your full fee for things like an occlusal guard, if it's a non-covered service, or an implant, if it's a non-covered service within their plan. So, that's one aspect of looking at how non-covered services can benefit your practice.” (13:06—14:10) -Miranda

“The other [way to boost production] is continuing to build on skills and services that fall outside of insurance parameters. So, when we're looking at services around clear aligner therapy, whitening services, veneers, things of a cosmetic nature, if that's something that interests you — when we're looking at sleep and some of the things that are happening in the world of sleep right now, some of that falls outside of insurance parameters. So, looking at services that you can build into your practice that do fall outside of those common insurance reimbursement procedures.” (14:10—14:45) -Miranda

“[Another way to boost production] is maximizing hygiene services. As we know, the hygiene department — being a hygienist myself — we're a major influence in the productivity of the practice by way of the procedures that we are performing ourselves, diagnosing and treatment planning, treating periodontal disease, also in our treatment presentation and really queuing up services for our doctor in order to help the doctor and case acceptance. So, looking at systems and processes within your hygiene department that help to maximize not only the care that your patients have exposure to — because if we do improve our periodontal protocol and our periodontal diagnosis with patients, treating more and more patients who have periodontal disease, signs and symptoms and active disease, we're not only making them healthier and providing a better level of service, those are more productive procedures for your hygienist to be performing. And so, you're going to see the production per visit and production per hour of your hygiene team escalate over time, the more we incorporate those services. And what you say all the time, Kirk, is the more we focus on being healthy periodontally, the more patients commit to restorative procedures as well.” (14:57—16:19) -Miranda

“The other thing we want to maximize to keep production rolling is our schedule efficiency. So many practices that come into coaching, they're coming to us for a reason. One of those is they know they may not be as efficient as they can be. And so, when we're really intentional with ideal day block scheduling, looking at what we need and want to produce in order to meet our goals on a daily and monthly basis, then we can build a schedule daily and weekly that helps us to meet those goals consistently. When I work with teams around this, the thing I tell them first is, number one, you have to know what you want to be producing every day to get where you want to go. From that, we can start to build out the blocks within our schedule that provide the appropriate types of services to not only meet the needs of our patients and the frequency in which they need these services provided, but also consistency in our ability to produce.” (16:55—17:50) -Miranda

“There's nothing worse . . . than a doctor leaving at the end of the day feeling spent, totally exhausted, wiped out, driving home with the radio off because they've been burnt for this whole day. And then, it was like $1,000 of production. They were roller skating from room, to room, to room and produced next to nothing, and they're wiped out.” (17:50—18:16) -Miranda

“When you're wiped out, it lends itself to bad behaviors. That's when a glass of wine tastes so good on a Monday, and a second one tastes even better. You start to reach for that third one — you know you're compensating for other things. When you're wiped out, it lends itself to bad conversations, bad habits, bad everything.” (18:21—18:43) -Kirk

“People are out there teaching, ‘Expand capacity. Open up an operatory. Add, add, add, add.’ That is not expanding capacity. Adding ops is not expanding capacity — it's just adding ops. Adding hours is not expanding capacity — it's just adding hours. When you talk about maximizing schedule, everyone would agree, the schedule is one of your greatest allies in growing production. But you don't need more hours — you need better hours.” (19:01—19:28) -Kirk

“When you get the schedule right, your team understands it, you'll be shocked by how much more you can produce in the same time or less.” (21:01—21:11) -Kirk

“I love when a client says to me, we get on a call [and I say], ‘Tell me a celebration.’ ‘Oh, I had the best day today. I feel good. It's already three o'clock, but I could go a couple hours if I need to.’ I'm like, ‘Tell me what was in your schedule today.’ And they're like, ‘Well, I had a three-hour prep this morning,’ and they go through the day, and they tell me what was great about it. I'm like, ‘So, why can't we build your schedule so that you feel like that nearly every single day? If those are the things that you love to do, and you didn't end up rushing around at the end of the day treating three emergencies, well, guess what? Let's not put emergencies in your afternoon anymore, if that drives you crazy.’ I think that sometimes we feel like because we have to accommodate our patients that we can't also accommodate our own selves. It's just like on the airplane — put your mask on first before you put the mask on others. We have to practice self-care. To me, that's schedule care. When we're taking care of our schedule and we're taking care of ourselves and our team, then we can intentionally place patients into the appropriate places.” (21:13—22:17) -Miranda

“We can still accommodate and serve [patients] in a very reasonable timeframe. I actually was talking to a client about this, and they do accommodate patients. They’ll squeeze them right in the next day. They break their own blocks, ultimately. I'm like, ‘Being nice isn't always being nice, Doctor. You're being nice to that patient, and that does feel good. But you're not being nice to yourself. You're not being nice to your assistant who had to work through lunch. You're not being nice to the patient after lunch who had to wait, but they showed up on time. And so, ultimately, if we take good care of our schedule, maximize the efficiency of the services that we're providing, not only are we going to produce more consistently and have a lot less of that fluctuation, we're also going to feel better. And ultimately, that's what we as coaches are trying to help people do, is to be able to live a better practice and a better life, to feel like you can go home at the end of the day and be fully present with your family and not have to sit in your driveway and decompress before you walk through the door.” (22:17—23:17) -Miranda

“The next [KPI to know] is write-off percentage. That's where we talked about our gross production, that badge of honor that people show up wearing at the trade show when we know, ultimately, someone could very well be writing off 30% or upwards of 40% of what they're gross producing. So, it's really important to know our write-off percentage. What percent of our full master fee schedule are we writing off of the services that we provide? And so, step number one as a countermeasure is, if you don't know this information, learn this information about your practice. That's step number one. If I asked you what your write-off percentage was and you don't know, countermeasure number one, run a report and figure it out. That's the starting point here.” (24:04—24:54) -Miranda

“We're not saying that everyone has to get out of PPO participation, but we can see what it does, and it changes people's lives. And so, step two here, a countermeasure to consider is reducing your participation in PPO plans. We look at the average amount that a doctor is writing off, and it is upward of 40%. That's nearly half of your work week that you're working for free. Your team is giving effort and energy, and you're not seeing the reward from that.” (24:58—25:28) -Miranda

“You can't just go crazy and say, ‘I'm going to drop all my PPOs!’ because that won't work. It definitely has to be strategic when you're looking at how you're going to step away from those contract restrictions.” (25:40—25:52) -Miranda

“Everyone talks about selling out to the DSOs and all this kind of stuff. When you're working with that many insurance companies, they own your practice. They own your time. They own your fee schedule. And part of why you became a dentist was the freedom of choice — freedom of choice to do procedures, to do what was in the best interests of patients, to manage your time well, and to bill your full fee.” (25:56—26:21) -Kirk

“If you're really going to be a great business owner, you have to increase the percentage of people that pay your full fee.” (26:30—26:37) -Kirk

“Another countermeasure for write-off percentage is outside of that PPO realm. We also have other things that we're writing off within the practice. So, this is where we talk about, it doesn't have to be, ‘Go fee-for-service, Doctor,’ although we can help you get there. If you are still contracted with insurances and you just want to look at, ‘How can I reduce this write-off percentage?’ there are a couple of things we want to look at. One is elective adjustments. The other is, if you do have a membership plan, what are the adjustments that are happening and the write-offs that are happening for that membership plan? So, step one, when we're looking at elective adjustments, a countermeasure to jump right into is looking at what adjustment types you have set up with your practice management software, and then making sure that they are specific enough that they're accounting for all the different ways in which you give away your dentistry and your time. And there's nothing wrong with doing that — but there is something wrong with not knowing what you're giving away.” (27:01—27:59) -Miranda

“I'll see in practices, “professional courtesy”. So, you'll have an insurance write-off, and then everything else is a professional courtesy. But within that realm, we have so many different reasons for which we've applied that professional courtesy. It’s just the default in our software. So, we have to look at things like — I love a doctor-applied courtesy. So, when a doctor is being generous with their time, skills, and services and they decide they're going to offer a courtesy to a patient or, ‘I'm going to do that one for free,’ go for it, Doctor, if you're altruistic and that fills your bucket. But let's account for that as a particular adjustment type so that at the end of the year we can actually analyze, or at the end of the month, even, how much are we giving away with those doctor-applied courtesies.” (28:02—28:48) -Miranda

“There are other things that we do within the practice as well when we're honoring a previous treatment plan. Maybe we've raised our fees and we've agreed that for a period of time we're going to honor a treatment plan for 45 days, or...

672: You Never Know What You Could Do Without Trying Hard - Dr. Tuyen Nguyen

It’s easy to think your goals, your dreams, what you aspire to do or be are so far away. Dr. Tuyen Nguyen thought that too. Many years ago he moved to the United States and with a lot of hard work and dedication the doors he always wanted to open were his to step through. If you’re feeling challenged, in a rut or aren’t sure what’s next, get some inspiration here. Learn more in Episode 672 of The Best Practices Show!

Episode Resources:

• Subscribe to The Best Practices Show podcast https://the-best-practices-show.captivate.fm/listen
• Join ACT’s To The Top Study Club https://www.actdental.com/ttt
• See ACT’s Live Events Schedule https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/act-dental-live-workshops-306239
• Get The Best Practices Magazine for free! https://www.actdental.com/magazine
• Write a review on iTunes 

Main Takeaways:

Don’t settle. 

Opportunity is everywhere. 

You’re going to achieve what you want to achieve.

Dedicate yourself to studying your craft. 

Take a step by step approach to building your confidence and achieving your dreams. 

Life is a blessing. 

Quotes:

“I told myself I came here to have a better life and I will try my best so I don’t settle for less. I want to be educated. I have to have a career, a job that has some education. If there is less education or more education, I would choose a higher education career than not. That kept me going. And I was at the bottom of my life. Not having enough to eat. No money and no future. I saw no future in my life at the time in Vietnam. So I could only go up.” - Tuyen (12:31—13:13)

“I was the hardest working student in that class, the class before me, the class after and probably many other classes.” - Tuyen (14:50—15:00)

“My first employer offered me a job. A guaranteed job for $10,000 a month with 44 hour work week. And I was so excited. That was a year before I graduated. So I went there to work full time; more than full time 55 hours. Seeing patients per week plus almost 2 hours writing charts. So if you add all of that I’d work like 66, 67 hours per week, non stop. I had only about a half hour lunch and I worked a 12 hour day for 3 days and an 8 hour day for 2 days. I commuted 2 hours a day and I lived there for 5 nights and I did that for a year and a half. When my first baby was born I was still doing that, but then my employer opened another clinic, closer to my house, within driving distance to get home every night so I transferred my job.” - Tuyen (15:30—16:45)

“I didn’t know if I could do a four year degree. Then I accomplished my dental degree. And at that time I never thought that I’d be a sole owner. I thought maybe at best I could be a partner. But then it happened that I could be an owner myself…I worked really hard, as always and I was also lucky to have a good program with good patients to grow that business. In two years I over grew that practice such that I couldn't handle the workload…So in early 2008 my wife and I bought some land near the office…and we started to gather ideas to build my dream office. It took me 1.5 years to gather all of the information…in Summer 2008 we dug the first hole and Thanksgiving time we moved in. Four and a half months from start to finish, my dream office.” - Tuyen (17:03—18:57)

“In my country I didn’t make much money at all…My parents were entrepreneurs doing a lot of other things…But over here it’s different. I’m a professional. I’m a dentist. Working hard as a dentist is different than working hard in Vietnam, earning pennies to live by every day. So the change? I feel privileged to live in America because there are plenty of opportunities to seize and try with. Whether you can be a medical doctor, a dentist, a lawyer or anything or even if I am a plumber I would be my own owner of a plumber company and I would work hard. I will do my best. I would have a comfortable life…So no matter what you do there will be opportunities for you to get a loan to open a business and work hard. You’re going to achieve what you want to achieve. You can set your schedule. You can work as hard as you want or as little as you want and you have options to do so. Back in Vietnam, we do not have an option there to work hard and to earn money, to live comfortably. That is sad to hear, but it is the truth right now.” - Tuyen (22:22—24:36)

”I dedicate myself a lot to studying, to learning, to improving myself. I got involved in study clubs. I got involved with global diagnosis education. I got involved in an implant business. I learned from Dr. Rutgart a lot. All my implant education I learned from other dentists out there in the country and I got networks to connect them, on Facebook and Instagram and all that.”  - Tuyen (26:18—27:00)

”Back in the day when I came here to America, I was so confused not knowing what I could do…I would never have imagined that I could be a dentist. I tried out little things. I got some A’s in community college. And then I got good grades to transfer to apply to get into dental school. I knew then that I could accomplish a 4 year degree on a hygiene program. When I first came, I wasn’t sure if I could do that so if I didn’t try hard I wouldn’t be accepted to the dental hygiene program. So that’s the message. If I hadn’t tried hard before the hygiene program and going to dental school I would not have become a dentist. So if I didn’t reach for the stars then I wouldn’t become a dentist. I couldn’t imagine that I could become a dentist but because I kept trying, I built up confidence from one level to the next, to the next and that’s how I gained my confidence and achieved things in life. So that’s the message: you just don’t know what you could do unless you try and try hard. Look for opportunities around you because I couldn’t imagine becoming an owner of a dental practice. But here I am. I’m an owner with 18 employees.” - Tuyen (27:37—29:18)

”When a door is closed in your life, look out for other open doors and yes you will find them. Especially in this land of opportunity. America. USA. An example: when I was 17 years old finishing high school I was applying to medical school. It’s not like the process we do here. It’s totally different. Apply meaning I took an exam, a very hard exam composed of math, biology and chemistry. And I need to get a 23 out of 30 to get into medical school and I scored only 13. I was so mad at myself. I failed and I thought the world ended there. I could only take the test once a year and I failed 3 times, the chances are I won’t get into medical school. So I thought the door was closed forever. I went on to become a goldsmith. I had no doors open. I came over here. I thought I’d become a businessman, a nurse, a mechanic, a math teacher. All those doors I explored. But then the hygiene door opened and then the dental school door opened and then the ownership of a dental practice opened. And then the opportunity to build a big dental office opened. So one door opened after the next but with all my heart and soul trying and working to see those doors and walk through those doors to where I am right now. You have to try hard when one door is closed.” - Tuyen (30:55—33:33)

”I am looking for a dedicated, hardworking doctor who is willing to learn. To come in to work 4 days a week. The moment that person is comfortable with the flow then I will do 3 days a week. That is my goal, so that I can dedicate more time to work out and sleep in and learn more and do more challenging stuff. I am learning to do block grafts right now from Dr. Zastrow in Germany. That’s my goal next. I want to do better gum surgery. And quicker, more efficient surgeries so that I can tackle sites for implants…In 10 years I’d like to transfer the ownership to either one of my kids and/or another associate and then I can just work 2 days a week until I cannot work anymore. I enjoy teaching. I am getting involved in part-time teaching in residency programs in Minnesota. I love teaching. I love teaching and I will teach more. That’s my next chapter.”  - Tuyen (34:46—36:35)

”LIfe is a blessing. And the blessing that we may not know is we are living in the USA. I know that there are many other problems out there in the country, but all things considered, the pluses and minuses. I do have a chance to compare this country to my country and 10 other countries that I have traveled to, this is still by far the best place to live, to work and to enjoy life.” - Tuyen (37:11—37:53)

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction. 

1:26 Tuyen’s journey from Vietnam.

15:30 Starting in dentistry.

16:58 Tuyen buys an existing dental practice. 

21:00 Cultural shifts. 

26:18 Dedication to studying. 

27:25 You never know what you can do without trying hard.

30:40 When doors close. 

34:40 The next chapter. 

36:48 Final thoughts. 

Dr. Tuyen Nguyen Bio:

Dr. Tuyen Nguyen migrated from Vietnam to start his version of The American Dream. His story inspires anyone to believe that if they dream big, put in long hours of work, and never give up, they too can live the life they’ve always hoped for.

Born towards the end of the Vietnam War, Dr. Nguyen grew up when the Communists took over the country. His dreams of a better education finally became a reality when he found a way to migrate to the United States. He left Vietnam, traveled to the Philippines in 1992, and moved to the United States in 1993.

Dr. Nguyen started his education in the U.S. at a community college. He considered nursing, teaching, business, and being a hygienist as possible career paths. Eventually, he decided he wanted to be an electrical technician. He made his way to Saint Paul College to gain the knowledge and skills he needed. Then, one of his prime supporters convinced him that he was capable of doing more than engineering. He was encouraged by his peers to aim higher in the career field several times.

Dr. Nguyen completed dental school in 2002 and embarked on acquiring his own dental practice, a dream he had in 2005. He didn’t want just any regular dental practice — he wanted a comprehensive dental practice with the latest technology, such as 3D cone beam, X-ray, hard and soft tissue lasers, and intraoral cameras. With the latest technology, he could leverage his newly acquired professional skills in order to offer the best service to his patients. That dream of a state-of-the-art dental practice saw the light of day in 2009 when he organized a grand opening for the revamped dental practice he bought years earlier. 

Join Dr. Nguyen on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SoftDental 

Learn more about Dr. Nguyen’s practice: https://www.softdentalmn.com

671: Part 2 – Top 10 Phone Skills for Tackling the Toughest Patient Questions! – Miranda Beeson

Patients ask the toughest questions — and your team has a tough time answering them. To help them navigate the most difficult questions they will encounter, Kirk Behrendt returns with Miranda Beeson to finish Part 2 of ACT’s training webinar. Equip your team with critical phone skills to make your practice thrive! To learn how, listen to Episode 671 of The Best Practices Show!

Episode Resources:

• Send Miranda an email: [email protected] 
• Follow Miranda on ACT’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/actdental
• Subscribe to The Best Practices Show podcast: https://the-best-practices-show.captivate.fm/listen
• Join ACT’s To The Top Study Club: https://www.actdental.com/ttt
• See ACT’s Live Events Schedule: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/act-dental-live-workshops-306239
• Get The Best Practices Magazine for free! https://www.actdental.com/magazine
• Write a review on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-best-practices-show/id1223838218

Links Mentioned in This Episode:

Watch Episode 671 of The Best Practices Show: https://www.youtube.com/@actdental/videos

Main Takeaways:

Have preset solutions in place for common patient problems.

Give patients the opportunity to tell you about themselves.

Don't make it easy for patients to cancel appointments.

Angry patients just want to be heard. Learn to listen.

Have conflict resolution simulations with your team.

Start listening to and evaluating your own calls.

Be mindful of the verbiage you use.

Quotes:

“You're going to start to recognize patterns with the problems that patients have. One of them is, ‘I can't get a ride.’ Okay. You, as a team member, should be equipped with a very definitive solution. I like the idea of having a 3x5 card. When somebody says, ‘I can't get a ride,’ we have four solutions. Number one, ‘I'll come get you.’ Number two, ‘I'll send an Uber for you.’ [Ariel] even said, ‘Can you ride a bike?’” (1:23—1:46) -Kirk

“[Patients will say], ‘I can't find a ride.’ That's going to happen a lot. It will. It might happen for larger appointments. I would do this. If I was [on] the admin team, I'd say, ‘Don't worry, I got you. I'll send an Uber for you right now.’ See how that's a very clear solution? They can't say no. I wouldn't make them say no. If they say, ‘I don't want to take an Uber,’ I would say, ‘This is a four-hour appointment. I don't want to tell Dr. Straub you're not coming. I actually will come get you. I'll be there in five minutes. I'll bring you back. You'll be 15 minutes late for the appointment, but you could still make it.’ You see how I'm not going to let you out of this four-hour appointment?” (2:01—2:37) -Kirk

“When it comes down to that solution — you've asked open-ended questions, you've gotten the information about what their chief concern is, what they need, what they want, there is a solution. I'm here to help you. ‘Great news. I'm here to help you, and here's what we can do to help.’ And so, when you talked about your example, they can say that exact thing of, ‘I'm really struggling to find a ride. I don't think I'm going to be able to make it today.’ ‘Hey, I'm here to help you. This is not the first time someone has experienced that. Let's try this,’ and we provide a solution. Again, it's about building rapport. It's about, we're here to serve. So, I'm not annoyed by you. I'm not frustrated by you. I'm here to help you.” (3:04—3:42) -Miranda

“It's really important to make sure that once a problem has been solved, you've developed a solution, you know what the plan is, that you summarize it, and that you repeat it back . . . We want to make sure that we have a summary in place to recap what we've decided, what we've concluded is the solution. You're on board, and I'm on board. Great. We have a plan.” (4:27—4:50) -Miranda

“We want to make sure that we have the right information in our practice management software. This is one of the most simple, logistical parts of phone skills. We want to identify who we're talking to. Pull up their chart right away. Hopefully, we all have digital charts at this point. Sometimes, we're still working with paper charts. But if we can, pull it up right away so we can see a bit of history about who it is that we're talking to.” (5:02—5:26) -Miranda

“We talk a lot in ACT around patient identification. I'm going to be able to see, is this an A patient, a B patient, or a C patient that I'm talking to? I want to confirm that their data is accurate and updated, if necessary. If it's been a while since they've been in and I see it's been a year or a year-and-a-half, ‘Joe, I see it's been a little while since you've been in. I want to take a moment to make sure that we have all the accurate data for you. Are you still at this address? Is this still your phone number?’ Do they have an existing treatment recommendation that could pertain to their call or request? So, perhaps Joe hasn't been in in a year-and-a-half, and the last time Joe was in, we recommended he have a tooth extracted on the lower right, and Joe is calling today with some pain and throbbing on the lower right. We can see that we've already talked about this with Joe and that there was already a plan in place, and we may be able to navigate what the most appropriate next step is without an extra step in the middle so that we can start working on getting Joe out of pain and discomfort.” (5:26—6:21) -Miranda

“This fits into the data piece, but I also think this could fit in multiple other areas of the phone call. If we go through all of that, we make sure everything is updated, all this information is still correct, [we need to ask], ‘Joe, is there anything else that I should know?’ And it might just be, ‘No,’ because this is a closed-ended question. It might just be, ‘No, I think that's everything.’ But it might be like, ‘Oh, you know what I should tell you? I also had surgery about three months ago and I had a stent placed.’ ‘That is really important to know. I'm going to send you a medical history update that may change the timing in which we help you with this problem.’” (6:44—7:20) -Miranda

“Another question that's the same question said a different way is, ‘What else would you like for me to know about you?’ I like that one because I'm like, ‘Okay, there are a couple of other things that are important to me,’ or, ‘I'm a pilot.’ Given the door, they will tell you some very unique things about them that become incredible trust builders or relationship builders as they come into your practice. So, give them the opportunity to tell you something unique about them, or something else that they're dying to tell you.” (7:23—7:57) -Kirk

“If your practice doesn't accept certain insurances or programs, how do you go about asking or letting them know that we cannot accept it? I'm thinking about the situation with Joe that I just mentioned. Maybe Joe tells me, ‘Oh, you know what I have now? I have MetLife insurance. I didn't have that before,’ and maybe we're not a participating provider with MetLife. ‘Joe, thank you so much for giving me that information and letting me know that that information had changed. We do have a different relationship with MetLife than we do with Delta, who you had before. I'd love to share with you what the difference is for you and how that will look here in the practice. Let me go ahead and finish making sure that I'm on the right track for what it is that you need from us first.’ And so, again, I'm going to set that insurance question right over here, and I'm going to come back to it.” (8:02—8:51)

“It's really, really important that unless it's an insurance that you cannot file — like, I can't file Medicaid, or I can't file that because it's an HMO — you do, in fact — you can, I should say — take that insurance. I want to make sure that that's super clear, the difference between we can or can't take it. If they have no out-of-network benefits, it's an HMO or a Medicaid that I can't even file on your behalf, that's very different. That's something that you truly cannot take, versus I'm a fee-for-service practice and I'm not contracted with any PPO plans. I can still take your insurance, so that's a yes. That goes back to our key phrase of, ‘Yes, we do. Yes, we do work with MetLife. It's a little different, what it looks like, but I'd be happy to share with you what that looks like here.’” (8:52—9:38) -Miranda

“Even if you're completely fee-for-service, you have to be an insurance-friendly practice because you can't say the word “no”. People [aren't] even going to entertain it. Even the doctors we support that are 100% fee-for-service, seven out of ten calls are, ‘Do you take my lousy insurance?’ People aren't going to call you with wads of cash going, ‘Hey, listen. I know you don't accept insurance. I've got a ton of money. Can you just prep all these teeth?’” (10:27—10:55) -Kirk

“The worst thing you can say is, ‘No, we are not contracted with [X insurance].’ And then, silence. ‘Well, what do I do now?’ ‘Well, you can look on the back of the card. There's a number, or you can go online.’ Like, what? No, no, no, no, no. We want to say yes. ‘Even if we can't file it, you can still come here. Even if it is one that we can't take because we can't even file it based on the type of plan that it is, you're welcome to be a patient here. We would absolutely love to take care of you. What that means is, we'd be very transparent with your fees up front. We'd help you find ways to approach investments in your care, but it would be your responsibility without the support of an insurance benefit plan. But you're welcome to come here, absolutely.’” (10:55—11:41) -Miranda

“We will break a chain in trust if we commit to something and say we're going to do it, and then we don't follow through. So, do what you say. Offer efficient action, and then do it. If you don't know, say that you don't know. Do not provide an answer that's off the cuff, shooting from the hip, just rolling with it. It's okay to say, ‘I don't know, but I'm going to find out for you, and I'll get back to you within 24 hours with that answer.’ But then, just like point number one says, if you say, ‘I'm going to get back to you within 24 hours with an answer,’ you're going to do it. And I would caution people on “as soon as I can”, because as soon as you can might be three days from now, and to a patient it's an hour from now. So, I would give a specific timeframe that's relative and relevant to what it is that you're getting back to them for, and then do it within that timeframe. And you want to confirm that you've resolved their concern. So, once you place that timestamp on it or this action item to it, does that resolve the concern? ‘Is that going to work for you, Mrs. Jones? What else could I help you with, Mrs. Jones, aside from that?’ Make sure that we're getting a, ‘You know what? I think that's everything, Miranda. Thank you so much.’” (12:16—13:35) -Miranda

“The true nature of what happens up front is it can be chaos. And you, as a dentist, if you're listening to this, this is why systems are so important. One big piece that we as coaches do is make teams develop systems. What I mean by that is that you have these scenarios, and there's nothing better than hearing an admin team member say, ‘Right after this call, I'm going to send you an email,’ and it's already been created. They're not uniquely coming up with solutions all the time, all day long. That would burn me out if I work for you, if I've got to figure out what to do, and then I've got to put it all together, and then I've got to email it or send it to the patient. Get me out of here. You should create well-designed systems that make the team member — it should take 60 seconds for me to send that to you, a click of a button. Could you imagine, I call your office and you go, ‘These are great questions. Now, I'm going to schedule you with our doctor. I'm also going to get you scheduled for hygiene. After I hang up, you're going to get an email from me, and it's going to explain everything we discussed.’ I'm already thinking, ‘You guys know your stuff! You really know what you're doing.’ That's why systems development helps with follow-through. So, make sure you support your teams with great systems.” (13:40—14:56) -Kirk

“[We need] commitment and confirmation that we've solved the problem, that we have a plan. [The patient agrees] and knows what it is, that we've scheduled an appointment. We all are in agreement that this is a commitment that we're making within our schedule. So, number one, first and foremost, is we want to build an efficient schedule for the office first. Before any of the rest of this comes into play, we want to have intentional scheduling built out for the office first.” (15:17—15:46) -Miranda

“[Have] systems for your admin team so that your admin team knows where I schedule a crown, where I schedule a new patient, where I schedule an emergency. And so, it's not this crazy, chaotic, ten minutes of like, ‘Well, what about this? What about that?’ It’s super easy, clearly displayed right in front of your administrative team member that we don't see emergencies at 4:00 p.m. We don't do that here. Now, we don't have to say we don't do that here. What we would say is, ‘We help our emergency patients at 12:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and at 10:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays. Which of those works best for you, patient?’ And so, now we build a couple of these in together, but we're going to put them where we know it fits our schedule best because we've designed that systematically and we don't have to guess. It's right there in front of us through efficient block scheduling. And then, we're going to guide them to that appropriate time because we know where the best time in our schedule for our team and for our doctor is. And then, we're going to provide them with an alternative choice. That's what I did a moment ago with helping that patient to still be in control of the outcome, but we're still going to help them end up where we want them to be. So, they're still going to be in an emergency block at either 12:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or at 10:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays. But they get some level of control over that by deciding which of those options they prefer.” (15:47—17:11) -Miranda

“Never, ever, ever say the phrase, ‘What works for you?’ Don't ever say that . . . And then, the alternative choice — I agree. It is proven that patients feel powerful when you give them two choices. But whoever is teaching this should be banned. Like, don't ever ask a patient, ‘Do mornings or afternoons work for you?’ Don't do that.” (17:18—17:53) -Kirk

“The only exception to [not asking patients mornings or afternoons] might be if your practice had — say someone is scheduling a crown or a new patient, and you have a morning appointment for new patients available that week, and you have an afternoon appointment available that week. You could very well say, to play devil's advocate, ‘What do you prefer, mornings or afternoons?’ because you do have one of each. But if you only see new patients at the beginning of the day and you ask someone, ‘What do you prefer?’ and they like 4:00, well, now you've set them up for failure.” (17:56—18:26) -Miranda

“Sometimes, people will say, ‘I really like morning appointments.’ Great. What does morning mean to you? Because we start at 7:00, but morning for you might be 11:00.” (18:44—18:53) -Miranda

“What happens when [patients] say, ‘I can't do mornings. I can only do afternoons’? Because now, if I'm not a strong administrative team member with confidence in this yet, I'm going to be like, ‘Oh, okay. I'm going to dig through the schedule and try to see if there's an afternoon that looks like maybe I could make it work. It's outside of the block, but they can't do mornings.’ No — what I would say is, ‘I completely understand where you're coming from. Other patients have felt the same way. What I can do, if it works better for you, is look another week or two out to give you more time to prepare your schedule for having the morning here with us. But I do have crown appointments at 7:00 and 9:00, and that's really where we're at. So, if going two weeks out helps, that might allow for you to have a little more time to have flexibility in your schedule and plan things. How does that work for you?’” (19:46—20:37) -Miranda

“People will go, ‘Well, I want to come in tomorrow.’ That's another question that people will often ask with the same concept, is like, maybe your next available is three weeks out. ‘That's three weeks from now. I don't want to wait three weeks.’ ‘I completely understand, but the doctor is going on vacation, and then we have a hygienist out.’ And the patient is like, ‘I don't care if he's going on vacation. I have a toothache.’ Instead, use a simple phrase. ‘I completely understand. We're fully committed until the date I offered you. However, I can put you on a priority list. If something becomes available sooner — I know you're eager to come in — we'll give you a call right away.’ “Fully committed” is a perfect phrase. I have a pet peeve. We talk about being candid about telling people that the doctor is on vacation. Granted, the doctor deserves a vacation — I do believe in that. But I think we have to [say], ‘Our schedule is fully committed,’ even if there are blocks open. This is what people struggle with . . . They're going to see like, ‘I do have time open, though. I know I have this emergency, and my emergency block is already full for today, but that primary tomorrow is still wide open. I could put it right there, but it's not a primary. I'm not supposed to put it there.’ No — we have to look at that blocked time as if it's fully committed. It is not an option unless it's that type of dentistry. And so, the easiest thing to remind ourselves is, the blocks, even if they're open between now and three weeks from now, your schedule is still fully committed.” (20:48—22:24) -Miranda

“One of the biggest issues is cancellations in anybody's schedule. Short notice, same-day changes in the schedule — it's a problem for every dental office, ever. And so, the more that we do these steps that we've tackled so far, all the way from one through seven, and then we commit, summarize, reconfirm, allow them to make the choice in terms of where they end up in the schedule, all of these things combined are going to reduce the cancellations because we've built value, we've built rapport, and we've repetitively confirmed with them over and over the commitment to that time that we've reserved. And expectations should be clear around the reservation from the jump. We want to repeat, repeat, repeat. When you do a self-evaluation,...