https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWx-4zM-xDs

Below, we’ve compiled the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 140. To enjoy the full conversation with our very own Carrie Webber and Kathrine Eitel Belt you can watch on YouTube or listen to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify

How to Have Courageous Conversations

Carrie Webber:

Welcome back to the Jameson Files. I'm your host, Carrie Webber. I am so pleased today to have a colleague, a friend, and an expert in her field—Kathrine Eitel Belt—to talk about courageous conversations. Effectiveness in how we communicate is something that we at Jameson have believed in from the very beginning.

And that I think is where Kathrine and I connect on such a deep level. We believe in developing our communication skills and entering into these courageous conversations feeling more equipped so that we can have a successful, healthy conversation that moves us forward. So, Kathrine, thank you so much for being with me today.

We weren’t born with communication skills.

Kathrine Eitel Belt:

Oh, it's my honor. What a fun thing this is to come together with you, Carrie! Everything happens through communication—everything. So what could be more important than learning that? After all, we didn't come out of the womb knowing how to do this at our highest level, and most of us didn't take a class in school. Many of us didn't even learn it at home. Maybe we didn't have a great example at home. And so, it's not surprising if we find ourselves in the middle of a team, an industry, a community where people have just come to conversations sort of helter skelter.

It just turns out that there's a simple, fairly straightforward and easy way to upgrade these communication skills and get a lot better results really quickly. So, we're on a mission to spread this word that there are some systematic ways you can approach these hard conversations. They can actually go much easier and, surprisingly enough, you can get to a place where you even look forward to those conversations because you have some skills that will likely lead the conversation to success.

Carrie Webber:

And you know, Kathrine, we are in a season where our communication skills are the pivotal piece to relationships, to team building, to patient retention. The ability to communicate is making such a difference for successful practices and practice leaders. Are you finding that as well?

Kathrine Eitel Belt:

For sure. I think we're societally in a space where people struggle to have a civil, respectful, successful conversation when their perspectives or opinions differ—just turn on the news, and you’ll see it. So we're surrounded by it in our society, but also in our industry and at a local level with our community, dental practices and with families. And so, there couldn't be a better time to give this a little attention. 

These conversations impact your bottom line.

You know, we talk to a lot of people who say, “Yeah, well, I know it's important, but I've gotta really work on my scheduling systems or on my insurance or billing systems. And it seems as though they often pigeonhole conflict resolution skills, these courageous conversation skills as just a soft skill.

But we have found some research that really shines a light on how giving this training to your teammates actually has a direct effect on your bottom line. In fact, one of the studies that we looked at showed that most employees in the United States are spending up to four hours a week, either thinking about conflict, worrying about it, being agitated by someone, or actively embroiled in the conflict. That adds up to two weeks per employee, per year. 

So if you multiply that across all the employees you have, what would it look like if you could get two weeks of productivity back from every employee in your practice? Where their thoughts were not on conflict, not on worrying about conflict, and not having an argument? What if they used that time thinking about creative solutions to the challenges in the practice and interfacing with your patients at a high level?

So it's robbing us of productivity, number one. But it gets worse. Managers, the research found, are spending 40% of their time helping others on the team to solve issues that they should be able to solve themselves. So imagine two weeks a year per employee plus 40% of your manager's time back in terms of productivity. I think that is directly affecting the bottom line. 

And most of it is that they just don't have the simple skills they need. It's a really easy fix. We can address them first at our leadership level and then ultimately to the entire team.

Carrie Webber:

I could not agree more wholeheartedly! It really does start at that leadership level, just mirroring the healthy communication skills, which is such a powerful training tool. And this is how healthy communication starts in this work culture that we're a part of. We hear time and time again practice managers saying that it's not the dentistry that's burning them out. It's not the work that they've chosen to do clinically that's burning them out. It's the drama, the conflict management, the interpersonal aspects of the work that you cannot avoid.And not having been equipped with the tools to build a practice culture that makes room for healthy communication, and then engaging in that type of healthy communication is draining. It’s stressful. 

So Kathrine, tell me some of the aspects of this that we could touch on today for those that maybe this is ringing their bell? What are some of those tools that you encourage people to work on?

Leadership Tools for Courageous Conversations

Kathrine Eitel Belt:

Well, you open the door to this beautifully. I would say that really depends on your position. So if you are an owner, the first tool that you have is vision and determining your values. Imagine what life would feel like in a culture that’s fun to walk into, where everyone is operating at a highly mature level. That takes a vision that embraces the journey to this kind of culture in your practice.

1. Set the expectations.

So we have to set that culture up for people, communicating at a standard we have set as an owner. We have to tell people, “You know you can work anywhere. You choose, especially in today's market, if you want to accept our invitation to work here, and we hope you will! And we want you to know what you're signing on for. What you're signing on for is a high expectation that all of us from the top down will learn these communication skills. We communicate at a very mature level, we handle our disagreements effectively. We state what we need and why. We collaborate together at a very high level, and we're all coming into conversations expecting the best of each other, anticipating finding great solutions.”

So, that's setting the expectation, and that's the invitation.

Now owners may need to look to a level of management to provide those skills. But I always say that when people aren't doing what we want them to do, most of the time it comes down to four reasons for the disconnect in results and behavior. 

2. Ask yourself four key questions.

So the first one is: Are they clear about my expectation? Are they clear about what I'm needing? And often we think we've been clear, but can that person repeat it back to us in a way that we find correct?

You can set the cultural expectation of high level communication, and someone could repeat back to you, “So, if I work on your team, the expectation is high level, mature communication. We solve our own issues. And when we can't solve our issues, we take it to management prepared for them to ask us what we've already done.” That’s clarity.

The second piece is: Are they trained? Do they have the skills? Have we given them the tools? And many practices haven’t, but you can get them really, really quickly.

But let's say they're clear and they're trained, and we still aren't getting what we need. The third question I always look at is: Are they capable? Do they have the intellect to do this task? Do they have the physical capability to do this task? Do they have the emotional stability to do this task?

If it's yes, yes, and yes, to those three, then our last question is: Are they willing? There are people who don't agree that this is the way to go. They don't agree and so they dig in their heels and do something different just because they aren't willing to do it our way.

Too often we go straight to that last question—are they willing? But we need to ask the other three questions first.

3. Model the desired behavior.

And we have to model everything we want as leaders. And so imagine an owner standing before their team saying, “You know, it occurs to me that until now, I've been operating at one level of leadership and one level of clarity about what I need and want, and I've been frustrated. I've been frustrated with how we're communicating and how we're operating as a team. And I realize that all of that points to me. So starting today, I want you to know I take full responsibility, and from this day forward, I'm no longer going to ignore, participate in, tolerate, or pretend. I'm gonna state what I need. I'm gonna give training for the skills we need. And I'm gonna step into a whole new level of leadership. 

“I'm no longer gonna be frustrated. I'm not taking it home to my family. I'm not gonna walk around here where you all know I'm frustrated. I'm not gonna do that anymore. We're gonna be real clear up front. And I apologize for the past. I own it. And I want you to know that I take responsibility for it, and starting today, I'm stepping into a whole new level of leadership. And I'm gonna provide training so we all have the communications skills we need to move forward into this goal.”

When someone stands up and claims a cultural vision like that,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig4Pk7Nh2t8

Below, we’ve compiled the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 139. To enjoy the full episode with our very own Carrie Webber you can watch on YouTube or listen to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Jameson Files. I'm your host, Carrie Webber, and it's such a pleasure to have you here again today!

Today we want to talk about a very popular subject with our Jameson clients across the country. In fact, when I'm lecturing to groups across the country, the demand for this topic is always at the top of the list. And that is: case presentation. But let’s look at an even bigger and broader scope than that, because really this is all about your patient's experience and the team's approach to what we at Jameson call the Patient Practice Partnership. 

What is the Patient Practice Partnership?

Now, why do we call it the Patient Practice Partnership at Jameson? We believe that the patient-centered approach to building relationships with your patients, educating your patients, and ultimately communicating with them about necessary, needed, or even wanted care is the difference maker for you from getting to where you are now and where you want to be, not only as a practice, but as a practitioner who has an ideal vision for your practice.

So when we talk about the Patient Practice Partnership, we're talking about some specific aspects of the patient experience that I want to walk you through briefly today. And these findings are founded in what we see coming from studies by the ADA Health Policy Institute. Year over year, they ask for the top reasons patients don't move forward with treatment or don't stay active in your practice. And guess what? Cost is always the top deterrent, which is probably no surprise to you. The other two that are always right near the top are time and fear. There are some other ones that come up pretty high as well, but cost consistently seems to be the top deterrent. 

Now, as we at Jameson consider these findings and look at them from the patient's perspective, we have come up with ways to help patients get the kind of dentistry they want or need. So we have created what we consider the four pillars of a healthy patient practice partnership. And those pillars are where we can measure both success and areas that need to be developed as a team when it comes to how the patients engage with us.

Four Pillars of Patient Practice Partnership Success

The pillars are trust, need, urgency, and value. If patients are not moving forward with treatment or staying active in our practice, more than likely you’re missing the mark on one or more of these pillars. So when you think about the patients that you have in your practice right now, or on your new patient experience, or on your treatment presentations and consultations, think about these four pillars.

whether or not your patients are moving forward, staying active and so on or not is based upon how successful we are in building these pillars.

Do your patients trust you? Do they see the need for the treatment you are providing or recommending? Do they sense an urgency to receive that kind of need, especially when it's in terms of restorative care? And do they see a value in what you bring to the table? So think about your practice from those four pillars. The stronger those pillars are in our patient relationship with our practice, the better we all are in the long run. 

How do we build the pillars?

But how can we improve? How do we build these pillars? There are a few aspects of practice building, team development, and personal development that I want to take a look at from not only the lens of what you recognize as needs in your practice, but from the perspective of your patients. When we pivot our mindsets to look at it from the patient's perspective, things may look a lot different. So one of the main areas that we find when we work with practices, or even in our own practice, is that when we're building these pillars, one of the key elements is our practicing of excellent communication skills.

1. Verbal Skills

Yes, of course we know this, we know this, we know this! And yet we see time and time again—areas of opportunity to improve and refine our skills when it comes to how we communicate with our patients. So are you continuously working as a team on the mastery of your verbal skills? And what does that look like? Do we have a clear understanding of the process in terms of what an excellent patient experience looks like? Does everybody on the team understand what that process is, and is everybody aware and aligned with their role within that patient experience process? Are we practicing the process? Are we practicing the conversations? Are we working on those verbal skills together? And are we starting to become comfortable and competent in the flow of an excellent patient experience?

Communication Processes

When we have a flow that we follow consistently, our consistency and success starts to go up as well. So our goals are: getting a process in place, everyone being on the same page and in agreement with the process, everyone on board with their role individually and as a team, and executing that process seamlessly. We need to make intentional room for communication in every aspect of the patient's experience. 

How do we communicate when a new patient is coming in and we're doing initial interviews, getting to know them, and finding out what their goals are? What about when we're presenting recommended treatment or a diagnosed treatment, or we're seeing them in their continuous-care type of appointment? We need to communicate and build value and importance of a needed treatment that has not yet been completed. And it all comes down to our communication skills. 

Listening Skills

And communication includes listening. So are we using active listening skills in our conversations with our patients? Active listening is the effective and intentional practice of asking questions and listening to answers. This communicating back and forth with the other person helps to make sure that the message sent is the message received.

It's also a perfect way to open the door of communication in areas that maybe you've never had the opportunity to talk to your patients about before. Perhaps there's questions you could start asking that they've never been asked before by a dentist or a dental practice, and that can make a big difference in building trust, need, urgency, and value. So working on our active listening skills, and being consistent in the process of a patient’s experience.

Power Words

And now also working on our vocabulary. We believe there are stronger words that can be used. We call them power words versus weak words. Weak words can diminish value. Power words can build value. When I think about this in practice, as I think about the patient experience, especially new patient experience, we want to build a perception about the type of treatment you provide. This helps them to understand the value of what you’re offering and keeps patients committed to their appointment.

So if you struggle with broken appointments and no-shows, this could be an area where you might want to elevate the vocabulary you use with your patients. If you're using more diminishing words, like “just” or “kind of” or “sort of,” even accidentally, that can diminish value. So look at it as an area where you can build up your vocabulary and be more customer-service oriented in the way that you communicate with your patients. 

When we come from a place of high service of excellence and professionalism, even in the way that we communicate with our patients, we can also shift our mindset to what I call permission-based case presentation.

Permission-Based Case Presentation

Now, what I mean by this is very simple. Look for opportunities within the patient's experience to ask permission. For example:

Mrs. Jones, may I have permission as I’m taking photographs and assessing your mouth, to show you any areas of concern that I find? Would that be all right? May I have permission to present to you what I would consider the best possible treatment for the condition occurring in your mouth? Mrs. Jones, may I have permission to show you on this photograph that I'm pulling up right now on the screen, the area of concern that Dr. Jameson has discovered in his evaluation? 

You’ll find that when you ask permission to present optimal treatment or whatever it is, the patient is giving you permission, and they are more actively engaged and interested in what you have to say.

Instead of telling them, telling them, telling them; be asking them, asking them, asking them. We're naturally more engaged in a partnership-type conversation, so it can really shift the whole trajectory of the relationship of the conversation. And it helps the patient to feel a sense of control over their situation so that they don't become overwhelmed and find themselves in a state of fight or flight. 

So let’s recap: 

Have that permission-based approach to the patient experience.Work on a process and a flow that allows for communication to take place in the patient's experiences with you.Use power words more often instead of weak words. And really work on active listening skills. 

These are the areas of communication that if you identify them and work on them together, I can promise you, you will see an improvement in your patient practice partnership, and in building those four pillars.

2. Team Engagement

Now, the second area that we can build pillars in is team engagement. We fully believe in a team approach to patient experience, here at Jameson. We need a team approach to practice growth, case acceptance, and so on. The team as a unit is powerful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeoQO0RVGA8

Below, we’ve compiled the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 138. To enjoy the full conversation with our very own Carrie Webber and Brett Wilson you can watch on YouTube or listen to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify.

Carrie Webber:

Welcome to another episode of the Jameson Files. I'm your host, Carrie Webber. And I'm so glad that you're with us. The question before us is: how can we improve patient education and ultimately improve case and treatment acceptance? To discuss that with us, we have Brett Wilson, the president of Digital Doc LLC. The team behind Digital doc had been friends of the Jameson Family for many, many years. And so, Brett, thank you so much for joining me today!

Brett Wilson:

I’m looking forward to this.

How Photography Educates Patients and Increases Treatment Acceptance

Carrie Webber:

So for those of you that maybe aren't familiar with Digital Doc, it’s one of the premier companies in the camera space—intraoral cameras and so much incredible technology that you're using in your practices today. Digital Doc stands at the forefront of innovation and quality tools for the best treatment, education, diagnosis, and presentation for both you and your patients.

So today I want to talk with you, Brett, about the power of photography in dental practices. Yes, it's been around for a while now. It's no new thing. If I were to ask five doctors or five hygienists sitting at this table with me today, “How many of you have access to a camera?” they'd all probably raise their hand. But then if I’d ask, “How many of you are using them in all of your appointments?” or “How many of you are using the photographs you take in follow up appointments?” the hands start to drop. 

So what do you find when you're having conversations with practices, Brett? If they were to take a look at their utilization of photography and of their tools, where are they falling short? Where could they look to improve in the coming year?

How does your patient take in information?

Brett Wilson:

One area is looking at who is coming into my practice. I really like to refer to them as the consumer. Are we looking at our patient as a consumer? And if so, how do our consumers buy? How do our consumers live? 

We are all consumers. So how do we live? You know, what cell phone do we have? What size of television are we watching at home? Do those things matter? I believe they do. We live in an HD world today. No matter where you go, you're going to see a 55” screen. You can order from Starbucks, or you can go to a fast food restaurant. Wherever you are, it’s there.

Or take sports. We're all passionate about that. Some pro, some college. We're not going to watch a sporting event in standard definition today. So when we go into dental practices and we see the computer screen on the counter or no imaging at all in front of the patient, what does that say?

How many put a 55” or even a 65” screen on the wall in front of the patient and really connect with that consumer? We're not seeing that as much. And so I like to start there, just who are we really communicating with? I would argue we're dealing with the most sophisticated consumer today that we've ever had.

Carrie Webber:

That's such a great point! that I am 100% that. When we're talking with practices about their patient experience and their treatment presentations, we're trying to encourage them to shift their mindset from what they think patients need to look at it from the perspective of the patient. What do your patients want? How do they process information? The easier we make it for them to receive and process  information, the better it is for everyone. So, what are you finding that is really driving patient perceptions, Brett?

Brett Wilson:

So when we look at consumerism in general, we look at the studies done in marketing of how we connect with consumers and how we buy. We have to be connected multiple times, right? Five to seven, they say, on average. But we're emotional. We buy based on emotion, not necessarily logic. 

But when we present treatment plans to patients, it's oftentimes very logical-based, and it should be to an extent, because you have to deliver the information. But we need to be showing them the images while we talk. We are visual people. Our patient, who's carrying around that $1,300 cell phone in their pocket, upgraded the phone because the images are spectacular, right? How does your presentation compare to what they experience on their phone?

What equipment are you using to meet that patient demand?

So when it comes down to the technology and the practice, you have to equip your hygienist and all providers. That's the minimum. Our most successful doctors have a camera in every single chair. But at least have the minimum—a camera per provider—and make sure they're using it. Make sure you have a system in place.

It's very effective when doctors are checking that, when the hygiene patient comes in, images are on the screen. That's very effective and works well. But be sure your providers are confident in their imaging as they’re using the product. Their images are something they should be getting excited about. They should be able to say, “Hey, wow! Can you believe this image?” 

I was in an office two weeks ago, and I was looking at the images they had up on a 60” screen on the wall. I was like, “That is unbelievable!” The image was just taken and it showed up on that screen. Wow. That’s something you can really get excited about.

Carrie Webber:

Yes, and the utilization is key. We have to be maximizing these tools. Hygienists, doctors, assistants need to take those images, pull them up on a screen, and have them ready when the dentist sits with that patient. 

So what do you see as the turning points for team members to really see that value and get excited about it, Brett? How can you encourage people to do the work and get more comfortable with the tools and become passionate about it? What’s going to turn the tide for practices on this?

Brett Wilson:

It's all about equipping them with a camera per provider. And I'm not trying to sell you more cameras, but I know the impact that will have on your practice. And then just make the time. I mean, we can carve out the two minutes in an appointment that it takes to capture images. 

How important is a full smile photograph?

I like to talk a lot about the full smile image. I feel like we're missing opportunities if we’re not taking a full smile photograph in hygiene. Many offices are into ortho, clear aligner therapy, cosmetic dentistry. They want to do more of that, but they're not taking a full smile photo in hygiene. 

A lot of times I hear that. “Well, I took a full smile with our digital SLR on the new patient exam.” And that's great. I'm sure you did. But how often are you reviewing those images with your patients? And we're all in a different place in life six months to a year later. So we just use the smile as a routine image taken in hygiene. It’s powerful what comes out of that. And they don't really even have to say anything. 

The hygienist simply captures the smile photograph, then just leaves it on the screen and goes to get the doctor for the hygiene check. When the doctor comes back, most of the time, the patient has some questions about what they’re seeing on the screen. Either answer the questions now or bring him back to have more of a consultation regarding those larger treatments. 

That's been very effective in increasing the education for patients and the revenue of the practice.

Carrie Webber:

You know, I love that because photography should be used in education and in motivating people to move forward with the treatment they want or need. It not only helps you in presenting a diagnosis, but it can also be such a powerful tool to help patients see the value of the decisions they've made. Seeing the value will offset buyer's remorse and help them see, “Oh, wow, I'm making a really good decision.”

And who doesn’t like to watch the progress of the clear liners that they've invested in or that ortho treatment you were talking about. That can really help build value and loyalty in your patients and also give them tools to talk about you to friends or family that may be looking for a dental home.

So, Brett, I'm sure doctors are asking you, “What can I expect out of doing all these things?” So you and your team at Digital Doc, what kind of results do you see from these practices that are all-in on the utilization of photography?

How much revenue increase can you expect by embracing this kind of photography?

Brett Wilson:

We talk a lot about a 10% increase in revenue, and we believe that's conservative. Definitely a 10% to 30% increase in revenue. I remember speaking to your team, and, Dr. Kathy spoke up and said, “Brett, it's 30% with the right number of cameras. We've tracked this for 30 years.” So it is powerful, the increase that can and will happen with the adoption of the camera minimum per provider, and then taking a series of photos. 

And the volume of images does matter. Patients need to see more. We talk a lot about “See More, Do More” in our organization. If the patient gets to see more on the screen, the office will see the impact in increased case acceptance with general treatment, but definitely with those elective dentistry items. Those electives are the things, often, that the patient wants to talk about that doctors didn't have on their list.

Doctors, be sure to make a big deal of the photographs!

And doctors need to be empowering the individuals that are taking the images. That's a big deal. Doctors can talk about how amazing the image is and how great a job their hygienist is doing capturing photos. And, wow, can you believe this before and after?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uk4UTqlHXs

Ask the Right Questions, Make the Big Decisions, and Achieve Your Practice Vision

Below, we’ve compiled the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 137. To enjoy the full episode with our very own Carrie Webber you can watch on YouTube or listen to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify.

Carrie Webber:

Hello and welcome to the Jameson Files. I'm your host, Carrie Webber, and I'm flying solo for this episode about getting through the financial slump, the employee crisis, COVID and all its far-reaching impact. We all, as leaders, can get through this. We can embrace our practice vision; we can ask ourselves how to renew, revise, revisit, and reorient in ways that can make our dreams happen. So thank you so much for joining me.

I want to take some time to address the moment in time we are in right now and what's happening in the dental profession as we’ve been hearing it from practices all across the country. Practices are facing a continued struggle to hire, to find the right team, to get back to continuing growth, and to get back to their ideal vision for their practice. We continue to find ourselves faced with unheard of issues regarding the season of COVID, and it’s important that those of you in leadership positions in your practices feel empowered to continue the good fight and make progress.

And that leads us to today's topic—pushing through questions you need to ask, the decisions you need to make, and the actions you need to take for your practices’ progress as well as your personal sanity.

ADA Stats on Impact of COVID on Dental Practices

So where are we now? ADA's Health Policy Institute in its most recent update monitoring the COVID pandemic impact stated that half of those that completed their survey were definitely planning or currently searching to add team members to their practices. So that tells us there's a great many out there looking to hire now or in the very near future. 

In addition, our friends at Cedar Solution, in a recent online presentation by Paul Edwards of Cedar, stated that it's taking three to four months to hire a new team member. So the ongoing search is still in full force across the country. 

We talk to clients all the time about what to do in this moment. How do we push through this and overcome the strain of working with a limited team? How do we continue to work on the things that are the priority while dealing with the ongoing urgency that we're faced with day in and day out?

Make communication with your team a priority.

First, I’ll say it’s especially important to prioritize time to connect with teammates, co-leaders, and partners. Because if you're not connecting and communicating, there are a lot of things that are probably continuing to stay stuck.

In order to keep working towards your practice vision, you need to stay united and aligned, whether you're understaffed or whether you are growing and struggling to fulfill all of the demand that you have from the patients in your practice. Those team meetings are going to be important in order to address where you are now, where you want to be, and how you can work together as a team to continue to move forward toward your ideal goal.

So focus on your vision and communicate with your team. If you're looking for positions in your practice and coming up dry, it might be time to review what your job posts look like; rally together as a team and brainstorm this together so that you can refine it, go back to the drawing board, and keep the search going. And you can elevate your efforts by determining a creative approach to how you're going to run the practice in the interim. 

Team unity, team creativity, and team training are vitally important!

So what kind of meetings are you having? Are you having your daily huddles? Are you having weekly team meetings, monthly team meetings? Are you having team meetings at all? In my opinion, when you're in times that are perhaps outside of your norm or times of heightened stress, it's important to maintain or even increase the number of team meetings until things feel like they're smoothing out. The time you spend in meetings can be some of the most valuable time you have as a team growing your business. 

Create an engaged team.

If you've let team meetings fall by the wayside, it might be time to ask yourself some questions. Are your meetings consistent? Are they productive? Are they the types of meetings that we need to have? Is the timing of the meetings optimal? What is the purpose of your meetings? If your meetings are missing the mark, how can you adjust? How can you be more intentional? Are you creating agendas? Are you making time for training, for brainstorming, for action planning to review your goals? Is the team engaged? 

I often hear, “Oh, we have team meetings, but no one's really plugged in and engaged.” It's important then to take a step back and ask how we can reset the purpose and the process of our meetings to help engage more people in these unusual times. If you feel like you are stuck in a rut, the people that are going to be able to help you the most are the people that are in the trenches with you.

If we can create an engaged team where there's room for people to communicate, give feedback, share ideas, and discuss and take an interest in everyone's well being, that is the environment we're looking for. So your work environment is going to make a difference for you and how you carry through in the unusual times. Those practices that have continued to make communication and connection a priority throughout the history of their practices are the ones that are getting through this critical time most successfully because the team is engaged.

Work on action plans, work on strategy, brainstorm together, make sure there's alignment. This is the time to make sure we're all on the same page of where we are now and where we're going and accountability. If you've worked with Jameson, you know we're huge proponents of goal setting and action planning.

And when you do that correctly, there is a place for evaluation and assignment of responsibilities, so that accountability takes place. And when someone is a part of the solution, they have a deeper sense of ownership for that solution.

Train and cross-train your team.

If you're hiring but you can't find anyone, it may be time to go back to intentional training and cross-training because in this climate, we're going to need to be adaptable, and we're going to need to be able to float sometimes depending on what the day brings. If someone's sick and you're also understaffed, that creates a great deal of stress. 

It's important for our clinical team to know how we schedule, and it's important for everyone to be on the same page about how we, ideally, lead our patients through their appointments and so on. If everyone isn’t on the same page, it makes it even more difficult and stressful when you may be short a team member for a day, week, a month, or four months. So we need to make sure we're cross-training so we can be as effective as a team as possible, regardless of who is present. 

Consider outsourcing.

If you're understaffed or feel stretched, busy, or overwhelmed, it may be time to start asking, “Should we hire? Do we outsource? What do we need to do to bring more balance to our days?” So it's important to take a look at this, realistically.

Do you feel like you are managing your time appropriately? Do you feel like you have great systems in place? Do you feel like everything is being run well but you are still maxed out? It may be time to start looking for some solutions or another person if you are already maximizing a minimal team.

And by a “minimal” team, I'm not saying to fire everybody and go down to bare bones. I am saying that the important thing is to make sure you’re maximizing the people you have before adding another person to the mix. Sometimes it seems like the easiest solution is to just hire somebody to take on the things that are stressing us out, but there's not real clarity as to what you need and how that need will best be filled.

Make sure to consider your current overhead overall. Are you monitoring your profits and losses to make sure that the practice can ultimately afford to hire a new person? Perhaps you could outsource some of the responsibilities that are starting to create strain. Maybe it’s time to reset the roles of your team and outsource some of those tasks? Would that be a more affordable solution? 

Of course, if you start outsourcing a lot more than what a salary would be, it may be time to hire. But you could find some great solutions outside of a team so that your team members can work on what only they can do. And you can outsource some of those tasks, giving them room to focus on the most productive and the highest use of their time. Making sure that the practice can support what you want to add to the mix is important before any decision is made. 

Manage time and maximize the team you have. 

Are you on the cusp of burnout?

Now, something else that I'm hearing a lot lately is people on the cusp of burnout. Adam Grant, who is an author, and a thought leader wrote a great article earlier this year, and he used the term “we're languishing” as a society. We're languishing. Meaning we're not quite burnt out, but we're just going through the motions. So how do we overcome that sense of burnout or languishing that we as leaders may be feeling? Because here's the important thing to remember as leaders: We feel this need to continue to motivate and keep our team motivated, but it's very difficult to do that when we ourselves can't keep ourselves motivated, right? 

And so we need to refocus on our purpose, we need to work on the vision. Keeping an eye on the prize can often keep you motivated to work through the glitches, issues,

https://youtu.be/Mjd1IpSPuI8

Below, we’ve compiled some of the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 133. To enjoy the full conversation with our very own Carrie Webber and Becky Speers, you can watch on YouTube or listen to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify

Carrie Webber: Thanks for being with us today! We have a fantastic guest, and I'm thrilled that she's joining me. She is one of my teammates, Becky Speer, one of Jameson's incredible business and clinical advisors who has been with us for well over a decade now. And prior to joining the Jameson team and helping doctors and teams across the country with their business and hygiene systems, she was practicing hygiene in Oklahoma. Not only that, but she was practicing hygiene in a dental practice that worked with Jameson.

Let’s talk about case acceptance techniques.

Becky, what I want to talk about with you today is the hygienist’s role in case acceptance by helping to educate patients and support the diagnosis and treatment the doctors are recommending. When it comes to the hygienist’s role in case acceptance, what are some areas that you find on a regular basis that practices can benefit from refining, especially our hygienists in terms of building up skills to help educate and motivate more patients to say yes to treatment they want or need?

Hygienists must be given time to educate for best case acceptance.

Becky Speer: One of the first things to look at is the amount of time a practice is giving their hygienists with every patient. We know that it takes time to build that relationship. So when it comes to recommending treatment, we need to gain trust from patients, and we have to know that we have the time for that in the schedule. As I know from being in so many practices, the shorter those appointments are the more patient education has to be dropped. I mean, you have to take radiographs, you have to do intraoral photos, you have to do the prophylactic part of the appointment. So those won’t be dropped. If there’s not enough time, it’s the communication that gets dropped. So I think first and foremost, we have to make sure that we are giving our hygienists the amount of time they need to do.

Carrie Webber: I’ve heard that. But what do you do when the practice is saying, “How are we ever going to give them more time? And what would be the value in that?” What would you say to practices that are struggling with that decision?

Becky Speer: Well, many times I’ll ask them, “What are the procedures that are performed by your hygienist with every patient every time?” Because we don't have a list a mile long of what hygienists do during a hygiene appointment. And I discover that many of the things being left out are the intense patient education, the intraoral photos, which are key. because a patient really needs to see what it looks like in their mouth. We also need to make sure that we have time to use the visual and kinesthetic tools. You know, I want to show them what a partial looks like or what a bridge looks like. 

So we have to be given the time to educate the patients. And if doctors are not having hygienists take the intraoral photos and spend the time to educate the patient on what they see could be needed treatment, then when the doctor comes into the treatment room, he or she is having to spend more time in that treatment room with that patient.

Patient education helps with case acceptance and saves time.

Carrie Webber: I think that's a really great point. If we're not taking the time to do those necessary photographs and have those conversations, educating patients and helping them process that information and understand the diagnosis, we may be taking more time in the long run and keeping the doctors away from their restorative schedules. What else do you see, Becky? What are some other areas in terms of educating, supporting diagnosis and treatment, that hygienists may not be, taking to that level?

Becky Speer: Well, I think that you have to be sure that your hygienists are comfortable with talking about possible treatment. A younger hygienist just out of school a year or so is a little more nervous with talking about needed treatment because they haven't done it before. They're not sure what the doctor is going to recommend. And so we start teaching them to take the intraoral photos, talk about the fracture that they see in the tooth, and tell the patient, “The doctor doctor may be talking to you about a new filling or possibly a crown.” They don’t need to say what the doctor will recommend, but they should prepare the patient for possible scenarios.

And then the doctors have to be taught how to respond to that when they come into the room, because if a young hygienist has made a couple of suggestions, they have to make sure they don't come in and squash everything the hygienist just said. So if the hygienist has suggested the doctor could recommend a crown, but the doctor doesn’t feel that’s the right treatment, they should say, “You know, I can see why you talked about a crown here…” and then you go into why it's okay to do this other treatment.

So the doctor is not only educating the patient, but also educating their hygienist. And I think that is key when it comes to making sure that we're getting the doctor and the hygienist to partner together in a way that is not reducing the patient’s trust in that hygienist’s professionalism and knowledge.

Carrie Webber: I like that because it's really important for hygienists to understand their doctor's philosophy and to understand how they provide treatment. What are some ways that you see in terms of best practices to help doctors and hygienists get on the same page as quickly as possible, so that they're more effective in their approach with the patients and with case acceptance?

The doctor needs to train the hygienist on how he diagnoses cases.

Becky Speer: Well, there are a couple of things they can do to kind of speed up that learning process. One is they can start talking about cases. The doctors hopefully have photos of all their cases. So they could simply sit down with a hygienist and start talking about the photo on the screen and not necessarily having to have the patient in the chair at that time. He can sit down and start going through cases with the hygienist and just talking about situations where he or she would be diagnosing a crown versus a resin or a new filling.  

Also, we know we learn very well by listening to the doctor when he’s in our room, when he's diagnosing, when he’s recommending treatment, when he’s talking about the way he's going to do it and how much time it's going to take. Obviously, the best hygienists are soaking that up so they can use those same verbal skills with an explanation. 

Carrie Webber: Right, we need to be intentionally doing that. Do you find, across the country, that the time is there, but these things aren't being done or not being done well? What are the areas that might need attention in terms of awareness of what is the best flow and how to be more intentional on that?

Photos are important in case acceptance.

Becky Speer: One big thing with the intraoral photos is the flow. When do I take it? Am I going to wait till the end of the appointment? And the answer is no, because we want our doctors to come in their natural break. We have our teams doing all of their diagnostics at the beginning of the appointment, because we want that prior to the doctor coming in. 

I have worked with some hygienists that are comfortable with the camera, but they just don't use it. They assume the patient didn't need it. And we strongly suggest that you need to be using it on every patient, every time. And so we tell the doctors who walk into a room and there are no photos up to say, “I'll be back as soon as you get the studies taken.” It has to be a set protocol as important as the radiographs.

It is literally going to speed up the case acceptance rate of the patients, especially new patients. If they can see what's going on in their mouth, they can better appreciate the explanation. It's just such an amazing tool, perhaps the most impressive tool to a patient in the dental practice.

Verbal Skills That Impact Case Acceptance

Carrie Webber: You were saying earlier that one of the most impactful aspects of your development as a young hygienist was the development of your verbal skills. From your standpoint, what are those critical conversations and communication skills that we want team members to be practicing and becoming more comfortable with? Are there some particular conversations or verbal skills that you feel make a big difference in building that trust and acceptance with patients from the hygienist’s standpoint?

Ask for Objections

Becky Speer: Absolutely. One of the most impactful verbal skills I learned is how to be comfortable asking the patient, “Can we get that scheduled for you? Do you see any reason why we can't go ahead and schedule this appointment for you?” And we know that's asking for commitment, but it opens up so much dialogue. You never know, without asking a question, if the patient has an objection. And some people are uncomfortable with that because if the patient objects, they're not sure how to respond. 

But we teach that objections are a gift. If the patient gives me an objection, that means they want to have the treatments you recommended, but they're not quite sure how they're going to do it, because of their work schedule or money or whatever. So we want to make sure we understand what the objections are before we take the patient to the business team, because if we send them up there and they have clinical questions, it will just slow down the whole process. So that's probably one of the most impactful things, but also knowing how to talk through those objections, asking the right questions,

https://youtu.be/HdCj5o-592g

Below, we’ve compiled some of the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 135. To enjoy the full conversation with our very own Carrie Webber and Dr. Robinson, you can watch on YouTube or listen to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify.

Carrie Webber:

Hello, welcome to the Jameson Files. I'm Carrie Webber. It's an absolute pleasure to have an amazing dentist as a guest with us, from Lubbock, Texas, Dr. Kelly Robinson. I have been a Kelly Robinson fan for, I think it's 20 years now. You are a tremendously accomplished dentist and clinician who has led a fabulous team and practice over the years, and I am just grateful that you will share some of your wisdom and experience with us. 

Training New Teammates in Your Dental Practice

Today our topic is about how to successfully bring an associate into your practice for your patient family and for your team. But first, Dr. Robinson, I would love it if you would share a little bit about your dental story and how you find yourself where you are today as a practice and as a professional.

Dr. Robinson:

My dad is a dentist, and he recently retired at 82. So I was born into a dental family, and it has just been an amazing ride. We lived in a small town in west Texas, and my parents hooked up with a management company that had them do comprehensive exams and full mouth, new patient exams and consultations, and full mouth reconstructions—all in a small town of 4,000. 

I was raised with that, so when I came into the practice, I knew that's the kind of model and principles that were before me, and I was able to carry that on. And when I took over the practice and dad and I basically switched roles in 1999, he became my associate and I bought the practice.

Implementing Systems

Carrie Webber:

And I know you’ve been successful in the implementation of systems and skills over the years. So as you've brought on associates, what have been some of the most important steps in continuing to honor the values and the culture of your practice as well as the systems you've worked so hard to incorporate?

Dr. Robinson:

Well, I've had multiple associates over the years, and each and every one has been absolutely awesome. We had great relationships and formed good friendships. And each time I learned something. But I’ll tell you the number one thing that we have put into practice is the Jameson management rules. I have everybody that comes on new train through Jameson. I have them review what we are doing and how we do it and why we do it. And the wonderful thing about the training is that you always take care of the patient first. Everything else will come if your heart and integrity are in the right place. 

So that is my guiding principle. 

Then I want to refine everything else based on the integrity of our practice. And so we have a philosophy: dentistry with a smile. We want to enjoy and love those patients and make them feel like they are part of the family. But everything else has to be absolutely working beautifully for us to concentrate on loving the patients. And so all these systems that I have, that Jameson has taught us, help us stay focused on our goals every day. Take care of those patients and love them and provide the highest quality service that we can provide. 

Having Conversations

Each one of my team members, when I hire them, I talk about that when we're interviewing. And particularly when I'm interviewing for an associate, we go through personality testing and we have time to just visit with each other. Then they know full well when they come into this practice what type of family heritage I'm passing on, what type of systems I have in place, the philosophy of the practice.

If the associates have really learned about the foundational principles of how to make a practice stand out and, even though things may not go smoothly, you'll survive and thrive.

Carrie Webber:

You know, what I love about that, Dr. Robinson, is that before you ever move forward, you have a very clear conversation about the values of your practice. You give clarity on how you function and how you need to be in agreement and on board as an associate in my practice, because these are the non-negotiables. I love that. And I feel like sometimes that's a missing piece. I feel like I hear these horror stories or very sad stories of this isn't working, because we moved too quickly without having the right conversations first. Do you agree with that?

Number One Guiding Principle

Dr. Robinson:

Totally agree with that. And I also feel like with the associate, it's kind of like a marriage in that at the very first it's all the honeymoon stage. And then as time goes on, you find these little things that bother you. But one of the things that I always tell my associates is that our integrity and systems have to be the guiding principle. So many are young, and they're concerned about money, and they've got big debt. And I understand that. But one of the reasons that Jameson has been so wonderfully successful in my practice is the systems. You know, dentistry is a hard way to make money if you don't manage it well.

Systems and integrity. If you're doing dentistry because you have a passion and you love it and you want to take care of that patient and you want to make this world a better place to live through dentistry, then the money will come. If money is the driving principle, it truly affects how you practice dentistry.

Associate Example

My associate, right now, Dr. Milan, is a young dentist who has two young children. And so starting out, when he came and shadowed in my practice, he said, “I have no idea how you've made all this work like this.” And so the first time we had our review with Jameson, he was like, “Ah, now I know how this works and how you attract a certain kind of person when you have these foundational principles.”

Dr. Malone came from a place where it was more of a non-relational type of work. They did the dentistry, but they weren't building long-term relationships with their patients. They were doing the dentistry at a high volume. And so he has been giddy about taking the time to be with the patient, taking time to have a sit-down consultation before we ever start treatment, unless it's emergency treatment. He's like, “This is absolutely the way I want to practice dentistry.”

Carrie Webber:

Yes. That's what gets you through the hard days. That's what gets you through COVID, because you're driven by the thing that is truly most important to you. And when you are working with people that align, in terms of working for the same big-picture, that has meaning. And I love how you say that when you build it in that way, the money comes, because you're going to not only attract teams and associates and partners that want to work in that way, you develop a good reputation.

Continue to Learn

Dr. Robinson:

And it is such a joy to continue to learn and to progress in the practice. Again, mom and dad had great, great foundational, comprehensive principles, and I've been able to, through education, add to that. And so I continue to learn. I tell Dr. Malone, we never, ever, ever stop learning. I'm constantly trying to empower our team and myself in order to provide complete dentistry. So we’ve done some bacterial tests in our office. We’ve studied sleep. We've studied good health and fitness. All of that so we can provide the very best services to keep people healthy. And we talk as much with patients about how our treatment or our diagnosis can help them live a healthier, longer life as we do about a tooth that's broken and needs to have a crown.

Carrie Webber:

Yes. So, you know, that continuous learning piece, I do want to dig into that with you just for a little bit, because in this moment right now, there's a great deal of hiring, finding new team members, that new associate. And, as they are brought into the practice, you are really good about prioritizing time for training. 

Can you share some of the things that you do as a team on a regular basis, whether it's for a new employee or for the team in general? How do you prioritize time for that kind of training to make sure everyone understands how the systems run, everyone understands their role in bringing their best to the systems?

Dr. Robinson:

Well, one of the things I want to say is it's been a tricky, tricky time during this pandemic. And I give the credit to the systems of Jameson and to the leadership that we've had. But this last year has had more turnover than I've had in a long time. And so training new and getting the right person on the bus, and the right person in the right seat on the bus is critical.

So it’s been difficult, but the Jameson Grow online platform has been wonderful—all those videos and the education that each team member has the opportunity to go through. We have our team meetings and trainings, but the Jameson consultant only comes twice a year. So this helps. They get an idea of the systems so that when the consultant does come and they have that opportunity to visit with the consultant, they have an idea of what we're talking about. So I love that. And I'm thankful that you guys have the platform. It has been a big help.

Watch Out for Tunnel Vision

Another thing I've learned through working with Jameson is that you get so good at the system that you forget how you got there. Then it is so easy to get tunnel vision when there is a crisis, or even to get too focused on the day-to-day routine. And you have got to have methods to step back and pull yourself out and remind yourself what the systems are, how they work, why you are doing what you're doing. 

So I love it that we can take a specific topic and say, okay, we're having issues with this. Then I run to that video and watch it and remember that's why we're not doing these things.

https://youtu.be/jK4tkLquomg

Below, we’ve compiled some of the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 133. To enjoy the full conversation with our very own Carrie Webber and Dan Cristelli, you can watch on YouTube or listen to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify.

Carrie Webber:

Welcome to the Jameson Files. I'm Carrie Webber and I'm your host. And I'm so thrilled to have my teammate Dan Cristelli with me today. Dan works with our marketing clients through the Jameson marketing services, helping clients achieve their goals for both external and internal marketing efforts. Dan is at the Jameson offices in Oklahoma city today, which is exciting because he's from Vermont. So he made a big, long trip to come be with us in person.

Patient reviews is a hot topic now.

One of the big topics that we constantly work on with clients is how to manage patient reviews effectively. Managing this aspect of your practice has become its own topic, and there are some best practices that you as dental practices can start to apply more intentionally in your marketing processes to help you get a consistent result. So, Dan, you work with clients daily, and I'm sure that this conversation comes up regularly. What do you find are the biggest questions or the biggest obstacles when it comes to patient reviews?

Dan Cristelli:

That's a great question. I think one question is why are these important? I think there’s still a perception that an online review doesn't carry much weight as a personal referral. But last year a study showed that 79% of consumers see an online review as carrying more weight than a personal referral. So they're really important. So that's usually the first question: why is this important?

Why are reviews important? 

That’s why I spend a lot of time working with our clients on the rationale behind a Google review. Here's why it's important. I focus on three different aspects:

The first is how Google's algorithm looks at their practice and ranks their search rankings. Then I obviously talk about how a potential new patient is going to see these reviews. And we talk about how the practice can use reviews as an extra set of eyes on how your systems and team are performing.

Carrie Webber:

So you’re helping people understand why it's important to put a little bit more emphasis on managing their patient reviews, but then how can they do that?

How do you learn to ask for patient reviews well?

Dan Cristelli:

That's probably the most difficult part. We understand that those conversations aren't always easy. I meet with teams on how to approach the entirety of the review process. I like to take a look at a four-step approach. 

The first thing is education. You need to educate yourself on why Google reviews are important. And not only yourself, but also your whole team. The second thing I recommend is to start with what I always refer to as the low hanging fruit, the raving fans. You start with asking them for a review because it's easy to talk to them, and you know they're going to give you a good review. So it helps with building those skills.Once you've done that, you can look at cues. Any sort of praise that's offered is a good example. If someone's raving about a procedure they just had done, it's a good time to talk to them about a review. If you are asking the right questions during the check-out, you're going to have opportunities. And then finally, the last step is just getting to that point where you're consistently asking almost every patient to leave you a review.

Carrie Webber:

Often it seems like the biggest obstacle is just getting comfortable with that conversation. You know, if you want to see a really positive improvement in getting the patient reviews that you want, tell the patients what to expect. Tell Mrs. Jones, “You're going to be receiving a text from us when you leave here, asking for a review. So, if you can, kindly leave us a review. We would be so grateful. It's patients just like you that we love, and we want to help more people in our community. So thank you in advance for leaving that review for us.”

What kind of patient reviews are best for practice growth?

Dan Cristelli:

Absolutely. I can tell which practices are having those conversations and which ones aren't just by their reviews. I will frequently see practices that received six new reviews in the last three weeks. And that's fantastic. They were all five star reviews. That’s also good. But no one left any testimonials. 

That is typically a good indicator that your practice is depending on patient communication software to send out an automated review request. People are doing it, which is great; but because you're not having those conversations and forming that connection before you ask for the review, you aren’t getting the testimonials. It’s okay to use the automated software, but like you said, we need to ask. We need to tell Mrs. Jones how much we would love it if she could leave us a review. 

At the same time, most people aren't going to whip out their phone right there. So we do need that software to follow it up a day or two later with an email and a link where they can do that. But just reference back the conversation that you had: “Mrs. Jones, it was great to see you. I'm glad we talked about leaving a review, and by the way, here's the link where you can do that.” You'll find that when you're having those conversations, not only are you going to get more reviews, but the quality of them will increase greatly.

On Google, specifically, a patient can leave a review with just a star rating. Or they may also write some words about the business. If we just see a star rating, and it says the user has not left a comment, well, that's good. You got a good rating. But they didn't personalize it. They didn't add any sort of information that would help another potential patient with their decision-making. There's no real proof of purchase. So when we see the written testimony, it's a much more powerful review.

What do you do about negative reviews?

Carrie Webber:

So encouraging. What else do you hear? Do you hear people asking what to do if they get a negative review?

Dan Cristelli:

Yes. Once we start talking about reviews, that’s one of the first questions we get. But you know, negative patient reviews are really to be expected. They happen. It would be wonderful if we could live in a world where every single patient that you saw had had that five star experience, but it's not going to happen. 

There are easy ways to handle a negative review. One of the most important things to remember with a negative review is that the way that you respond to it can often dictate how other people view it. So if someone leaves a negative review saying, “I had to wait 15 minutes before someone greeted me, and then the dentist was rough with me” well, there's possibly some issues that you need to address as a team and with your patient, which goes back to the importance of feedback. But also it’s important to respond to that patient review online, and how you respond can help. If you say, “You know, we're really sorry that your experience didn't meet your expectations” and invite them to reach out to you, people reading those reviews will respect that. 

You know, sometimes you'll receive those really bad reviews, and they should be ignored. Maybe they’re upset that you’re not open on Saturdays. All you need to say is, “Thank you for your feedback,” and leave it at that.

Another important thing to remember is that 86% of consumers will only pay attention to reviews left in the last 30 days. So if you get a bad review, you know what to do. Go get a bunch of good ones, and then it'll get pushed down. After a few weeks, no, one's even going to pay attention to it.

Carrie Webber:

That brings up a few things. Timeliness is such a factor in terms of consistently asking so that you do have fresh, new, relevant, timely reviews. And that matters to the consumer, the potential patient that is looking online at those reviews. Also, just to wrap up with the negative review conversation, besides the online response, it’s important to have a proactive plan for how you follow up privately with those patients that need that kind of follow up, because you obviously shouldn't go into the details of the appointment in a public forum like that. So what else?

Importance of Timely Responses

Dan Cristelli:

Well, when we take a look at getting a review, that's only half the battle. Then you need to respond, and we've talked about responding in terms of a bad review, but you should be responding to your good reviews as well. Last year, 77% of folks that read reviews either “always” or “regularly” read review responses. So it's very, very, very important. It shows a two-way communication between the practice and its patients. 

Now, obviously there are considerations. You do want to make sure you're not getting into treatment details or anything like that. You want to be very cognizant of that, but you also want to acknowledge the review, because everyone is reading those and checking to see if there's an active conversation. You want to show that you have a real interest in the experience that your patients have had.

Carrie Webber:

So as you've stated, people are reading the reviews, and timeliness is a very real thing. The freshness, basically the expiration date, does exist in terms of the relevance of a review to me as a potential patient. I want to know whether that is indeed the real, current experience that I may have if I called your practice tomorrow. So Dan, are there other pieces of managing reviews that you would want to make sure people are aware of to help make it easier and more effective?

Dan Cristelli:

Sure.

Below, we’ve compiled some of the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 133. To enjoy the full conversation with our very own Carrie Webber and Dan Cristelli, you…

https://youtu.be/Jl34_cZ7BhE

Below, we’ve compiled some of the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 133. To enjoy the full conversation with our very own Carrie Webber, you can watch on YouTube or listen to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify.

Carrie Webber discusses the value of a practice reset.

Hello and welcome back to the Jameson Files. I'm Carrie Webber and I'm your host. And today I'm also flying solo because I want to speak to something that I'm hearing again and again from clients and doctors that are reaching out to Jameson seeking resources or support in growing their practices. They feel like they're pushing against a brick wall, and they’re frustrated and burning out and wanting to find a better way

Do you recognize these signs that point toward a practice reset?

We have come through some difficult times, and the recovery and return to business-as-usual has been a roller coaster. Many of you have lots of patients returning now and are busy, but it’s a season of struggles. You find yourself working harder and making less, you're unable to see new patients, but you're also writing off half of what you're producing. These are the kinds of stories I keep hearing.

1. You're hitting walls with your team.

It feels like you're in a hamster wheel, working hard every single day with nothing to show for it. You can't get them to change for the better, or you can't get consistent performance. Perhaps you're being held hostage by team members’ past experiences or their own limiting beliefs. Or maybe you're being held back by your own limiting beliefs, the busy-ness, or the way you're practicing. All of these things and more can wear a person down and add stress.

2. You can’t find team members.

We're hearing this one all a lot. I actually read an article recently saying we may be entering a season called the great resignation, where across all industries and professions they are finding more and more employees resigning and moving on to other endeavors. We are certainly feeling that in dentistry. Many of you have said that you've had team turnover through this season and the struggle to find new team members has been quite overwhelming. 

3. You're being held hostage by PPIs.

Perhaps you're in a number of PPI plans and those plans keep changing the rules of their game. And now you find yourself stuck in a model of your practice that you never expected or anticipated. Or perhaps you purchased a practice and you inherited the plans, and you're struggling with how to move from this model to the model that is more ideal for you.

4. You are on the cusp of burnout.

You're suffering from physical pain or exhaustion from the work you're doing, and it’s starting to wreak havoc on your personal life as well as your professional life. It's been a really tough one to two years. 

Adam Grant, the thought leader and author, wrote an article saying that as a society we are in a season languishing—we're not quite burned out yet, but we certainly don't have the energy to pursue things in the way we once did. So maybe you are languishing, working all hours to get everything done for your business. Maybe you haven't delegated, and all of those pieces of the puzzle fall to you after you've been working in the chair for eight hours. You're starting to feel the weight of all of those responsibilities.

Critical keys in introducing a practice reset.

It may be time to take a step back and look at your practice from a different perspective as a business owner and determine whether or not you need a practice reset. There are things we can do to refocus, reset, and get closer to the path you always wanted to be on. Or perhaps it’s the path you were on at some point, but something knocked you off course.

1. One of Jameson's core values is balance.

As business owners and practice leaders, we have to start looking at how to grow and still keep a handle on balance. Where are we out of balance in our practice? Where are we spending all of our effort, and it's throwing us off balance? What needs to be different? What's happening right now that your practice is not working for you? How do you reset? What does the practice need?

2. Every practice has basic needs.

Take a moment and think about what needs are pinch points in your practice right now.

Stay openStay healthyKeep the doors openKeep the team paid

3. Think about your practice vision.

Next, go ahead and ask yourself: “What do I want, what do we want, for this practice?” “Where's the gap between where I am now and where I want to be?” It's okay to do this. When you're creating a vision for your business, it's important that we are working toward a vision, because those are the things that are going to bring you professional fulfillment.

4. Clarify what matters most.

The next question is what matters most? What matters most in terms of the values for your business? What matters most to you in how you take care of your patients? What matters most to you in your professional life? What matters most to you in your personal life? What matters most to you for your team? It's important to get clear on these things.

5. Where are the opportunities?

Let's look at things from a different angle for a moment. I want you to start thinking about where the opportunities are. We need to be seeking out the opportunities for growth. There's a Japanese word called Kaizen, and it means continuous improvement. And we want to be continuously learning and improving, in almost a cyclical fashion, checking in on how we are doing in all of these systems and skill sets. 

The practices that really stay focused on who they are, the kind of dentistry they want to provide, and continuous refinement are the ones that have very loyal patients. They attract the type of patients they want in their practice, very intentionally. They are doing the work to get the result they seek. They're attracting team members that want that same type of life in their professional careers. 

So we need to make sure we're really clear on what right looks like for us. And that we're communicating that to our team members, to our community, and to our patients consistently.

Find your solutions for a practice reset.

If you're looking for a reset, here's some things that you may need to consider as solutions. You may need a new success model. You may need a new team member. You may need to have some conversations about adjusting course. You may need some coaching. You may need to grow in delegation and restructuring of responsibilities. You may need some simplification. A lot of times we're getting in our own way because we don't have systems or we're not honoring the systems.

For all of these reset needs, we have avenues of support for you and your team. I’d like to encourage you to check out Grow, the online learning platform by Jameson. And I invite you to visit that (grow.jmsn.com) and see if you find a good refresher to get back on track.

You may also need to find experts in your areas of weakness, whether that be coaches, financial partners, HR firms, whatever is lacking or lagging in your practice. There are companies like Jameson that can help you get clear on where you're doing things well and where there are opportunities for growth. You may need a financial planner or an accountant that is familiar with dentistry that can help you make healthy financial decisions. You may not have an up-to-date personnel policy manual, and you know you need a great HR firm to help you get compliant. There are a lot of things coming down the line that you may need help with from OSHA and HIPAA. 

Find the resources that you need. Get training on your technology. For instance, if you're not using your cameras, have someone come in and do some training with you. If you're not maximizing your patient communication software, do some training online and get better at it.

Dr. Mark Hyman, who's a dear dear friend of ours, always says, “The minute I stopped telling patients what they wanted or needed and started asking them what they wanted, everything changed, because I started listening and engaging and partnering with those patients.”

Jameson's Model of Success

See fewer patients per day; do more dentistry per patient, when and where appropriate. See your patients for fewer appointments. Minimize the number of team members in the practice. Restructure and realign your team to maximize the team members you have.Share the resulting profit with your team and reduce your stress.

When you set the model of success into play, you're not only helping you and your practice, many of your patients appreciate it too; because if I'm a patient in your practice, I would rather come see you for fewer appointments and get the work done. That way I don't have to take off work or find that childcare for my kids or whatever the case may be.

Work with your administrative team and your office managers to build trust, build engagement, build time in your days. Develop and grow and train as a team so that you can delegate more and feel competent in those delegations. Then you too can leave at a decent hour at the end of the workday!

Prioritize time within your day to meet and develop as teams both clinically and operationally, and then start delegating when and where appropriate. Build up leadership within your team so that they can do more, and you can do what only you can do.

Make the decision. Do the work. Face the elephant in the room head on because often that is the thing that's holding you back from the practice reset you need.

Start with that first step, first decision, first phone call, first change of conversation. And start today. And here's to the practice reset that gets you back on the ideal path for you so that you can pursue your vision for your practice.

https://youtu.be/gM1f2OVx3vE

Below, we’ve compiled some of the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 132. To enjoy the full conversation between our very own Carrie Webber and Laurie Owens, you can watch on YouTube or listen to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify.

Carrie Webber:Welcome to the Jameson Files. I'm your host, Carrie Webber. Thank you for being with us once again for another fantastic episode, with an amazing guest. We want to continue to bring you great information, excellent guests and resources and tools that help you grow and thrive in your ideal dental journey.

I am so happy to have a phenomenal guest with us today, who's going to talk about a very popular topic: medical billing. Laurie Owens is the director of medical billing for Devdent and has been teaching, coaching, lecturing, and training on medical billing for about 18 years. And so what we want to dive into right now in this episode is the question of, is your practice ready for medical billing? But first, Laurie, I would love to have you share a little bit about your dental story. How did you end up where you are today as such a premier instructor in the dental field?

Laurie’s Springboard Into Medical Billing

Laurie Owens:So I started out working for Dr. Michael Cohen and, as most people know, Dr. Cohen is the epitome of continuing education. So within two weeks of being hired, and with no dental experience, I  was going to a CE course on bacteremia. And I sat next to our hygienist, Elizabeth, and said, “If we're making people sick, how can this be considered dental?” And she said, “That's a good question. I don't know.” And that was my launch pad to saying, “Why are we billing dental insurance when it really has to do with somebody's health?”

We were a perio office and doing lots of oral surgeries. And I said, “I think this is something important, and I really want to figure out how this might apply to what we do. So the doctors, of course, being such a busy office, said, basically, “That’s fine, but we can't have you do it during work hours because we're extremely busy.” 

Now, mind you, I did dental insurance, treatment plans, answering phones, meeting with pay—the whole gambit. So I totally understood, and I took it on myself to learn at home. I paid a guy a hundred dollars to look at my faxed claims. I faxed him the claim, they were fictitious patients, and he would fax back corrections. And so that's how I started, by wanting to make sure I was doing things right. 

So I became a certified professional biller with the APC. A lot of people think, “Oh, well, it's just the oral cavity.” It's not; it's the whole body. When you learn and you get credentialed, you have to learn the whole body. If I needed to, I could do a retina detachment right now, or spinal fusion. 

I wanted to make sure our offices were doing things right and legal. That was the whole reason behind any credentialing I've obtained. I want to make sure that what I'm doing and teaching is proper. And I also bill for six offices myself, because I'm not going to teach something that I won't do.

Some Examples of the Need for Medical Billing

I don't want you to think that everybody who walks through your doors is a medical billing case. But there are things that we come across in dentistry, and it could be something that you could help them with, like a cancer patient who might be in remission having an adverse effect to their antineoplastic or auto-immune medications. So you think about that, what are they going to do? They might lose all their teeth because it's just the way that medication runs its course.

And I also have a bonus daughter because of dentistry. Her dad would ride on our church bus, and one day he called me and said he had a toothache. And this was when I was brand new to dentistry. I said, “Well, you need to go to the dentist.” And he said, “But I don't have dental insurance.” And I said, “But if it hurts, it's worse than you think. And so you need to go to the dentist.” He said, “But if I pay a dentist, then I've taken food out of my daughter's mouth.” And I'm like, “But I don't know what else to tell you. Go to the dentist.”

Well, that Saturday came and went, and I didn't hear from him Sunday morning. Then his daughter called me and said, “Can you come to the emergency room?” So my husband and I went, and when we got there, he was in the ICU at the emergency room. And I knew he was dead. He had an infection that went into his ear and went into his brain and turned septic and shut down his organs that quick. 

Now not every case is going to be that quick, but when you have an infection, don't you think that could be an emergency? And so I kicked myself, thinking, “Had I known then what I know now I could have helped.” And my husband walked her down the aisle, but that doesn't take the place of her dad. 

So I, it's a constant reminder of why I do what I do. I want no one else to walk into somebody's office that doesn't have dental insurance that you say you can't help.

Carrie Webber:Your story truly is a testament to you choosing a very specific lane that you are passionate about. You are genuinely interested in being a continuous student of this, and the dental community is better for it because you are such a great expert in this realm. So let's dive in and talk about medical billing. Maybe some have tried before, but it didn't work so well. Others may be trying right now, or they're considering it. When do they know if it’s right for them?

How do you know if medical billing is right for your practice?

Number One: Ask Your Coach

Laurie Owens:Well I was thinking about the title of this podcast, and I love it because it's really relevant. So, my number one has always been, “Does your coach think you're ready? Because as a consulting office, we always had a consultant, no matter what. And it was dependent upon where the doctors wanted to focus the practice. As outside eyes, they are going to be the number one guide on whether you're ready. And if you don't have a coach, it's going to be really hard to figure that out because you don't have somebody looking at it with an objective perspective.

So number one, if your coach feels you're ready, then you're ready. And if they don't, let's figure out what you need to work on outside of medical billing, because medical billing isn't like a funnel of money coming in. That's not the purpose. If your main purpose is just to make millions of dollars, that's fine, but that's not what medical billing is for. The question is, “Are you able to maximize benefits in order to get the patient healthier?”

If you start looking at it on that plane, the money comes, but it's not the other way around. If you're looking at the money, then your notes aren't going to be right, your focus isn't going to be right, and the medical necessity is not going to be right. And so that's why I say you need outside eyes looking at your practice. It’s the best way to find out if you're ready for medical billing.

Number Two: Have Enough Staff

My number two is going to be: make sure you're fully staffed. Don't walk into medical billing shorthanded, because it's going to truly end up being a failure. Your staff is going to be frustrated because now they're not only doing multiple jobs, but you're incorporating new verbiage into their diction. And if you're not fully staffed, it's not a good time to attempt medical billing, because you're only going to create frustration instead of education. And so a lot of doctors will come to the course, get excited, and then go back and say, “Okay, team, start medical billing right now. And they haven't given their team anything to learn from. You can't throw your team into that, as much as your heart might want to do medical billing.

So wait until you're fully staffed, and you can help train your team. That is going to be the most important thing. It's a team effort, not a solo endeavor. When we went into it as a practice, it was because the team did what I needed them to do. The doctors knew what I needed to look for. It wasn't that every person was a medical bill. And that was important. If you were to try to do a solo venture, you're going to be frustrated, and you're going to stop.

The other difficult thing is that you might've had a trained team member that had full focus on medical billing, but now that team member's gone, and you're expecting the team to do the same things as if that other team member was there, without any education or training, and that's not fair. You're basically setting them up to fail. It’s literally a recipe for disaster. So if you're not fully staffed, it's okay to not move forward with medical billing. 

Number Three: Prepare for Growth

But my number three, and you're going to like this one, Carrie, is you gotta be prepared for growth. And I’m not saying you ought to hire unless the necessity is there, but you do have to plan for growth. A lot of people have asked us over the years, how did you market this? How did you market medical billing for dentistry? We never did. But we boomed. And so we planned for growth. We purchased the suite next to us. We purchased a whole new admin section so that we could answer the phone calls that came in daily, saying, :I hear you bill medical insurance.” 

So if you're not prepared for the growth, you need to be selective and careful ,because if you're you have no space to grow, where are you going to put all these new patients that hear that you bill medical insurance? They're not going to leave you good reviews when you can't get them in for two months. It doesn't work. Prepare for the growth, because with medical billing, I guarantee you, you will start getting more phone calls just because your patients are going to be talking about it.

Carrie Webber:Well, I bet,