Sit in your dental chair and look up

When waste last time you sat in one of your dental chairs and looked up?

Do you know what your patients are seeing when they sit in your chair? Are they seeing dirty looking lights? A they seeing discolored ceiling tiles? Are they looking at a blank wall or crooked cabinet?

I was recently in a dental chair and spent an hour looking at a light fixture that looked dirty. The fixture was not dirty - the light was just streaky from the disinfectant sprayed on it and then quickly wiped down. From my angle it looked filthy. I knew better - your patients won't.

If your cabinets are old and need repair - get them fixed, painted, etc. it the ceiling tiles don't match or are dirty - get them replaced. These are quick and inexpensive fixes that will really pay dividends.

Think if you went into a restaurant and the table appeared dirty, the ceiling looked rain damaged and the tables wobbled - you would never go back. People are nervous about going to the dental office already, don't give them a reason to question your office.

Do yourself a favor, sit in all your dental chairs, recline the unit and look at what you see. Fix everything that your patients might perceive to be dirty, tacky, broken or problematic. These fixes are not expensive and will give your patients more confidence in your office.

Dr. Corey Gold
President - Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Closing the Back Door…

Most dental offices are very aware of how many new patients they acquire each month BUT most dental offices do not know how many patients they LOSE each month. When doing consulting for many dental offices I often found that offices with good new patient acquisition numbers often had a NET NEGATIVE patient flow!

Can you imagine paying large number of dollars in marketing to acquire new patients only to be losing patient base size each month? It happens all the time and the offices are blissfully unaware basking in the high number of new patient data – not realizing that they are actually shrinking in size.

The least expensive patient to acquire is the ones you already have. Let me say that another way – the most important part of the growth plan for your practice must be to keep your current patient base satisfied and STAYING with you.

Keeping patients happy is inexpensive and the easiest to accomplish practice growth thing you can do for your office. I know offices that spend over $10,000 a month on new patient marketing and don’t spend $1 or one minute on maintaining their current patients – a bad strategy and bad math.

A focus on current customer satisfaction is the key and most important step in growing and maintaining your practice size. Read other articles on this and other websites about customer satisfaction ideas and start implementing right away.

Dr. Corey Gold
President - Advanced Continuing Education Systems

www.aces4ce.com

Make More $ with Cash Up Front Discounts

One of the best income and cash-flow generators for your practice is offering a discount for patients who pay for their entire treatment plan before the first session. The discount needs to be strong enough for patients to want to pay for the full treatment in advance. In my practice this was a 10% discount for complete prepayment.

There are several great reasons why accepting less upfront actually earns you more money and a smoother practice operation.

1                 Having the patient pay upfront ensures that you will be paid on all your treatment and greatly reduces your aging receivables. Your discount ensures that the patient waits for the insurance company to pay their share not you. It also means that you are always collecting your co-payments.

2                 Dentistry can appear expensive and everyone likes a discount. A reasonable discount percentage encourages people to seek the proper care and opt for the more complete treatment plan.

3                 Scheduling is a synch when most of your patients are fully paid in advance of their appointments. The patient simply calls and sets their times on your calendar. There are no more sticky phone calls between the staff and the patient before the appointment can be set up due to money issues. 

4                 You save considerable staff time and mental aggravation chasing past due accounts. Some dentist’s do not realize how much staff time it takes to collect money from people on payment plans. Not only does this staff time cost you money but it also means your staff is not working on other projects such as customer service, retention and other vital aspects of your practice.

I strongly suggest you consider giving cash up front discount for patients who pay in full for their entire treatment plan before the first visit. It is good business for you and represents a value to your patients.

Dr. Corey Gold
President - Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com

Matching Uniforms or No Team Uniforms

I admit that this was never a big deal for me. I always let my staff decide whether they wanted to wear matching uniforms or not. It did affect me in that I had to wear the chosen scrubs but that was never a concern for me. My objective was to have a happy staff and almost nothing led to more disharmony than argumentation over uniforms.

Over the many years, I have had the staff choose all options. We wore the color of the day but different outfits, color of the day and matching outfit, no uniformity and everything in between. The funny thing was that no matter what the staff chose, it always wanted to change again soon.

Ultimately, we spent the majority of time wearing the color of the day and in matching uniforms. I think this was the cleanest and most professional look. I never got a vote – just the honor of paying – LOL.

Dr. Corey gold
President – Advanced Continuing Education Systems
www.aces4ce.com