CATEGORY 114 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST Dear Dr Toni, It’s hard to get my associate dentists motivated to treat comprehensively. What do you advise? Dr RA, Vic. Thank you for your question; this is a really common issue. Many dentists who work as associates are naturally quite cautious people and feel that treating conservatively is less risky than diagnosing comprehensively. My experience is that many of them have lost sight of the fact that comprehensive diagnosis and treatment is usually what’s ethically right for the patient. Actually, I think that treating conservatively and possibly underdiagnosing can be as unethical and bad for the patient as overtreating. Often the reason for overly cautious dentistry is also related to a fear of not having the skill to treat comprehensively, and/or a fear of rejection. So here’s an action plan. Step 1: Find out what motivates the dentist. If they’re financially motivated, show them how ethical delivery of comprehensive treatment benefits them. If they’re motivated by patient satisfaction, show them how happy patients can be when presented with great solutions to their problems. If they’re motivated by doing excellent dentistry, show them how their clinical skills are best developed through delivering (ethical) comprehensive dentistry. Step 2: Make sure the associate has all the training to diagnose and treat comprehensively, which includes making sure that they’re attending useful courses. Obviously they need to do CPD for their registration anyway, so talk to them about courses that might be useful in helping them treat more comprehensively. Also make sure that they have access to upto-date diagnostic equipment in your practice; I sometimes see principal dentists monopolising all the good equipment, so make sure that you’re not! BEST PRACTICES Q&A BESTPRACTICES Q&A with Dr Toni Surace 4 Dr Toni Surace BDSC (Melb) Managing Director, Momentum Management Mentor, coach and international presenter. It’s always best practice to develop business skills, systems, techniques and industry knowledge that could impact your practice. BEST PRACTICES Q&A is a forum allowing you to ask the tough questions to Australasian Dentist columnist Dr Toni Surace. Step 3: Make sure they’re trained in communication skills: do they feel comfortable presenting comprehensive treatment plans? This is a big skill, and universities don’t teach case presentation skills in a way that helps in private practice. Also, you should also look for evidence of what’s actually happening; what do the numbers tell you about this? You can do this by keeping patient monitors that show: u The number of patients to whom the associate has presented comprehensive plans u Total amount diagnosed u Total amount accepted u The case acceptance rate u If the patient didn’t accept treatment, what were the reasons why not? If there is little evidence of confidence with presenting treatment, you can ask them to enrol in communication courses. Step 4: Mentor them. Whether it’s with diagnosis, treatment planning or communication, your mentoring is essential for the success of the associate. Use real cases of theirs to help with their training, and you can show them some of yours as well. I mentor really thoroughly to make sure that my associates’ skills are as good as I can get them. Step 5: Track the results and act on them. What improvements are you seeing each month on their monitors? Monitors that have been fully completed help to show what’s missing and what’s improved. If the associate’s amount diagnosed seems significantly lower than yours, go back to those patients’ records and check them. What would you have diagnosed that your associate has missed? Alternatively, if their amount diagnosed is OK but their amount accepted is low (below about 80%), work with the dentist on the way they presented to each patient and work out a plan of action for how to motivate that patient to say yes in a future appointment. You can also let the associate sit in on some treatment presentations of yours if there’s a particular skill you want to show them. In short, the best outcomes for your associate occur when you find out exactly what their barriers are, and you invest your own time in developing them. Not only that, but your patients win, and so does the practices as a whole. Good luck! Dear Dr Toni, I’ve heard a bit about huddles, but I’m not sure exactly how to make them work. Can you please point me in the right direction? Dr LO, NSW. I really like huddles! I’ve also found that most team members who have worked in practices with effective huddles don’t like being in practices without them; they find days chaotic and unplanned if they’ve been used to good huddles. So here’s how to make them successful. Keep in mind that the point of the huddle is to have seamless days so that the team, the patients and the clinicians have as smooth an experience as possible. That means that any potential problems are prevented; they’re flagged in advance and action is taken to make sure they don’t occur. Mechanics: 1. Make sure you have an agenda so that items are remembered and discussed properly. This can include: u Yesterday’s schedule: what went right? What could be improved? u Today’s schedule: are there any potential problems that need to be solved? u Emergencies: what times could be made available for emergencies today? u Production: have we been meeting goal? When’s the next available highproduction block and how could we fill it? u Dentist/hygienist handovers: when can the dentist go into the hygiene room for check-ups? u Any specific issues about any of the patients coming in today? (E.g. they take a long time to numb up, they’re a “ “
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTc3NDk3Mw==