Australasian Dentist Magazine May June 2021

Category 126 Australasian Dentist D ear Dr Toni, We are so busy at the moment that we’re struggling to keep up. Have you got any suggestions about how we can manage? Dr RF, NSW. We’re seeing a lot of practices at the moment that are flat-out and didn’t expect to be, and they’re asking for help managing patient demand. Managing busyness takes effort, but is doable! The big leap of faith to take is realising that you simply can’t be all things to all people. There might be some patients you can’t help. You and the team therefore need to find a way determine who are the most important patients to the practice. For example, in order to make sure you can pay your bills, you might focus on the patients who are willing and able to accept high-value work. You might also prioritise the patients who are loyal, who accept your recommendations, and who make your lives easier. The key systems to support you are: managing the appointment book, and effectively triaging emergencies. It’s a bit of pressure on the front desk to get this right, so they have to be well trained in running these systems and in verbal skills to communicate with patients. The importance of the appointment book is that the dentists need to have a balance of high-value work, emergencies and minor restorative. If you have an annual plan and you know what your dentists’ daily goals are, it’s important to template high-production spots that allow your dentists to make their goals. Make sure you’re using internal communications systems to discuss ways to fill those spots with high-value work, and make sure that you have a “release” policy (e.g. if a high- value pre-block isn’t filled within 48 hours it gets released for other treatment). You didn’t mention whether or not you have a preventative care department, but one of the best ways to free up dentists is to have all preventative care appointments moved to the hygienist/OHT. It’s everyone’s responsibility to help motivate patients to accept those pre-blocked times and to keep their appointments. Ideally, every patient rebooks at the end of their appointment and keeps their appointment without trying to change it. A few practice owners have told me that they’re sometimes secretly glad to have gaps open up in clinicians’ books because that allows for more emergencies – or for a well-earned breather – but every gap that arises becomes more admin for the front office. If you’re busy, aim to keep preventable admin to a minimum, so allowing easy cancellations or rescheduled appointments is a bad idea. To motivate patients to rebook and to keep their appointments, it can be useful to recommend to patients that they keep their appointments because you can’t guarantee they’ll get back into your books within a reasonable timeframe should they try to move their appointments. Emergencies can mess up a beautifully templated day, so get in the habit of training patients to accept restorative work by explaining to the patient that restorative work can prevent emergencies and unnecessary dental work. If a patient doesn’t accept the preventative treatment, let them know that because the books are so full, it might be hard to see them if they have an emergency. If the patient still refuses, make a note in their records to remind the FOCs that you might not be able to see the patient if there is an emergency. This sounds harsh, but manging busyness does involve a few tough decisions about how to prioritise, and my advice is to avoid making it your problem that the patient refused treatment. The key then becomes effectively triaging emergencies when they do arise. Here are some rules of thumb: Only pre-block emergencies if you get two or more calls per day. Lots of practices have more emergencies on Mondays, for Q&A with Dr Toni Surace Best Practices Q&A 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. Dr Toni Surace BDSC (Melb) Managing Director, Momentum Management Mentor, coach and international presenter. example, so you can put pre-blocks for emergencies on those days if that works best. Talk to your front desk team about the patterns in the practice if you’re not sure. Emergencies should be for palliative care only, so FOCs should explain to patients that’s what’s expected, and dentists need to stick to this unless there is a really serious problem. Write some triaging questions that the FOCs can use to work out the appropriate length of time for the appointment, and what the DAs will need to have ready for the appointment. Note that this is NOT diagnosis by your FOCs; it’s simply clarifying the patient’s needs. For example, if the patient has a broken filling: which tooth, is it painful, is it sensitive to hot/ cold, etc? Doing palliative care then rebooking the patient for permanent work can be a challenge if your books are busy, but it gives you more control than trying to get the treatment all done on the day. Further, doing all the treatment on the day trains the patient to feel like it’s OK to ignore your recommendations for prevention. You want your patients taking your recommendations seriously! Some practice owners seem to believe that systems are nice to have when everything is functioning well, but that they’re unnecessary if the practice is really busy. My experience, however, is that systems are the “umbrella” that protects you from the elements you can’t control, and systems should reduce the chaos and the pressure of busyness. D ear Dr Toni, We can’t find good staff! What should I do? Dr PP, WA. It’s tough at the moment, isn’t it? As with my answer to the question above, if you can’t find good staff, having strong systems is your saviour. To extend onmy answer to the previous BEST PRACTICES 4 “ “