Australasian Dentist Issue 92

CATEGORY AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST 123 BEST PRACTICES Q&A Dr Toni Surace the Managing Director of Momentum Management. Momentum is the premier dental practice management consultancy and training firm in Australia. Momentum has been empowering dentists in Australia and New Zealand to reach their professional, personal and financial goals for over 16 years. On average, Momentum clients increase production by 30-40% and achieve a 579% return on investment from the Momentum Practice Management Program. If you would like to learn more about Momentum Management programs, call 1300 519 000, and request a free 1-hour consultation with an experienced coach. number of your patients wanting to get dentistry done overseas, so make sure that you’re in the habit of building up your new patient flow now while you’re still busy. For example, get the front office coordinators in the habit of converting incoming phone calls from “fee shoppers”. In other words, before your patient flow starts to dry up, train your FOCs in exceptional communication skills so that they get really good at turning a quick call about price into an appointment. Similarly, it’s a good idea to start to focus on getting good Google reviews and asking for referrals from your happy patients rather than waiting until it’s too late. In short, now is the time to get as much commitment as you can from your current patients, and to work on both customer service and marketing. Don’t wait until you have gaps in your books! D ear Dr Toni, Is it better to be overstaffed or understaffed? Dr VL, Qld Interesting question! If you believe, as I do, in quality comprehensive dentistry and exceptional customer service, it’s smart to be a bit overstaffed. The main advantage in being a bit overstaffed is to have enough time to do things properly at front desk. Good customer service takes more time than perfunctory dealings with patients, so it’s ideal to have enough time to slow down and really listen to patients. It is much more effective to have front office coordinators spend time listening to incoming caller than to rush them off the phone. For example, if a patient is trying to cancel, there’s a lot of wasted time letting the patient go too easily then having to fill that gap. The FOC can often save that cancellation if they have the time (and the training) to really listen to the patient and motivate them to keep their appointments. A bit of excess staffing can even be an advantage in the surgeries. For example, dental assistants are far more likely to get rooms set up properly and instruments where they belong if they’re not rushing and stressed. They can also spend more energy on stock control and reducing wastage if they have time to concentrate. The key to success is ensuring that the team members are well selected, well trained, and have reliable systems that support them. There’s no point in being overstaffed if the staff are poor or the systems let them down. In fact, being able to conduct thorough hiring and training is one of the benefits to being a bit overstaffed; you want to ensure that you have enough people to be able to manage effective training. Make sure you have an up-to-date policies and procedure manual in place and you can also use short videos for new recruits to watch as well. Obviously there needs to be a budget for staff salaries that supports being a bit overstaffed; you can’t implement this if the practice isn’t producing well, there are big gaps in the books or you have cash-flow problems. But overall, quality is sometimes best achieved with the right staffing levels! u For further information on Momentum Management, visit www.momentummanagement.com . au or call 1300 519 000 for details on short courses, Momentum’s Management Program, coaching packages, short courses, in-practice visits, or other ways in which Momentum can assist you. “