Looking for ways to grow your practice? Well, I have great news. There are many ways to grow a dental practice quickly. In fact, I recently completed a project where we identified 42 specific actions that will lead to immediate growth in a practice.
For example, having 98% of all of your patients scheduled within 90 days or following up with patients who stopped further treatment until their benefits renewed are great strategies that can be measured and directly tied to a revenue number.
But there are also actions that you can take every day that may not seem like they add to your revenue at all. However, they are some of the most powerful things you can do to increase practice success.
Smart ways to help grow your practice don’t need to be part of an elaborate plan. Consider these five things that you can do each day to help strengthen your practice:
- The Daily Business Meeting: The purpose of the daily business meeting is to review the most important aspects of the day, create focus, answer questions, and eliminate any confusion. Some critical agenda items that you should include in your daily business meeting are new patients, thank yous for referrals, and collections.
- Monthly Business Review: Most people find staff meetings boring and can’t wait until they’re over. The ugly truth is that most staff meetings are fairly unfocused and unproductive. The monthly business review is different. It’s a real review meeting where staff members report on statistics that they’ve been assigned to analyze. What percentage of active patients are currently scheduled? How many patients have moved to active status in the last 30 days? Are we making progress on the 10 goals that we set for this year? What are the improvements that we will make in the practice this month? Statistics like these should all be part of an agenda that inspires, motivates, and educates team members.
- Hire an Advisor or Find a Mentor: Who gives you advice and guidance about your practice? Most successful CEOs rely on outside advice. You should as well.
- Improve Your Customer Service: Improving customer service can’t to be tied directly to the next $50,000 growth in your practice. But there’s no question that outstanding customer service leads to higher customer satisfaction, which in turn always leads to higher revenue, profit, referrals, and repeat customers. Although it can’t be put on a spreadsheet or a budget, providing great customer service is one of the most powerful things a practice can do to grow.
- Motivate Your Team: Provide surprises such as donuts or treats, free dinners, interesting seminars, or bonuses to motivate your team. Most dentists like their teams and try to be very respectful, even though they aren’t necessarily motivating their staff. Think of at least one activity that you can do each month that will motivate your team. A motivated team performs, learns, and implements better, even if you can’t measure it.
Summary
Growing your practice doesn’t always require thinking outside of the box. There are everyday things that you can do—some that you’re already doing that just need to be enhanced—to have a powerful impact on your practice. Use these five ideas to help your practice. It may take a little time, but you’ll see the results in the end.
Dr. Levin is a third-generation general dentist and the founder and CEO of Levin Group Inc, a dental management consulting firm that has worked with more than 26,000 dentists. Dr. Levin, an internationally known dental practice management speaker, has written 65 books and more than 4,300 articles. He is also the executive founder of Dental Business Study Clubs—dentistry’s only all-business study clubs, the next generation of dental business education.
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