Management

The Jameson Method of Dental Practice Management emphasizes a belief in investing in the development of our team members; a belief that there is never an end to learning.

Telephone skills are critical to establishing and maintaining excellent relationships with patients. But sometimes that's not easy! From time to time an angry, or irate, patient calls testing all of your telephone skills, your people skills, and your patience.

In this new practice management column, Penny Limoli of Limoli and Associates shares tips and advice to help your dental practice thrive. This month, she kicks off the series with advice to help ensure you hire the right people who can help make that happen.

Whenever I ask a team “If you were doing something that was holding your team back, would you want ..."

Like the characters from a horror movie, emotions that are buried alive will reappear … usually at the worst possible moment and will wreak havoc. Here's help.

As part of DPR’s From The Office Manager’s Desk Series, Jill Nesbitt tells you how to use your ledger to manage and increase case acceptance in your office.

Gendex brought a little something different to this year’s Greater New York Dental Meeting. Just before 2 on Sunday afternoon, the music started and the dancing began outside the Gendex Bus.

Do you have a specialist practicing part time in your office? Most specialists these days are traveling to more than one office to increase their productivity by reaching out to new patient populations. This approach works!  

These blunders may cost you more than you know.

All your marketing dollars go to waste if your secretary isn’t well-trained to handle new patient phone calls. You may invest thousands in direct mail, website upgrades or tens of thousands in television commercials because you need new patients.

Dental Consultant and Office Manager Jill Nesbitt, MBA, offers up 10 fresh ways to put those older items to use in your practice.

An office manager's take on how to solve team conflict and achieve team harmony in your dental office.

The hiring process is hardly ever enjoyable; the paperwork alone can be enough to drive anyone insane. Unfortunately, this long, exhausting process is unavoidable.  If you’ve said, “I know I need a good team, but it is too hard to find the right people,” chances are you’ve made some mistakes during the hiring process. Here’s a breakdown of the top 5 mistakes dentists make during the hiring process, and how you can avoid them.

DPR editors have compiled a list of must-read books with your dental practice's management goals in mind. The concepts and ideas conveyed through each book can easily translate into your dental practice, among your staff and even your patients. #2 New York Times Best Seller: The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do in life and business

You want to be friendly with your patients, to build a rapport that helps keep them loyal to you and your practice. What you don’t want to do is become too familiar or so comfortable with your patients that you end up taking it too far, and saying something that leaves them feeling uncomfortable and maybe even looking for a new practice.

One of the most critical responsibilities an office manager has is to manage the schedule. The dentist wants it to be productive. The hygienists want it to be full. The assistants want it to have enough time to turn over rooms and catch up on cleaning instruments. The secretaries are busy trying to fill the schedule when it has holes and confirm and take care of patients when it’s full.

No one wants to be involved in a dispute that disrupts the normal flow of business to the dental practice. Disputes harm dentists financially and emotionally and cause turmoil within the practice among employees, owners and patients.

Do you have some great vendors that support your dental practice? Perhaps your computer technician does a great job coordinating all the technology in the dental office plus he’s saved the day in an emergency once or twice? Has your dental supply vendor rushed an order for you or given you a product out of her own personal stash when you were in a pinch?

The new year brings many of us face to face with a daunting set of wish lists. We call them “resolutions” or even “goals.” We look at what we want to accomplish personally and professionally and-having written them down-proceed to ignore them and work in ways that manage to bring about somewhat opposite results. How does that happen?

If I took an educated[1] guess on what topics the majority of The Pride Institute’s phone calls for “help” were based on, I would have to say half of the calls are from hygienists who feel under appreciated, undervalued and underused, while the other half come from dentists who are, quite frankly, a little anxious about their relationship with their hygienist(s). Considering the No. 1 secret to succeeding in these challenging times is a modern, interactive hygiene experience, we need to get to the bottom of what seems to cause frustration for the key players involved in continuing care.

Information provided by Henry Schein Inc. A complete online digital prescription workflow that helps route and manage lab casework, DDX Labscripts is a new feature of Henry Schein’s DDX (Digital Dental Exchange) digital case management system.

“You’re wrong!” A patient complaint is as powerful as a slap in the face. The words sting and when they come from a patient it most certainly feels like a threat to your integrity. Most people are tempted to show how they cannot possibly be wrong. Most people want to prove not only that they are in the right, but that the other person-in this case, the patient-is wrong.

You are not the only ones wrestling with this daunting task! The issue of finding comfort in the “asking” always reminds me of a Theatre 101 class I took years ago. The first rule of the stage is, before you utter one line of dialogue you have to ask yourself, “What’s my motivation?” Your answer will color the tone, pace and delivery of that one line.

How many times have you woken from a sound sleep, with an employee’s performance issue weighing on you? As your heart races, you think dark thoughts-She hates me! He needs a therapist! There’s nothing I can do! I’ll just have to live with the problem until I sell the practice! This is an example of “stinking thinking” because it doesn’t give the leader any options to upgrade performance and doesn’t allow the team member the benefit of being coached to new levels of success.

Photo:  Somos/Veer/Getty Images

If I took an educated guess on what topics the majority of The Pride Institute’s phone calls for “help” were based on, I would have to say half of the calls are from hygienists who feel under appreciated, undervalued and underused, while the other half come from dentists who are, quite frankly, a little anxious about their relationship with their hygienist(s). Considering the No. 1 secret to succeeding in these challenging times is a modern, interactive hygiene experience, we need to get to the bottom of what seems to cause frustration for the key players involved in continuing care.

This is a cautionary tale for anyone who is, was, or will be recruiting for new team members…my intent is that we include everyone, so that none of you become the next cautionary tale…It could be a very expensive mistake! Let’s start at the beginning. Recruiting and hiring new talent is not a job for the timid. This job is mission-critical and will require exceptional perceptive and investigative skill along with great tenacity and focus.

You strive to deliver to your patients the best possible oral health care in a safe, friendly and professional environment. At the same time, you owe it to yourself and your team to smoothly juggle the many components of a professional business: personnel, marketing, accounts payable, risk management and more. Oh, you also hope to reserve some time for family, community and personal interests.

You’ve worked hard and you’re approaching the finish line of your career. You’re just now starting to think about your retirement future and the thought of selling your practice. But what exactly does that mean? Should you cut back on your hours, start to scale back the practice’s workload? Maybe spend an extra day or two on your golf game or catching up with family and friends?

Twenty years of managing people and dealing with HR issues for number of large IT organizations prepared me surprisingly well for my first-hand work in the front end of a two-doctor dental office. The lessons learned carry over to address some of the challenges of running a successful practice.