Practice Management

Would you like to know how much other dentists in your area are charging for a crown? For an extraction? For a cleaning?

Your most valuable patient is not the the one who wants to shout his or her love for you and your services from the rooftops. Your most valuable patient is the one who left your practice dissatisfied and vowing never to return. According to Ron Hurley, consumer advocate and author of the book Unscrewed: The Consumer’s Guide to Getting What You Paid For, disenchanted customers can tell you, as no one else can, where you are utterly failing.

In this video interview, legal analyst Michael Sacopulos offers tips on how you can protect your practice from online attacks. Sacopulos is the author of the Dental Products Report web series: Ask the Lawyer, which provides an opportunity for dentists to have their questions answered with in-depth and helpful information on how to solve legal issues.

If a patient leaves your dental office annoyed, that patient likely isn't coming back. Your patients want to feel safe and comfortable throughout their stay at your practice.

Featuring before and after photographs on your dental practice website, especially if you offer cosmetic dental care procedures, is extremely important to attract new patients. Your website not only allows patients to schedule appointments, submit questions and acts as a referral program, it also shows off the dental work you have done. Research shows that there are 11 million Internet searches for dentists within a given month.

Today, the consumer is always looking for, and sometimes even expecting, a good deal when it comes to purchasing products and services. This mindset has helped to fuel the growth of companies such as Groupon (social coupons) and LivingSocial (social commerce). Currently, Groupon totes over 50 million subscribers with close to half of those being in North America, while LivingSocial has a total user base of nearly 46 million with 34 million of those in the United States. 

As skilled with a paint brush as with a drill, retired dentist Richard Schilling has found inspiration for his watercolor paintings from a variety of places he has visited while on dental missions including the prairies of Nebraska, the plains of the Serengeti, the Royal Palace of Monaco, and the snow swept landscape of Siberia.

In this CDA 2012 video interview, Laurel Lubin from Henry Schein Practice Solutions talks about the latest release from Dentrix, the Dentrix G5 practice management software. "G5 brings improved efficiency and enhanced security," said Lubin. "We are very excited about a new partner program that we have created. It will allow third-party vendors to have integrated tools to create G5-friendly software."

America undeniably loves the Internet. More than 180 million Americans use the Internet at least once a month. Close to 80 percent of Americans use the Internet to search for health information, and among them, 54 percent specifically look for healthcare providers. Given these statistics, it’s no surprise that there are over 11 million Internet searches for dentists within a given month. 1. Your Practice is Open to the World 24/7, 365 Days a Year

The technologies you use in your personal life can benefit your professional life as well. We have talked with dental professionals who have already put the latest technologies to work in their practices.

The TI-Max Z95L dental handpiece from NSK Dental is a durable, high performance, titanium-bodied electric handpiece. It features a small head and slim neck dimensions allowing operational visibility like never before. Very Quiet: It performs at a remarkably low noise level with virtually no vibration to aid the clinician’s focus and to enhance patient comfort.

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. Linda Steeves is a HygieneFusion consultant, coach and mentor. Steeves works as a clinical hygienist and also assists dental offices and dental hygienists to achieve a higher potential.

In this video interview, DPR legal analyst Michael Sacopulos offers tips on how you should handle e-mails from your dental patients. Sacopulos is the author of the Dental Products Report online series: Ask the Lawyer, which provides an opportunity for dentists to have their legal questions answered with in-depth and helpful information.

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 dental professional sets out to become Gordon Christensen - not even Dr. Christensen himself. And while today he is able to fill conference rooms, influence product development, and help direct attention to key trends and causes, it wasn’t something that happened overnight.

Hailed as the most significant and sophisticated release since the launch of CEREC 3D almost a decade ago, CEREC®  Software 4.0 brings out the full potential of the CEREC AC Acquisition unit and its Bluecam imaging technology. Multitasking: Users can work on multiple restoration designs at the same time. Restorations also can be designed in different modes for greater flexibility.

Michael Delano, Product Specialist with Carestream Dental talks about the launch of CS SoftDent Software version 15 with Stan Goff, Executive Editor, Dental Products Report, live from the convention floor at the California Dental Association trade show.

If you’ve read my dental columns over the years, you know I’m incredibly finicky about computer backups. A digital office is absolutely dependent on a consistent and repeatable backup schedule. I cannot stress that fact enough. The saying among geeks like myself is, “The failure rate of hard drives is always 100%.”

We published an article back in 2010 about dental anxiety written by Jackie Foskett, RDH, BS, who is a Certified Hypnotherapist and founder of Healing Hypnotherapy. Foskett outlined the benefits associated with using guided relaxation in the dental office.

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.

No one likes the look of wrinkles or sagging skin especially when they mar the look of a smile that has been newly improved by teeth whitening, veneers, implants or other dental procedures.

While high tech options continue to evolve and offer us ways to simplify our personal lives, transferring those same advantages into the dental office just makes sense.

Dentrix G5 includes a number of new features, none bigger than the one that makes it an “open platform” that encourages software developers (including the three highlighted below) to write applications for the practice management system to share data with the new Dentrix database.

Tips that all dental practices should use to set clear financial arrangements and expectations for their dental patients.

Do you have a legal question regarding your dental practice? Dental Products Report Legal Analyst Michael Sacopulos addresses reader questions.

A positive trend occurring within dentistry is the adoption of “green” or environmentally-friendly strategies. These strategies include the selection and use of products that are biodegradable and have less toxic byproducts, such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

I’ve had some good times in dentistry, and in addition to the good times, I’ve also learned a lot. Of course I’ve learned a lot about dentistry, I mean a license to practice is really just a license to continue to learn, but I’ve also learned a lot about my patients and how to make things better for them.

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?

If a patient walks out of your practice annoyed, that patient likely isn’t coming back. And these patients may not even tell you they’re irritated with you or one of your team members; they may smile and nod until they can finally leave, all the while thinking, “man, I need to find a new dentist.”

In October 2010, I attended the American Dental Association’s annual conference in Orlando. Just a few months before, I started a Facebook page for our practice and was struggling to come up with new and interesting posts. So, while at the conference, I attended a presentation on Social Media to learn how to use Facebook to benefit the practice.