Dentaltown February 2022 - 46

IMPLEMENTING A " FLUID SCHEDULE "
Now, I'm going to share something
" Every minute that you spend
training your staff on clinical
skills will pay back dividends
over and over in the future. By
allowing them to take on more
responsibility, you have more
time to do more procedures. "
Opportunities for same-day treatment
can be worked in when you have the time.
When you don't have availability, they can
be scheduled for another day.
Have you heard the analogy about sand
and rocks? It's about prioritizing: If you put
the sand in a jar first, you won't be able to
fit in the rocks. But if you put the rocks in
first, the sand will fill in the spaces between
them. Think of same-day treatment as
the sand. When we have a good schedule
and work as hard as possible to make it
productive (the rocks), that's great. But try
as we might, we will likely still have bits of
time where we could fit things and make
it even more productive! This is where the
sand, or same-day treatment, comes in.
This takes work. But like I said earlier,
if you have no goal, you're unlikely to be
shooting for anything or have a direction.
Have a daily goal for how much same-day
production you want to add to the schedule.
Train your team on how to work patients into
the schedule. Work on how you word things
when asking patients if they want to stick
46 FEBRUARY 2022 // dentaltown.com
around to get work done. Make it sound as
easy as possible. " You know what? We just had
an opening pop up. If you want, we can go
ahead and get that done and save you a trip! "
MINIMIZING CANCELLATIONS
There aren't many things worse in your
day than when you're pushing to reach your
goals and see a patient fall off the schedule,
leading to a big hole in your day. There are
several ways to decrease cancellations, which
I'm not going to go into much detail here,
but consider this: I've never had a same-day
treatment patient no-show or cancel, because
they're already in the office!
The more of your production that you
can get from same-day treatment, the less
you have to depend on people showing up
for their appointments. Make an effort to
convert some of your appointments that
would normally be rescheduled for a later date
into same-day treatment. When you do this,
your cancellation rate will go down because
fewer of your restorative appointments will
depend on patients showing up.
with you that I've started doing in my
office over the lpst few years that I haven't
heard anyone else doing. It comes down
to developing a more fluid schedule with
your team.
Let me explain. If a patient comes in
with a toothache, we diagnose and give a
treatment plan. I let them know the cost
and ask if they'd like to get it done that day.
If they do, I let them know that we already
have a full schedule but we will make it a
priority to complete their treatment that
day. I also let them know that I'll get them
numb. While we're letting the anesthesia
begin to work, the assistant will set up for
the procedure and help the patient check
out and pay. When they're finished, they
can walk right out the door.
I am rarely going to reschedule someone
if they are ready to pay and get the work
done that day. So the question becomes:
How can we work this patient into our
schedule? If the schedule is light enough
that we can simply work it in, then great.
If the schedule is already pretty full, I'm
going to look at ways that we can rearrange
things to make it work. If there is more
space later in the day, the front desk will
call the next patient and see if they can
come a little later. If other patients are
coming for small amounts of treatment
like a filling or adjustment, the front desk
will call and let them know that we had to
work in an emergency patient, are running
behind quite a bit, and that the best thing
would be to reschedule for another time.
Most patients are very understanding.
Almost all of them have been in a
doctor's office where they've waited for
long periods, so they appreciate getting
a heads-up before they make their way to
the office. If they still want to keep the
appointment, we will let them know that
we will do our best, but there will likely
be a longer wait time.
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Dentaltown February 2022

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