Orthotown November 2024 - 45

I
n orthodontics, the caliber of your team
is a critical determinant of your practice's
success. A well-structured bonus
system can be a powerful tool not just for
motivating your team but also for aligning
their efforts with the broader goals of your
practice. To truly harness the benefits of a
bonus structure, it must be meticulously
crafted, with clear objectives, realistic targets
and transparent metrics. Having seen
my fair share of bonus structures, I want
to delve into the nuances of designing a
bonus structure that incentivizes performance
and drives sustainable growth for
your practice.
Defining clear parameters
The effectiveness of any bonus system
hinges on its clarity and precision. A
bonus structure that is ambiguous or
poorly defined will lead to confusion,
frustration and disengagement-and in
some cases, turnover-among your team.
To avoid this, you need to establish a clear
timeline for the bonus-both start and
end dates should be explicitly communicated.
Additionally, the criteria for
earning the bonus must be measurable,
attainable and directly tied to a practice's
key performance indicators (KPIs).
Rather than relying on vague metrics
like " increasing production, " I always
encourage a well-designed bonus structure
that's anchored to specific, quantifiable
goals such as a percentage increase
in net production over a defined period.
This approach not only eliminates uncertainty
but also ensures that the bonus
system is fair for your team.
Team bonuses
One of the most effective ways to motivate
your entire team is through a bonus
structure that rewards collective effort.
NOVEMBER 2024 | 45 | ORTHOTOWN.COM
Multiple metrics can be used in this, but
for this article I'll talk about the most
common one: net production. Net production
reflects the overall output of the
practice, making it a metric that I believe
all team members can influence, from
clinical staff to administrative personnel.
I always want to see bonus goals based
on the average monthly net production,
measured quarterly. This methodology
smooths out any anomalies and provides
a more accurate reflection of the practice's
performance over time. By linking
the bonus to quarterly performance, you
encourage sustained effort across the
entire team, fostering a culture of continuous
improvement.
While I know some might argue instead
for using collections as the measurable,
given that it represents actual cash flow,
net production is a more comprehensive
measure of the actual practice's health,
which is why I wanted to speak to this
specifically in this article. It accounts for
the collective efforts of the team, from
securing new patient starts to ensuring
high-quality patient care, which directly
affects overall production.
It's with that in mind that it becomes
even more important to set realistic
and achievable goals for net production
bonuses. For example, if your practice has
historically grown at a rate of 3% per year,
setting a target of 5%-7% growth may be
ambitious yet attainable with the right
strategies in place. Conversely, setting an
unrealistic target-such as 20% growth
without substantial evidence to support
it-will demoralize your team and
undermine the effectiveness of the bonus
structure, because that goal will be simply
unachievable. Think of it this way: The
goal is to challenge your team without
setting them up for failure.
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Orthotown November 2024

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