#15: The Build-Up Weekly

*Welcome to the 15th edition of The Build-Up, where we deliver weekly insights and inspiration for dentists on every stage of the private practice journey. If this email was forwarded to you, you can click here to subscribe.

Dear friends and colleagues,

Summer is here, and I’m currently writing on the train heading south from San Luis Obispo to LA. I love this particular journey. If you’ve never seen the view of the Pacific from the Pacific Surfliner in Santa Barbara County, it’s worth the trip.

Here’s what I have lined up for this week’s newsletter:

• ⌚ Making a Watch: How Watches Work (very cool)

• 🗓️ Advanced Hygiene Scheduling: Minimizing Front Office Chaos

• 💡 Paying Attention: William James on Experience

Let’s get started!

⌚ Making a Mechanical Watch

Since we’re talking about scheduling today, I thought it would be appropriate to share this great explainer about how watches work.

I know this isn’t dental-related, but I think this stuff is interesting, so I’m including it. That’s my personal Build-Up prerogative.

And for even more fun, watch the construction of a billion-year Lego clock:

🗓️ Advanced Hygiene Scheduling

The dental front office can be crazy busy.

There are patients coming in, patients trying to leave (and perhaps pay), insurance claims that need your attention, the phone is ringing (it’s a new patient), and a 4pm opening in the hygiene schedule that you need to fill.

Is this inevitable? Not necessarily.

While there are a number of different tools for managing patient flow in the front office, here are two simple (and profound) insights that are often overlooked.

Manage Patient Flow with Thoughtful Scheduling

The first scheduling insight I’d like to share is the simplest - but so many practices ignore it!

Look at your schedule. How many patients do you have checking in and checking out at 10am or 3pm?

Chances are you have one or two hygiene patients checking in and one or two hygiene patients checking out - so you already have 2 - 4 patients that require attention.

Plus, the UPS guy just walked in.

So why did you schedule a restorative appointment at 10?

Do you really need two more people in the front office right now (one leaving and one arriving)?

There’s a better way.

When possible, don’t begin or end restorative appointments when you have hygiene patients moving through the front office (usually on the hour). 

The major exception here is for the first patient in the morning and the first patient after lunch.

This is easy to understand and simple to implement, but I’m confident that MANY of your front office team members are NOT thinking about this.

And it’s not only good for your front office - it’s great for patients! They get better, more personal service. It’s a real win-win.

Be Thoughtful about Exams

Do you feel like you’re constantly being pulled into exams?

There’s a better way…

My second advanced scheduling insight can take a bit longer to implement because it involves re-thinking an aspect of the hygiene schedule, and I suspect you’re booked out 6+ months ahead.

But this is also a simple concept that can make your days easier, so it’s worth implementing today to see the results in six months!

Ok, here’s the basic principle:

If you have two columns of hygiene, and you typically do one exam per patient per year, then avoid scheduling two patients who both need exams in the same hour.

There are a number of variations that we can look at below, but this is the concept.

The easiest way to start implementing this is by clearly indicating whether or not the patient is due for an exam. Mark the appointment as Prophy - NO EXAM or Prophy - EXAM.

(You need to write NO EXAM so that, in six months, you know for certain that there is actually no exam required. You don’t want to be wondering in 6 months whether you intended to indicate that no exam was necessary or whether you just forgot the system.)

And if you typically do two exams per year, you can still use this system.

Just focus on scheduling prophies wherever possible next to no exam required perio procedures, like SRPs or Perio Maintenance - NO EXAM (which, on a quarterly PM patient, is 50% of their hygiene appointments.)

This requires a little bit of thought, but it becomes very clear where the issues will be when you start clearly indicating whether or not an exam is required for the hygiene appointment.

With that information, you can go from haphazard scheduling and feeling like you’re always rushing to (and through) exams to keeping a much more reasonable one exam/hour when possible.

And I know that this won’t always be possible - the schedule will fall apart, the front office will have to fill openings with patients who need exams opposite other patients who also need exams, etc.

But if we’re intentional about this 6 months out, it can make a really significant difference.

💡 Experience and Attention

The above insights can make an immediate difference in whoever is scheduling appointments in your office.

And usually, it’s just a matter of introducing the concept.

Your scheduling coordinators often have many things they are trying to achieve for the perfect schedule (we hope), and many are very skilled.

Once they start paying attention to the right things, they can quickly make adjustments going forward.

But they need to be paying attention.

For the first insight above, analyzing the schedule by thinking through front office foot traffic will make the concept immediately clear and easier to implement going forward.

For the second insight above, simply marking EXAM or NO EXAM on hygiene appointments allows you to see an additional dimension to the schedule with a quick glance.

Once you see it, the change happens automatically.

The psychologist-philosopher William James wrote the following in 1890:

This is true for scheduling better, but it is also profoundly true of every aspect of our lives.

We shape our experience by deciding what we will pay attention to.

It’s a great power - use it wisely.

And with that, I hope you enjoyed the 15th edition of The Build-Up Weekly.

Please consider using the link below to share our newsletter. 🙂 

With best wishes to you and your families,

Trevor Kimball, PhD

A Guide for Selling Your Dental Practice

You can download it for free here. It’s material that I’ve covered in this newsletter before, but - if you’re contemplating a practice sale - the advice in this guide is crucial.

And if you’re ready to have a conversation with a practice sales professional, get connected with your local Integrity Practice Sales broker here.

It’s worth having a conversation no matter your current transition plans. You never know what you’ll discover together.