Blog – Page 5 – Patient Focus

Make Dental Patients Smile with These 3 Tips on Improving Patient Satisfaction

Are your patient\’92s satisfied? Are you doing everything possible to create a positive experience for your patients? Your answers to these questions will reveal whether you are growing or declining in today\’92s dental economy. If your practice doesn\’92t deliver on improving patient satisfaction, they will either become the dreaded inactive or dormant patient, or worse, someone else\’92s patients.

Excellent customer service isn\’92t just about smiling and being nice. To create the ultimate experience for your patients, you need to impress them the moment they first make contact with your practice to the moment they walk out your door.

We have 3 surefire tips to improve patient satisfaction in your dental office.

Hire Happy People

You can train an employee to do just about anything you need done at your dental office, but you can\’92t train an employee to have a sunny disposition and exude positivity. Staff your office with personable and positive people to interact with your patients. This will ensure that your office morale will be high, and you work towards improving patient satisfaction with every interaction.

Outsource Your Dental Recall System

Satisfied patients become loyal patients. Loyal patients spend more, refer their family and friends and increase your bottom line. With recall duties often assigned to an already busy office staff, all efforts aren\’92t always maximized to their fullest potential. With patients falling through the cracks each month, you can outsource your dental recall system to Patient Focus to see real growth and a healthier bottom line.

Stick to the Schedule

Do you have a goal in place? A common schedule goal is to see patients within 15 minutes of their appointed time. One of the most common dental patient complaints is waiting for long periods of time until the dentist sees them. Fine tune and set scheduling goals and stick to them to ensure your patients can return to their busy lives.

A satisfied patient is the foundation of a growing dental practice. Improving patient satisfaction is more important than ever in a competitive economy. Put these tips into motion and start seeing some truly satisfied patients!

Worried about patients slipping through the cracks? We can help. With our focused recall system, you can begin to fill your schedule and realize increased revenue. Learn more today.

Be sure to avoid these 4 mistakes to ensure your dental treatment planning is the absolute best it can be.

How to Deal with Stress When Managing a Dental Office

Dentists and their dental staff are subject to a barrage of stress every single day. How often do you hear one of your team members mention they\’92re stressed? From patient no-shows and maintaining employee satisfaction to keeping the schedule full and supplies stocked, there are an endless number of items to be taken care of on a regular basis.

Stress can wreak havoc on your health causing cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, lower back pain, mental depression, eye strain and ulcers to name only a few. Some common stress influences at the dental office include:

Position
Amount of sleep
Hours worked
Patient demands
Time pressures
Uncooperative patients
High levels of concentration and focus
Team issues
Economic pressure
Lack of exercise

Wondering how to deal with stress at your dental office? What it boils down to is not letting stress take control\’97learn how to control your stress.

Here are 3 ways we like to highlight for how to deal with stress at the dental office.

Tweak Your Time Management

Having effective time management strategies in place will help to lower stress in the dental office. Take the time to learn and master the art of prioritization, delegation, assertiveness and decision making.

Get Some More Shut Eye

If you get at least seven hours of uninterrupted, restful sleep every night it will help to prepare your body and mind to best navigate successfully through any stressors the next day may bring.

Move Around

Exercise helps to lower stress levels significantly. Try to get moving 4-5 times a week to start seeing a decrease in stress levels. Strapped for time? You don\’92t need to hit the gym for hours on end to get positive effects of exercise. Park further away than you normally would in the parking lot at work and at the store, take the dog for a walk or take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Although stress can never be completely eliminated from your dental practice, it must be minimized as much as possible to avoid many stress-related emotional and physical problems that it can cause. Share these tips with your team so and support each other in your efforts to deal with stress

Don\’92t let dental recall add more stress to your plate. Take the stress out of your dental recall and schedule a consultation with Patient Focus. Patient Focus will simplify and streamline your efforts to grow your dental practice in just 3 simple steps!

The Patient Focus Difference for Your Dental Practice

\’93I have worked with Patient Focus for an extended period of time and have had nothing but wonderful results. My recare system has been cleaned up and my patients are getting booked on the schedule due to their hard work. The systems work well and I have and will continue to refer colleagues to Patient Focus.\’94 –Tiffanie, Patient Care Coordinator

Having an effective recall system in place at your dental practice is one of the most common concerns of dental practice owners and their practice administrators. Not having the right system or tools only adds to stress and can result in lost revenue for your practice. We want to take this unnecessary stress off of your plate! Patient Focus knows that dental recall is crucial to the health and growth of a dental practice. All dental offices not only need new patients but they must KEEP their existing patients coming back time and time again to see true and lasting success.

Patients need to be rescheduled or you risk losing in many ways. This is why having a rock-solid dental recall system is critical. We will free up time for your staff to do what they do best, boost productivity, boost confidence and improve team morale and job satisfaction.

Patient Focus is a proven dental recall system that will give your dental practice success. Patient Focus has over 12 years of appointment-scheduling experience. With one caller assigned to your office, Patient Focus will become an integrated extension of your practice. We make live calls to your existing patients to effectively schedule continuing care appointments. Check out our case study of a Tempe dental office that achieved amazing results by integrating Patient Focus\’92 recall services into their everyday operations.

Patient Focus understands that patient recall is the pulse of your practice. Our dental recall system was developed to help your patients feel that you truly care for them and want the best for their dental health. When patients trust you and feel that you have their best interest in mind, they will be more inclined to recommend you to their family and friends. You will not only improve your recall system but your bottom line through word of mouth referrals as well.

Patients are the lifeblood of your dental practice. Through an effective dental recall system in place like Patient Focus, your practice will continue to develop and thrive! Patient Focus offers your dental practice an effective dental recall system that has an impact on the dental health of your patients, restorative revenues, patient retention and practice growth.

Let\’92s simplify and streamline your efforts to grow your dental practice! In only 3 simple steps, you can begin realizing the increased revenue of a reactivated patient database.

How You Can Use a Patient Satisfaction Survey to Improve Performance

Think about your favorite restaurant or family physician you visit regularly\’97what keeps you going back? What is the main reason you never stray? It could be the way you are treated when you go in for an appointment or what happens during your visit.

Dental practices thrive by obtaining new patients and retaining current patients. It\’92s crucial to make the patient experience a memorable one and exert efforts to genuinely understand each patient\’92s individual needs.

A patient satisfaction survey can help gauge your dental patient\’92s view of your practice\’97what they like and what you can improve upon. A patient satisfaction survey is a wealth of information letting you into how your patients feel about the level of information they receive, quality of care and the performance of dentists and staff.

Why is measuring patient satisfaction important for your dental practice?

A satisfied patient means a loyal patient who will keep coming back to your dental practice. Those loyal patients are more likely to refer their family and friends as well. Since patient satisfaction affects your bottom line, you want to systematically measure and monitor how your patients feel about their experiences in order to get real, honest feedback about your practice. This information helps in many ways\’97it can boost morale, target marketing messages, engage the dental team on areas that need to be improved and to know what\’92s working well to continue doing. These surveys are also an invaluable means for improving communication internally and between yourself and your patients.

What key questions should be included on my patient satisfaction survey?

Include these key questions on your patient satisfaction survey to best determine overall satisfaction:

How was your interaction with the dentist and the dental team?
Rate your overall satisfaction with the office facilities
Rate your satisfaction with cost and payment
Are you likely to return?
Would you recommend this dental practice to your friends and family? This is known as the Net Promoter Score\’97a survey system designed to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty.
What did you like about your visit?
What could we do better?

Patient satisfaction surveys should be the heart of your dental practice. You can create a survey to get valuable feedback to help you take the right steps to improving patient experience and culture within your dental office.

You can\’92t make a profit in your dental practice with empty chairs. Discover how to fill your dental chairs here.

Discover how you can begin realizing the increased revenue of a reactivated patient database with these 3 Simple Steps to Increased Revenue.

The Perfect Patient Scheduling Process Tips for Profitability & Productivity

patient-scheduling-process-2-648.350.jpg

Have you ever looked at your schedule first thing in the morning and wondered how in the world you were going to make it through the day? You don\’92t want the schedule to control the office; the office should control the schedule. Any successful dental practice, or any business for that matter, has an established process that is consistently executed with integrity. A patient scheduling process will allow your clinic to fulfill its goals and missions if it is well structured and managed.

Streamlining your dental patient scheduling process is one of the easiest ways you can increase productivity and profitability. Here\’92s how you can get started today.

5 Dental Patient Scheduling Process Tips for Success

Do the Most Productive Thing First

One of the best patient scheduling process tips is to start out with the most productive item of the day first. Block off specific hours and time every single day to complete those things. For example, you can block off 2-3 hours in the morning that are allocated toward certain fee level cases to avoid the schedule getting clogged with all types of dentistry.

Outsource Your Recall Services

Dental recall duties are generally assigned to office staff who may not have the right training or enough time to get the best results. In fact, dental patient recall can actually be counter-productive in most situations for dental office staff. To super streamline your patient scheduling process, outsource your dental recall services with a company like Patient Focus to help increase your practice profitability and overall revenues. Patient Focus will help you reach those overdue patients and maximize all of your revenues. Contact Patient Focus today for the patient scheduling process key component you\’92ve been searching for.

Diminish Downtime

Too much downtime can destroy productivity and ultimately profitability. Make sure to keep downtime to a minimum and track any unscheduled units of time each month to figure out what the true downtime cost is in your dental office.

Delegate

Determine dentist time and practice administrator time. After you determine what items can be delegated and to whom, provide the necessary training and let go as someone else takes it on. Delegating is a key strategy for productivity in dentistry today and is an important piece in developing the best patient scheduling process for you and your team.

Establish the Ideal Day

Having the ideal schedule and daily goals established iron out the stress in your dental practice and help your team understand their priorities and what is to be accomplished. Not to mention it helps employees feel more fulfilled when they are able to regularly reach goals and follow at least a semi-structured plan.

Having an effective scheduling process in place can define your dental practice\’92s efficiency and effectiveness.

Patient Focus is here for your dental practice to reactivate your patients with live calls. Discover how Patient Focus can breathe life back into your practice.

Dental Practice Success: Time Management in the Workplace

Do you wear lots of different hats at your office? Have you gone through an entire day and feel like you\’92ve haven\’92t accomplished anything but aren\’92t sure why? Do you find yourself unable to practice effective time management in the workplace? You\’92re not alone. A staggering 89% of respondents admitted that they waste at least half of an eight-hour workday on nonwork-related tasks and struggle with time management according to a survey on Salary.com.

You have a challenging schedule with daunting to-do lists, questions from the dentist and staff that can throw your whole day into a tailspin. It\’92s time to combat those time-wasters to increase your daily productivity levels in your dental practice.

4 Tips for Effective Time Management in the Workplace for Dental Practice Success

Plan & Prioritize

Take the time to write down your priorities for the day and week ahead of you. When you write down a list of the goals and tasks you have, you will instantly see what you need to get done in a more concise way.

Outsource

Running a dental practice can be extremely demanding. There are so many different tasks to complete in order to be successful. One of those tasks that is extremely necessary but can be exhausting and time consuming is making calls to overdue patients. Outsourcing your dental recall system will help to bring your practice fantastic results and your office\’92s time management will be on point.

Track Your Time

Look at the amount of time spent on daily tasks and procedures in a typical week. Analyzing this time spent can reveal areas where time can be saved. At times dentists perform tasks that can easily be delegated to their assistant or hygienist. Or you may find that there are some people on your staff that you can delegate tasks to\’97they may just needs a little extra training. By identifying and implementing solutions to where time is being spent\’97or not spent\’97you will increase efficiency significantly.

Huddle Up

Daily huddles in the morning before your patients arrive will help everyone to get on the same page and to set the tone for the day. Go over the list of scheduled patients coming in or any other items that need to be discussed.

Try these tips for effective time management in the workplace and everyone in your dental practice will reap the rewards of an efficient and productive day!

Learn about the best appointment reminder to get dental patients back in your chairs and begin realizing the increased revenue of a reactivated patient database.

Patient Recall Service Comparison

Patient recall is an important aspect of any dental practice. It\’92s important in dental practices because it keeps existing patients coming back so your chairs are always full. And full chairs mean profit.

Patient recall programs can take many forms. You could send out patient recall postcards, emails, or texts. But those are most effective when you send out multiple, which could cost time and money.

Another route you can go when implementing a patient recall effort is phone calls. And that\’92s where Patient Focus comes in! Your staff won\’92t always have time to spend calling patients to notify them they need to make an appointment. And automated calls can be so impersonal. Not everyone wants to be talking to robot, and sometimes automated phone systems can be inefficient because the patient has to listen to a whole series of options in order to complete the desired action.

Patient Focus guarantees it will always be a live caller, the appointments will be booked directly to your schedule, and so much more.

If you\’92ve been considering a patient recall system, you want it to be as effective as possible, because it is one of the most important systems that you can have in your practice. Don\’92t let your existing patients fall through the cracks! Keep them coming with a top notch patient recall program.

If you\’92re ready to realize increased revenues, discover what this Tempe Dental Practice saw from implementing Patient Focus\’92 services in only one short year. These results could be yours!

Are you ready to simplify and streamline your efforts to grow you dental practice? Follow this link to request a consultation with one of our call experts, or call us today at 888.978.2615 and get started in only three simple steps!

Patient Scheduling: 5 Tips for a Full Schedule

The schedule runs the show at most dental practices. It affects just about everyone. If you have a busy schedule, the whole staff will be going at full speed to ensure everything gets done, and the patients aren\’92t waiting long. But what about when the schedule isn\’92t so full? No one wants to come to work and just twiddle his or her thumbs all day.

Remember these 5 tips to keep you schedule full!

What to Do When There\’92s a Cancellation?

Do you have a plan in place for when a patient calls to cancel an appointment? Most people just accept the cancellation and move on to trying to fill the slot. And that\’92s okay when they\’92re cancelling due to some kind of emergency. But what if you could save the appointment? This is another option that many people overlook. Next time try saving the appointment before you spend too much time trying to fill the new availability. Having a documented scripted system can be beneficial in situations like this and create consistency among team members.

Thinking Long-Term

You should always be looking ahead. Your schedule could be full this week or this month, but what about the upcoming months. It\’92s easy to think in the now, but you should always be thinking about the future. This will ensure that there are no unexpected lulls in the schedule.

Scheduling When the Patient Leaves the Office

This is a very common practice in most dental offices. But often-times patients will have excuses as to why they aren\’92t scheduling their appointment then. They might say they don\’92t have their calendar/schedule with them, or they need to check with their spouse or work. Take note of why they aren\’92t scheduling now, and follow up in about a week.

Let Them Know You Care

A lot of the time you are contacting patients because there are holes in the schedule. Depending on the language you use, a patient could pick up on that. Instead of trying to sell them on making an appointment, make it about them. Let them know you\’92re concerned about their oral health.

Use an Effective Recall System

A gap in the schedule means lost time and lost revenue. Having an effective dental recall system in place will help your practice to maintain a full schedule. And a full schedule means maximized revenues! Learn to realize the increased revenue of a reactivated patient database with these 3 simple steps.

Next time your schedule is looking a little bare, use these 5 tips to fill it up!

If you struggle with keeping appointments, we\’92ve got your 5-Point Checklist to a Full Schedule. Download your checklist here!

With your schedule full to the brim, it\’92s time to streamline your dental treatment planning. Avoid these 4 mistakes!

An Appointment Reminder to Get Dental Patients Back in Your Chairs

As any practice administrator or dentists knows, missed appointments account for the biggest loss of revenue in a dental practice. We\’92re all busy. And your patients are no exception. Every dental practice has those patients who need a little extra nudging to schedule their visits on a regular basis. Even if they are regularly coming in, there are always times and an appointment may slip their mind.

With either of these patient types, it is crucial to keep in touch and deliver an effective appointment reminder to get them back in your chairs. An effective appointment reminder is key. So what is this appointment reminder that will increase repeat business, build loyalty and get dental patients back into your practice? Phone calls. Patients appreciate businesses that make the time and effort to connect with them. A phone call adds the perfect personal touch.

But keeping up with every single one of your patients\’92 cleaning schedule and checkup is a ton of work for you and your staff. Boost efficiency and simplify the appointment reminder process by using a professional call center. Patient Focus makes live calls to your existing patients to schedule continuing care appointments. Even, better we have one caller that is assigned to your office\’97Patient Focus then becomes an integrated extension of your practice. Taking these appointment reminder calls off of your plate will save your staff time while still providing high quality service for your patients.

Now you can reduce no-shows at your practice with an appointment reminder that gets patients back in your chairs.

Patient Focus is ready to simplify and streamline your efforts to grow your dental practice! Discover how you can begin realizing the increased revenue of a reactivated patient database with these 3 Simple Steps to Increased Revenue.

Ready to realize increased revenues? Discover what this Tempe Dental Practice saw from implementing Patient Focus\’92 services in only one short year. These results could be yours!

How to Run a Successful Dental Practice – 12 Questions to Ask Yourself

When it comes to managing a business there is always room for improvement. This goes for dental practices too. The most toxic thing to any business is the mindset that everything is perfect. In order to run a successful dental practice, you must always be analyzing and critiquing the way in which your practice is run.

Think of your dental practice in broad categories. Breaking your business down into categories like services, communication, staff, leadership, and marketing will help you analyze those aspects individually. How can you improve these factors of your practice in order to be more successful?

Answering these 12 questions could help you run a more successful dental practice:

Should your practice offer more services?
What new technology or treatments have been released recently that you could incorporate into your practice?
How long do our appointments and services take? Can you cut down that time? Or should you add more time to ensure proper care?
How am I communicating with my team? With the patients? Is there a lack of communication? Should we have more team meetings?
Is everyone on the staff doing their job? Are they doing it well?
Do we need more staff? Or do we need to cut back?
Is there room to expand the staff\’92s responsibilities?
Are the leaders at the practice managing the team in an effective manner?
Am I acting as a role model for my team?
How are we connecting with patients?
Are we doing enough to get our brand and our message out there? How can we improve our outreach?
Are we outsourcing where we should in order to ensure effective time management and increased revenue in the office?

A lot of these questions won\’92t be things you can answer immediately, and many of the changes and improvements will be long-term, not quick. But considering these questions on a regular basis will help you improve your business and overall help you to run a more successful dental practice.

Ready to simplify and streamline your efforts to grow your dental practice? We\’92re here to help! Discover how you can begin realizing the increased revenue of a reactivated patient database in only 3 Simple Steps.