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Remedies for Stress to Increase Dental Office Efficiency

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There are some days at the dental office that can leave the entire team exhausted, breathless and stressed.  There are an endless number of to-dos to be taken care of on a regular basis such as maintaining employee satisfaction, keeping dental chairs filled, supplies stocked and eliminating patient no-shows.

Increase Dental Office Efficiency with These 3 Remedies for Stress

Outsource Your Dental Recall Services

Having an effective recall system is extremely important to your dental practice; it is also a service that is beneficial to outsource. Recall duties are often assigned to office staff who don’t have enough time or training to get the best results which can result in a team that is completely stressed out.  Outsourcing your dental recall services with Patient Focus can help to increase your practice profitability and your overall revenues.  Patient Focus understands that doing recall right is what sustains a practice.  If you want to reach your overdue patients, zap stress, and maximize all your revenues, contact Patient Focus today for the solution you’ve been looking for.

Tweak Your Time Management

When you feel that stress start to build, take a step back and review your dental practice.  Are you constantly running behind schedule?  Is your dental team always frazzled and do stress levels always seem to escalate?  Try these effective time management strategies to lower stress in the dental office.   Take the time to learn and master the art of prioritization, delegation, assertiveness and decision making.

Exercise

Exercise helps to lower stress levels significantly.  One of the best remedies for stress out there, exercise burns up the excess adrenaline caused by stress, allowing the body to return to a steady state.  Try to exercise at least 4-5 times a week and you will start seeing a decrease in your stress levels.  Exercise will increase energy and efficiency and release endorphins, which provide the feel good factor to help you be nicer to your dental patients and team!

While stress cannot be completely eliminated from a dental practice, it is important to minimize it  as much as possible and to avoid the many stress-related physical and emotional problems that it causes.  Use these remedies for stress to avoid the negative effects of stress.

Don’t 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!

9 Reasons You Need a \’91Battle Free\’92 Unified Office

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unified_office.jpgAny conflicts that arise in your dental team can make you want to throw your arms up in despair and retreat.  But the need for collaboration is here to stay, and while it\’92s not the easiest thing, it will put more minds on the prize:  to produce better results.  

If your dental team has frequent arguments, or you simply aren\’92t a unified office, how can you get things back on track?  

The Great Divide Between Front and Back Office

Dental practices who successfully blend their front and back dental staff will not only provide exceptional patient service, but also enhance operational performance, improve team morale and reduce costs.   

Here are some of the most common struggles between the front and back office:  

The schedule struggle.  The schedule is the one thing in the dental office that affects every team member and every patient.  If someone doesn\’92t follow the schedule, it can create chaos behind the scenes.  The schedule should be on everyone\’92s radar and doesn\’92t \’91belong\’92 to just the front or back office.  Have your schedule mapped out and available to the front and back office to discuss.  Then, watch some magic happen and the unified office can schedule together harmoniously.  

Treatment planning tug o\’92 war.  Clearly establish who enters the treatment plan, when, who presents it and who schedules it.  

Regardless of why your team isn\’92t getting along, or if there is an office divide, following a few simple guidelines can help you to resolve disputes quickly and work towards a more unified office.  

Step in early.  Emotions run high when there is tension or a dispute starts, the sooner you step in the better.  If conflicts are left unresolved, they will fester which can result in lasting resentment and hurt feelings, making it difficult to diffuse the situation.  

Establish a shared goal & agreement.  An important step is ensuring that whole dental team is focused on the same thing:  the patient.  Whenever possible, connect the resolution back to the dental team\’92s shared purposes, values or identity.  This will help the front and back office see eye to eye.  

Want to improve your business and motivate employees? Patient Focus can help your dental clinic find success through dental recall. Contact Patient Focus now to get more appointments.

Remember These Key Principles

DO:  

  • Set up conflict management procedures before a conflict arises
  • Step in early if a disagreement happens between dental team members
  • Get the team working together as quickly as possible

DON\’92T:

  • Assume that your dental team knows or agrees with its shared purpose, values or vision
  • Let conflicts fester or be left unattended
  • Move on from a disagreement without first talking to the team about the conflict

Ultimately, a unified dental team means a happy patient – which means a successful dental practice.  Follow these simple guidelines to work towards your dental office functioning like a well-oiled machine with happy and satisfied team members.  

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.

Create a patient experience for your dental practice that gets the ‘wow’ response every time! Download Your Guide to the Ultimate Patient Experience today!  

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Secrets to a Great Dental Team

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Dental practices face many common challenges including how to be more efficient clinically, how to reduce their overhead, how to motivate the team and how to get more patients.    You may be constantly searching for solutions but may be overlooking the most impactful and obvious piece of your practice:  the dental team that you are working with every single day.  

Your Dental Team Is the Most Important Asset In Your Practice

Take a moment to consider how every system, every interaction and procedure involves and relies on your dental team.  A motivated and well-trained team will work together to consistently provide high-quality and exceptional patient care while increasing efficiency in the practice.  

Discover the essential secrets to successfully filling your dental chairs.  Download your 5-Point Checklist to A Full Schedule now!

It\’92s critical to instill and develop a sense of teamwork, to be motivated to work hard every day. In addition, creating a sense of investment and satisfaction with their job to stay committed to work with you for years to come\’97keeping the turnover rate low.  A great team is made up of people who have a deep understanding of how their daily contributions are part of a larger purpose.  \’91That\’92s not my job\’92 is never a part of their thinking and it is understood that everyone\’92s role is to contribute to the success of the dental practice.  

Here are a few quick tips to creating the dynamic and effective dental team that your practice deserves:

  • Thoroughly train your team on all systems in your dental clinic
  • Document the step-by-step process for each of your practice systems to serve as your foundation to build a successful team
  • Motivate team members with performance reviews
  • Keep your dental team up to speed with anything new
  • Set measurable goals and communicate to the entire team

Providing the most positive dental experience takes a team.  Having the right dental team in place can have a huge impact on your dental practice.  Make sure your team is great for the straightest road to dental practice success.  

Want to improve your dental practice? Patient Focus can help your clinic find success through dental recall. Contact Patient Focus now to get more appointments.

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4 Highly Effective Ways to Motivate Employees in the Dental Office

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“Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.” – Simon Sinek

Nothing kills productivity or negatively affects your bottom line like an unmotivated dental team. For patients to love your brand, you need employees to do the same. Keeping employees motivated is extremely important to the success of your dental practice and plays an important role in them enjoying their job.

Without motivation, your patients will be affected.  It shows lack of caring by your team which could negatively impact the amount of dental patients you see, or even keep them from coming back altogether.  

Keep in mind that motivation can be quite contagious and majority of the time comes from the leader.  A good leader can show their employees how motivated and goal-oriented they are to building a successful dental practice and fulfilling workplace, and more than likely the team will follow suit.  

Is your dental team motivated?  Rev up your dental office and motivate employees with these 4 tips!

Talk about your goals.

Talk about your vision for your dental practice and what makes you passionate about achieving your goals.  When employees understand what motivates you to succeed and feels your passion, it will help them get behind something rather than feeling like a robot coming in each day to punch the clock and go through the motions.  The success of any business, including your dental practice, is built on energy, passion, enthusiasm, willingness to change and evolve, and effective business systems.  Take the time to celebrate when goals are met!

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! 

Don\’92t micromanage.  

One common \’93de-motivator\’94 is micromanagement.  Instead, help team members grow their leadership skills.  There will be mistakes made.  Don\’92t smother them and always try to fix everything yourself.  Instead, teach them how to clean up their mistakes on their own.  You can be a great leader and boss without micromanaging.  

Show respect.

Give your employees the respect that they deserve to ensure that the entire dental team is happy and most importantly, motivated in the office.  How can you show respect?  Acknowledge the good work that they accomplish every day and show them that they are truly appreciated.  We all love feeling respected and getting compliments.   Listen–genuinely listen–to team members.  If an employee feels that their worries are being ignored, they can feel resentful and demotivated.  Dismissing concerns or failing to listen at all is a surefire way to drain enthusiasm.  Be visible, approachable, respectful and open with information.  When you show respect and that you are grateful, employee motivation will soar to great heights!

Success should be shared.

Sharing the success of your dental practice will definitely help to motivate employees.  Raises and bonuses could be used as effective motivators, but more often than not, non-monetary rewards, like verbal recognition or public praise can be even more motivating.  It\’92s important to understand your team as individuals as motivators vary from person to person. Schedule regular performance reviews and offer incentives for when your practice does well.  If your dental team brings in new patients, reward them!

It takes passion and motivation on your own part to motivate employees in your dental office, but it is critical for success\’97the success of your dental practice and also the success of your team members.  

Want to improve your business and motivate employees? Patient Focus can help your dental clinic find success through dental recall. Contact Patient Focus now to get more appointments.

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The Perfect Patient Scheduling Process Tips for Profitability & Productivity

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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.

 

 

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