Archive for July, 2009
Is your dental practice making money?
Posted by: | CommentsIt is a fact that the most profitable dentists are financially successful because of the team. No one person in your dental practice is responsible for increasing profits and revenue. It is achieved by the office receptionist making sure the patient is confirmed to show up to their appointment. The dental assistant who takes in the patient must make sure that the patient is promptly sat in the dental chair at the designated appointment slot. The dentist must be available to start work on the patient on time and finish on time. The dental assistant who ushers out the patient after treatment must remind the patient to schedule the follow up appointment with the office manager. And lastly, your accounting department should be on top of all outgoing invoices to the patient and insurance companies. Of course the team and their functions may vary from practice to practice, but what is more important is the way the team operates to make sure every aspect of the “business” and “service” are taken care of and that the accounts receivable have nothing to hinder the cash flow.
Dentists have to be the leaders of the system so each team member knows their role in the profitability of the practice. Many dentists would prefer to be doing dentistry than managing staff. Dentists would gladly spend continuing education hours improving their clinical skills rather than managerial skills. Dentists didn’t go to dental school looking forward to challenges with the staff, such as when someone quits suddenly, the computers die, or how to get more patients. Nobody goes into practice for those reasons.
But what is interesting, is that by putting a good management system into place, dentists actually have more time to do the dentistry they want to do. Dentists need management skills that are as precise as their clinical skills. I advocate managing by statistics, a method that enables the owner to measure the effectiveness of each individual staff member. This, in turn, will result in the practice making more money.
Dr. Tom Blake interview from the Schuster Center
Posted by: | CommentsDr. Tom Blake signed up with the Schuster Center in the early 1990’s and has been very satisfied with the insightful training he received. He acknowledged that he lacked organization and business acumen. As a result of attending the Schuster Center, Tom has dramatically improved his dental practice and feels the quality of his life improved in the process. Take a look at his interview below.
Wife of Schuster Center Graduate Speaks Out
Posted by: | CommentsKate Sanchez is the beautiful spouse of Dr. Greg Sanchez. She takes a moment to share thoughts and feelings about her husband’s involvement with The Schuster Center and how it impacted their family, not just the dental practice, in a positive way.
Guest Interview with Dr. Greg Sanchez
Posted by: | CommentsWe have a video here from one of our graduates, Dr. Greg Sanchez. He found the dental practice methods taught at The Schuster Center very helpful for his practice. Watch Greg here.
Dentist, face your fears
Posted by: | CommentsThe future belongs to the risk takers, not the security seekers. The more you seek security, the less of it you have—and the more you pursue opportunity, the more security you will receive.
The greatest challenge that you will ever face is the conquest of fear in the development of the habit of courage. Winston Churchill once wrote: “Courage” is rightly considered the foremost of virtues, for upon it, all others depend.”
Fear is, and always has been, the greatest enemy of mankind. When Franklin D. Roosevelt said; “The only thing to fear is fear itself,” he was saying that the emotion of fear is the greatest RESISTANCE to pursuing becoming the person you have the God-given potential to become. Fear is the cause of much associated anxiety, stress and unhappiness. When we develop the habit of courage and work to develop an unshakable self-confidence, a whole new world of possibilities opens to us. Just think: What would you dare to dream, to be, to do, if you knew you couldn’t fail?
Fortunately, the habits of courage and self-confidence can be learned, just as any other habits or skills were learned. To do so, we need to go to work systematically to diminish and eradicate our fears, lower our resistance, while simultaneously building the kind of courage that will enable us to deal fearlessly with the inevitable ups and downs of life.
Syndicated columnist Ann Landers wrote, “If I were asked to give what I consider to be the single most useful bit of advice to all of humanity, it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, as it will as surely as night follows day, hold your head high. Look it squarely in the eye and say, “I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.” This is the kind of attitude that leads to victory every time.
The starting point to overcoming fear and RESISTANCE and developing courage is to look at the factors that predispose us towards fear.
The root source of fear is childhood conditioning that caused us to experience two types of fear. First, the fear of failure, which causes us to think: “I can’t do it. I can’t change. I can’t risk failing. The other is fear of rejection, fear of saying what has to be said to move myself or someone else to action which causes us to think, “I have to, I have to, I have to”.
Based on those fears, we become pre-occupied with the idea of losing our money, our time, and our emotional investment in a relationship. We become hypersensitive to the opinions and the possible criticisms of others, sometimes to the point where we are blocked, we are afraid to act, even in our best behalf. Our fears paralyze us. Our fears put the brakes on us becoming the people we truly are. Our fears create RESISTANCE. Our fears discourage us. Our fears force us to procrastinate…to do anything but what we should be doing.
We make excuses and don’t do what is essential to do to act in our own behalf.
- We don’t exercise every morning.
- We don’t eat the right foods.
- We fail to give thanks for what we have.
- We fail to be grateful.
- We fail to take quiet time for ourselves.
Fear and RESISTANCE are also caused by ignorance. When we have limited knowledge and information, when we surrender our MONEY, our TIME, our INDIVIDUAL POWER to others who are not capable, we tend to become tense, stressed and insecure about the outcome of our actions. We lose ENERGY. We lose time. Life takes on less meaning. We move into BURNOUT. We lose our enthusiasm. It becomes tougher to get going, to do what we know we must do to shape our lives and businesses.
The reverse is also true. When we have the courage to act in our own behalf, to gain control of just one thing, say our health, or our money, or what we eat, or when we take important time for ourselves each morning, we eliminate fear, we take a stand, we improve a part of our lives which impacts other aspects of our lives.
We begin to overcome RESISTANCE, overcome our FEARS and every moment of every day we take back what we might have given up. Our fears never truly go away. In my view, fear is Satan at work. Anything good for you will be resisted by a fear. It has always been that way and it always will be that way.
Those who become all of who and what they truly can be, have overcome fear to move to the next level in their life, in their relationships, with their health, and with their finances.
Dr. Michael Schuster
–For help with dental practice management, dental case presentation, hygiene as a profit center, business plans for the dental practice, dental continuing education seminars and more, go to www.SchusterCenter.com or call 1-800-288-9393
Effective Dental collection calls – Part 3 of 3
Posted by: | CommentsTip #9 Review your collection system and your state laws. Most of our practices discover that 85% of the patients who owe them money pay on time. If your accounts receivables have less than eighty five percent of the balances in the zero to thirty category you will want to review your collection policy / system for effectiveness.
Tip # 10 Statements with notes on them do not work. Many offices resort to placing red stickers on statements or sending letters vs. placing a phone call. This is not only expensive but also ineffective. The Schuster Centers model is a relationship-based model. So your collection calls are actually a wonderful way of enhancing or putting boundaries on a relationship. Remember that these contacts should not be unpleasant for you or your patient. I can’t emphasize enough that you can’t make patients pay you, so going to a collection call with a negative mindset will not enhance your collection success.
The Coaching Department at The Schuster Center; support@cfpd.com
–For information on dental practice management, team development, hygiene and case presentation products and services call 1-800-288-9393 or visit www.schustercenter.com
