One of the goals of the Schuster Management Program is to teach your dental team to better define your practice systems, thereby enabling you to work in unison toward a common goal of success. Team meetings not only allow opportunities for enhancing communication within your dental practice, but they give your employees an environment of predictability and stability. A common comment we hear from our graduates is that after they have completed the Management Program they are not certain what they should be you some suggestions and topics to ensure the success of your staff meetings for years to come.

1. Case Studies – Many of our clients have told us how much they have benefited by reviewing a completed case as a team. Questions such as “what could we have done better relative to the patient’s treatment”, and “clinically, what could we have done to imworking on during staff meeting times.  The purpose of this article is to give prove the outcome” are great customer service questions.

1. Recare review – Once a month the hygienist (or whoever works the recare system) should report on the patients who were due for hygiene this month, who is accounted for and who is now missing in action. What is the strategy for contacting those patients and more importantly why did they not respond to the retention efforts?

1. Structured Messages – This should be an on-going project. You created a number of messages during your practice management training, but your practice has an enormous opportunity to refine and create more together as a team. Many offices only use structured messages for phone conversations. But you can use these for virtually any face-to-face interaction. The format can be used to help with your pre-clinical interviews, chair side education, and financial arrangement conversations.

1. Communication – Your ability to communicate your thoughts, feelings, ideas, values and beliefs are determined by how well your practice runs. We often limit ourselves by only thinking about how we communicate person to person. However, you might review all of your printed materials to check for the consistency of the appearance and the message you are sending. Your web site, yellow page ad, signage, phone messages, collection calls, etc. should be evaluated on a consistent basis.

1. Career Development – The best dental practices hire and retain the best people as employees and are responding quickly to changing market conditions. The doctors are not satisfied with the status quo. They continually upgrade facilities, processes, and the skill of their employees.   Many of our doctors lament about not having enough time to get trained on power point or digital photography. Why not send a team member?? Don’t forget to invest in talent and keep them intellectually challenged. Many of our best clients have mismanaged very talented team members by not investing in their development. Take time to plan out your employee’s career path so they continue to be renewed and recommitted to your practice.

The opportunities for creating the dental practice of your dreams are unprecedented. But so are the difficulties, for competition is more intense than ever. The critical success factor for your practice is the quality of your team. Authentic team members who are mature and committed will make your vision become a reality. However without effective staff meetings in place, your opportunities to tap into the goldmine called YOUR TEAM will be limited.

—Article submitted by the Coaching Department at The Schuster Center. Feel free to comment here or contact us at www.schustercenter.com