Practice Management

• Terminology

  The organization, administration, and direction of the professional practice in a style that facilitates quality client care, efficient use of time and personnel, reduced stress to staff members and clients, enhanced professional and personal  satisfaction for staff, and financial profitability

  Practice Management
• Composition of the dental team

  • Dentists
  • Hygienists
  • Certified Dental Assistants
  • Receptionists
  • Office Manager/Bookkeeper
  • Clients
  • Lab Technician
  • Sales Representatives
• The role of dentistry

  Dentistry is a healthcare profession that has a two fold role:

  1. to provide healthcare service
  2. to make a profit as a small business
• Dentistry as an enterprise

  Business

  • operate safely
  • practice ethically
  • Be productive
  • Use Technology
  • Operate Efficiently
  • Create a profit

  
• Dentistry as a service profession

  • the basis for patient retention is communication
  • communication is the ability to understand and be understood
• The Service Concept

  • The service concept defines the how and the what of service design and helps mediate between customer needs and an organization's strategic intent
  • We define the service concept and describe how it can be used to enhance various service design processes
• Organizational Culture

  • Organizational culture comprises the attitudes, experiences, beliefs, and values of an organization
• Types of organizational culture

  Role

  • Clearly delegated authorities within highly defined structure

  Bet your Company

  • Big stakes decisions made, years before results are known

  Process

  • Concerned with how things are done, not with what is achieved. consistent results

  Blame

  • Blame each other to avoid being reprimanded, little personal initiative

  Multi directional

  • Minimized cross-department communication & cooperation. Loyal to specific groups

  Live & let live

  • Do your own thing & CONTENT
  • cooperation & communication

  Leadership enriched

  • View organization as extension of themselves. IDEAL
• Effective Leadership Traits

  Empower others

  • Empowered employees feel a sense of ownership in the practice and become confident in their jobs

  Reward risk taking

  • Leaders of successful dental practices are willing to seek new answers to problems, try new approaches, use technology, and be flexible.

  Manage chaos

  • A good leader is one who can sort out the chaos in a situation and move on to a desired outcome

  Know how to follow

  • The effective leader knows the importance of stepping back and being a follower when a situation demands it
• Characteristics of an effective leader

  Self confidence

  • Self-confidence grows with competency and experience

  Genuineness

  • Being genuine means being yourself.

  Acceptance of culturally diverse population

  • Everyone has different experiences and values

  Enthusiasm

  • Enthusiasm is sincere interest in people and your work

  Assertiveness

  • An assertive person is bold and enterprising in a non-hostile manner

  Effective listening

  • Good listening is a combination of hearing what a person says and becoming involved with the person who is talking
• Characteristics of an effective leader

  Recognition of others' needs

  • Colleagues have needs for recognition and a desire to feel they are valued for their contribution to the team’s success

  Sense of humor

  • Look at a situation with a sense of humor
  • Be careful to laugh at the situation and not at the person

  Willingness to be a team player

  • Offices that are committed to building a team can achieve results more effectively than offices in which each individual works independently
• Dental Practice Goals

  The twenty-first century dentist/leader will strive to achieve practice goals by:

  • Considering long term results over short term results
  • Stressing effectiveness over efficiency alone
  • Thinking strategically rather than operationally
  • Being proactive rather than reactive to situations
  • Being driven by plans rather than problems
• Terminology

  The interaction and interdependence of the entire office staff to promote the unity and efficiency of the group

  Team Concept
• Conflict resolution

  Occasionally, workplace conflict can arise, and it is important to resolve or diffuse a tense work environment by using the following: Win-Win vs Compromising

  Win - Win Approach

  • The win-win approach sees conflict resolution as an opportunity to come to a mutually beneficial result
  •  It includes identifying your opponent’s underlying concerns and finding an alternative which meets each party's concerns

  Compromising Approach

  • Compromising looks for an expedient and mutually acceptable solution which partially satisfies both parties.
• Objectives in dentistry

  • Promote optimal oral health in a culturally sensitive manner
  • Promote oral health education
  • Acquire the most advanced knowledge and skills to meet the challenging needs of diverse patient population
  • Participate in professional activities
  • Emulate the highest standards of patient centered care
• The Service Concept

  
• Todays leadership

  • Leadership and management are related but different in concept and definition.
  • The leader in a dental practice is commonly the dentist.
  • The manager is often the administrative assistant.
  • However, to be a good leader, one must possess the characteristics of a manager and the manager may find a situation that places him or herself in a leadership role
• Success

  Remember, there are three kinds of people in the world:

  • Those that make it happen.
  • Those that watch it happen. 
  • Those that wonder, “what happened?”

  Each of you are individually responsible for determining your own success as dental hygienists.

  If you don't know where you are going, it doesn't matter what road you take.
• Business types for DHs

  Dental Hygiene Clinic

  • Set up a dental hygiene clinic
  • Regular dental practice with less overhead costs compared to traditional dental clinic
  • 2 operatories, with dental reception
  • Luxury spa boutique
• Business types for DHs

  Travelling Dental Hygienist

  • Take the dental hygiene services directly to customers
  • Flexibility in schedule
  • Bring the equipment to provide servies
• Business types for DHs

  Dental Hygiene Bus

  • Reach remote areas
  • Traveling operator
  • Provide dental hygiene services at your own convenience
• Types of business Ownership

  Sole proprietorship

  • legal status - does not exist as a separate legal entity
  • Control - owner has total control
  • Profits - profits are paid to the owner
  • Debts - owner is responsible (liability)
  • Taxation - owner taxed as an individual on the income of the business as if they are employed
  • Assets - business assets are wholly owned by proprietor
• Types of business ownership

  General Partnership

  • legal status - does not exist as a separate legal entity, partners and owners
  • Control - partners agreement determines control between partners
  • Profits - to partners according to agreement
  • Debts - individually and collectively responsible
  • Taxation - taxed individually and according to their share of income
  • Assets - jointly own business assets and ownership is governed by partnership agreement
• Types of business ownership

  Corporation

  • legal status - corporation is treated as a separate legal entity from its owner, corporation - shareholder ownership
  • Control - directors & sharehodlers
  • Profits - earned by corporation. dividends may be paid to shareholders and/or retained in corporation
  • Debts - paid by corporation
  • Taxation - corporation pays corporate taxes separately from taxes paid by directors/shareholders
  • Assets - owned by corporation. no specific claim on corporate assets by shareholders
• Business things to consider

  Business location

  • Site issues
  • Traffic – downtown, crowded?
  • Visibility - signage
  • Parking - bonus
  • Neighboring businesses – competition? Or attracting more walk ins?

  Considerations for location

  • Closeness to consumers
  • Transportation
  • Suppliers
  • Sufficient number of customers to support the business
  • Banks, Libraries, Hospitals, community centres, universities/college are high traffic areas for getting customers for business
• Market potential

  Market potential is a moving target & 4 factors influence it

  1. Policy & regulations: can quickly change when laws change / new political regime comes into power
  2. Competition: Having information about your competitors (size of their share of market, including sales volume, is a critical factor in determining market potential & crucial to understand your indirect competitors)
  3. Technology: change affects almost every aspect of marketplace - growth rate to consumer demand
  4. Environment: physical facts of environment & economic environment - important role in any market opportunity
• Marketing

  • Consists of the social and managerial processes by which products, services, and value are exchanged in order to fulfill individual’s or group’s needs and wants These processes include, but are not limited to advertising

  Reasons for marketing

  • Markets change
  • People forget about you
  • Strengthens identity
  • Helps to maintain long-term clients
  • Gives clients and staff motivation
• Marketing client care - unmet human needs can be considered marketing

  • Marketing strategies target these needs:
  • Protection from health risks
  • Freedom from stress
  • Wholesome facial image
  • Conceptualization & problem solving
  • Freedom from head & neck pain
  • Responsibility for health care 
• Marketing the practice

  • Need a positive client base and cash flow
  • Client Need: the reason they sought service in the first place
  • May focus on target market
  • Need to identify the current strengths and weaknesses of the practice
• Marketing yourself

  • Remember, most clients still think of you as “just the tooth cleaner”
  • Consumers are often unaware of the spectrum of dental hygiene knowledge and education
  • Proper marketing skills will allow you to be the professional that both employers and clients seek
• Marketing strategies for practice promotion

  • Sponsors
  • Contribute to articles
  • Get involved in dental hygiene week
  • Present continuing ed courses
  • Offer free oral cancer screenings
• Marketing and profit centers

  • Specific products that are offered to clients from within the office
  • Velscope
  • Whitening
  • Oral care products
  • Halitosis clinics and products

  Profit center

  Advantages

  • client compliance
  • education
  • easy to implement
  • increased revenue
  • recognition

  Disadvantages

  • ethics: store or office
  • moral: profits based on "selling: dentistry
  • legally: retail sales
• Marketing 4 Ps

  • product
  • price
  • place
  • promotion
• Marketing 4 Ps

  • product
  • price
  • place
  • promotion
• Marketing 4 Ps

  Product

  • the services provided by the practice as well as the philosophies, objectives and quality of care provided

  
• Marketing 4 Ps

  Price

  • Price involves the cost of the service, which is based on healthcare financing mechanisms, such as reasonable & customary fees and practice expenses such as materials and staffing

  
• Pricing strategies

  High

  • higher than competition

  Same

  • same as competition
  • selling higher will cost you customers
  • you are not in a position to sell lower

  Lower

  • Lower than competition
  • Ensure you don’t operate at a loss!
  • Include operating costs and your own time when setting price
• Skim pricing

  • also known as price skimming, is a pricing strategy that sets new product prices high and subsequently lowers them as competitors enter the market. Skim pricing is the opposite of penetration pricing, which prices newly launched products low to build a big customer base at the outset. 
  • Businesses adopt a skim pricing model for several purposes, including:
  • Generating high short-term profit
  • Attracting early adopters
  • Segmenting customers as the price drops, according to what they are willing to pay for a new product
• Competitive pricing

  • is the process of selecting strategic price points to best take advantage of a product or service based market relative to competition
  • This pricing method is used more often by businesses selling similar products since services can vary from business to business, while the attributes of a product remain similar
  • This type of pricing strategy is generally used once a price for a product or service has reached a level of equilibrium, which occurs when a product has been on the market for a long time and there are many substitutes for the product
• Penetration pricing

  • is a marketing strategy used by businesses to attract customers to a new product or service by offering a lower price during its initial offering
  • The lower price helps a new product or service penetrate the market and attract customers away from competitors
  • Market penetration pricing relies on the strategy of using low prices initially to make a wide number of customers aware of a new product