#937: The Full Picture of Practice Success

Dental A Team Podcast

Tiff and Dana start their first episode of the 2025 focused on getting the entire practice team on board with goals. This doesn’t mean just the numbers or just the patient experience, but all the pieces of the puzzle.

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Transcript:

The Dental A Team (00:01.926)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be back here today. We are recording quite a few podcasts today, Dana and I, and this is our second up, so we should still be super fresh for you. Just kidding, we're always fresh. Dana, your hair looks amazing. You guys know it's hair and leggings and workouts, apparel and...

protein bars for me. Like she is my girl who shares all of my same hopes, dreams, wishes, and desires in life. So Dana, your hair looks amazing today. I love it. Yeah. I used my...

Dana (00:33.454)

Well, you know, I'm podcasting with Tiff. I had to put a little effort in.

The Dental A Team (00:38.46)

Well, thank you. went and straightened it real quick, but I used my my crimper thing yesterday. I've used it quite a few times on my new haircut. I wasn't sure how it was going to work, but it worked. For all you male dentists out there listening, just give me a stitch. I'm sorry.

Dana (00:43.854)

Let's go!

The Dental A Team (00:51.26)

Dana, made her, this is like a year and a half, two years ago now, something like that. I made her give me a tutorial because she was doing this weird thing with her hair and I was like, my God, it looks so good. I need to know how to do my hair like that. She's like, just get this thing. I'm like, yeah, but I don't think you understand. I need a tutorial. So she literally did a tutorial for me on how to wave my hair. And it is actually really cute with my new cut. So thank you, Dana, for stepping up my game, my hair game.

and all of the other games. Your Tip Tuesdays, I'm always like dying to see what it's going to be. I have protein bars because of you. I have so many things. So thank you, Dana, for having all of the tips and the tricks in your back pocket every single time.

Dana (01:36.022)

can't take credit for it, I'm constantly asking my girlfriends, hey, what are you guys doing? Give me all the products too. So a lot of them are tips that have been shared with me that I just pass on.

The Dental A Team (01:46.182)

That's what this world is about, right? Everything we share on this podcast are things that we've learned along the way, either on our own from exploration or because we learned it from somebody else. And that is the beauty, I think, of life and really being able to have that community and that camaraderie where you can share those things. So you have your girlfriends, our doctors here at the Dental A Team have each other. We have a...

An amazing doctors group that I feel like is just like that, Dana, where I see things go off all the time on the little texting app and they're like, my gosh, what do you guys have for this? Or what new bond are you using? My bond sucks. Or cosmetic stuff. So I think that's...

That's how we do it. That's how we move along and that's how we were meant to do it. We were never meant to do life solo. We were meant to do life in groups with incredible, amazing people. And we are here for it every single day. We love our clients. We love you guys who are our clients and we love you guys who are not yet our clients. And we have those communities for you. So look for them. Instagram, Facebook, we've got all kinds of communities there for our clients who are listening. If you don't know what I'm talking about with this doctor,

collaboration sucker, you better be texting me right now. Same with Dana. If you are our client and you don't know what I'm talking about, you better be texting me right now. Let's get you in there. Awesome. Dana, today I really wanted to talk about teams and how doctors and leaders, so doctors and probably office managers, business administrators, can really utilize the team to help push goals.

I think oftentimes we have clients that come in, they onboard, and I hear a lot of the time, and Dana, I think you might as well, I don't talk to my team about numbers because I don't want them to think that I'm numbers driven. And I think it's super freaking common in the dental world because we have a really hard time differentiating black and white numbers and emotions. And

The Dental A Team (03:44.13)

I always like to say that emotions are fleeting, the way I felt when I woke up this morning, drastically different than how I feel right now. And that was like six hours, seven hours ago. Like within a day, I've had so many emotions come and go that if I'm constantly weighing out if something's working right or not, or if I'm growing or if I'm happy, if I'm sad, I'm just constantly trying to weigh out what that looks like based on my feelings, it's gonna be very difficult. But dentistry, we are in the

care profession and we are saturated, luckily I think this is an incredible asset to all of us, we are saturated with emotional beings, highly emotionally intelligent human beings that are keyed in first to how we feel.

So bringing in that numbers aspect can feel cold and sterile and it can feel like, Tiff, I'm here for the patients. I'm here for the patient experience. I don't wanna talk about the numbers. I've literally had a doctor say, I don't wanna look at the numbers. I don't wanna talk about them. And I said, okay, you don't want to yet, but we're gonna get there. Now Dana, I know you've had that as well. What do you feel is the reason that you've seen or reasons that you've experienced that doctors or business administrators might not want to talk about numbers?

Dana (04:58.923)

Yeah, I think a lot of it comes from a fear of when they talk about numbers, the team sees that only as profit, right? Or dollars, dollars, right? When we talk about numbers and dollars that go directly to the doctor or to the owner. And so I always feel like

The Dental A Team (05:08.433)

Yeah.

Dana (05:16.692)

Yeah, we want to talk about production. We want to talk about collections. We want to talk to dollars. We also want to talk about expenses, right? You want your team to have a full picture of numbers, not just the dollar, because when they have a full picture of the numbers and they also know what those numbers tell them in relation to patient care and patient experience, and all of those are part of numbers. And so I feel like you can't talk about numbers without talking about those other things too. And you can't highlight, like you have to highlight what the numbers tell you about those pieces, which are the

The Dental A Team (05:22.214)

Correct.

Dana (05:46.808)

that usually rally up the team that they really care about that are the reasons why they are there. And so when you make those connections of, yes, these are dollars, but these dollars tell us about patient care. These dollars tell us what an amazing patient experience we're creating for our patients. These dollars tell us how great we are at getting our patients to accept the treatment that we recommend to them. And these dollars come with expenses. And so they aren't just profit. They aren't just dollars that are sitting in a bank somewhere and accumulating interest.

The Dental A Team (06:10.789)

Yeah.

Dana (06:16.384)

and making you as the owner, right? And you as the owner should you take all the risk, right? So don't feel guilty about that either. You take all of the risk. It is all of your license. It is all in everything that you've created. So also don't feel guilty if you make a healthy profit from your practice. But I think when you have a full picture.

The Dental A Team (06:21.498)

Yeah.

Dana (06:33.334)

of expenses and what they tell you and all of those things numbers become really easy to talk about and team members can start to get behind those numbers when they understand what those numbers are telling them about the things that they care about.

The Dental A Team (06:49.692)

Totally agree. I 100 % stand by everything you just said. One thing that you made me think of is, because you're talking about this profit piece, gosh, I think a lot of dentists, you all want the profit, but I think a lot of you feel almost guilty for the profit, and especially when it comes to the numbers. That's why sometimes you don't want to talk about it. I totally understand that. But I think what you forget to see in that,

is how much decision making becomes easier when you know the numbers. When you know that you're truly profitable and when the practice knows you're truly profitable, the team meaning that it makes it much easier to make decisions. So can we take an extra day off next month because there's a festival in town and we all want to go to it? Can we buy the ultrasonic or the autoclave or the cavatron? how many cavatrons do we get asked for at the end of the year you guys? I just had one, I just had a call today.

Dana (07:41.003)

you

The Dental A Team (07:44.966)

They're like, hygiene department needs a cavern shot, and we need an ultrasonic, we need a sterilizer, and I'm like, cool, we've got to figure out where that's coming from. But the team, I mean the team, I just had this call with this doctor this morning, he's one of my favorite doctors I talked to, him and his wife. We have...

like tenfold changed their money and their financial situation and their practice and it has been incredible. They went from like an 82 % overhead to typically they're like 57 to 62 % right now. They're profiting, they're able to put money aside. He has a CE bucket I make him put money in, all of these different pieces. He's just bought a new practice to expand. It's huge. All of this stuff has happened in the last couple of years but it's because we were willing to start looking at the money.

Well, his team sent us this laundry list of like wishes and it's fantastic. And the office manager has gone through and she's priced everything and she's done it all correct so that now we can say, okay, well, what are the educated decisions based on the finances prior to working on this with them prior to working so hard at getting that, that overhead down by at least 20 % over the last two years. They weren't talking numbers a lot with the team. They were just going through the motions.

The only number that they really talked about was where's our production and are we at 98 %? Collections are higher, which are two fantastic numbers to talk about, but they weren't watching other pieces. They weren't watching the AR. They weren't watching necessarily the new patients super closely and what was happening is their AR was being padded with overpayments and so what was happening, profit was down, their overhead was high because they actually had a ton of money still outstanding, but it wasn't showing up in the initial reports.

know this, they didn't understand this, we had to break it down, we had to pull backwards, we had to start moving money around, all of these different things had to come into place and once the team understood what the numbers meant, what they could control, they were on board. They were like, my gosh, this is a disaster. Like how do we positively impact this? Because you guys, they care about your business too because they care about you. This specific practice, this team loves this doctor. I mean, I love this doctor and that's why

The Dental A Team (10:00.998)

like they are incredible human beings. Most of you guys out there are incredible human beings with teams who want you to do really well. When you do well, your team does well. And your team does well and can help promote that, like Dana said, when they know what they're going after. Does your team know how to win? Because emotions are fleeting and I might feel like, gosh, today was a fantastic day. It was so smooth and it flowed so well. And you're leaving the back door

complaining because we had $1,200 worth of treatment today and I'm like...

Today was great. Today, I wasn't running around like a chicken. It seemed to flow really well. And you're like, no, I couldn't even pay the people that were here today based off of the money that we brought in. That's the difference. And your team needs to be able to see that, to see where they can go. And Dana and I chatted earlier about really seeing those overarching goals, but then seeing how does my individual position in this practice add to that goal? So what is the goal of my position?

And how does that goal, that metric add into the larger metrics of the practice? So if I'm a billing representative, how does the work that I do directly affect profitability of the practice or overhead of the practice is probably easier to talk about, right? And Dana, I know we were just talking about this. So what are some other spaces like hygiene's an easy one because they're providers, right? But even as far as like treatment coordinators, billing or front office representatives, like what are you seeing with the practices you work at?

work with, not at, that you work with, that you're having those leading measures that are really, really contributing to the back end full arch goals.

Dana (11:45.622)

Yeah. And I think that that's, that's, it's, it's knowing what your other numbers tell you, right? Or what adjunct numbers then to look at that feed into some of those larger numbers like production and collections. So if I TC, right, how would you impact collections? Well, you would help increase production by getting more treatment accepted. And it's just breaking it down and making those connections for them. If I am the scheduler, well, how do I impact collections? Well, if I have a full schedule where we can produce it, then we're able to collect it. Right. So just breaking that all down. If I'm a

The Dental A Team (11:50.747)

Yeah.

The Dental A Team (12:12.24)

Yeah. Yeah.

Dana (12:15.488)

dental assistant, well how do I affect production? Well you make sure that you're as efficient as possible so our appointment lengths can be as short as possible and you're part of reappointing right? So making sure that you get the next thing on the schedule, making sure that you're teeing things up for the doctor, all of those things help build production but sometimes it's difficult for team members to make those links or to see wow yeah like me doing that really does impact that.

number or that larger overarching goal. And so almost every number in the practice, each individual seat can contribute to it in some way. We just sometimes as leaders have to make those connections or draw those links for team members to see.

The Dental A Team (12:42.588)

Thank you.

The Dental A Team (12:53.308)

you

Totally agree. I was working with a pediatric practice last week and this was most of our meeting was spent on this and we spent at least two hours really diving into each department from the overarching goal standpoint and really the daily production that they're looking to hit to hit the monthly production and how does every department and each individual within that department control that and one of the most interesting pieces that was pulled out for them was the dental assistance and the dental assistance

you guys that is usually the toughest spot to like really pull something out of it. Same day treatment for sure, conversions like all those pieces but this one was really cool. It's a pediatric practice and they have their dental assistants chart prep.

48 hours ahead. So they're always like one and two days ahead doing the chart preps. Well, this team listed chart prepping as one of their issues when we first started our meeting. So I was like, let's talk about these chart preps. What is happening here? Well, they're spending like 40 minutes per provider at a four to five provider practice chart prepping for them.

And my mind was blown. And I was like, holy cow, this is taking you so long. And I started diving into it. This is just their normal every day. One of the complaints from the front office team was that they're getting last minute same day schedule changes that are necessary because the back office is chart prepping so late that they're coming up and saying, hey, we can't do that. You need to reschedule that patient.

The Dental A Team (14:22.352)

Well, what does that do? That tanks our production, it's bad customer service, completely changes the experience of the patient and the parent because it's a pediatric practice. So many things are entangled in that. And what we ended up doing was really breaking down that if we could change the metrics on this, right? So who's responsible for this? Who's going to do it every single day? So one of their metrics was someone is responsible for doing it and to decrease the amount of time. So their metrics right now is to get it

done by 838 am so the opener will do

this chart prep, they have to be done by 8 30 a.m. and they're they're timing themselves to get it down to 15 minutes. That is going to significantly change what they're able to do because what was happening is all of these dental assistants were like trying to get it done and it's like whoever can get to it and hey that's where I was and I started there and you can do this one over here while they're seeing patients throughout the day. So it wasn't actually getting done and when it was it was kind of just muddled.

So the whole point of it, like the value of the schedule was unseen. The value of same day treatment ads completely bypassed because we weren't actually looking at it and applying it to open appointments on the same day. And the value out of being cherished side and available for patients during patient time was lost. So appointments were taking too long. Can you imagine like your overall overarching goals, production collections, new patients, patient satisfaction, so your reviews, all of those pieces

are insanely impacted by something as easy as changing the chart prep and how they were doing it and how they were running it. I talked to the doctor yesterday and I didn't specifically look at the chart prep with her but they hit three out of four days last week they were 100 % to goal and they are over like they're over what

The Dental A Team (16:17.296)

producing what they should this month based on the projections. I was there a week ago and we put the attention back on it with the scheduling coordinators, with the whole team's attention is on this single day production, totally changed the game. Even just by the dental assistants looking at how effective their time use is. And Dana, what you said made me think of that because we under...

when it's not attached to cell fluoride, or how many night guards can we get? And I agree, do 80 % night guard case acceptance, diagnose 10 % more night guards than you usually do, recommend, whatever you want to call it. Like I agree with those, but I think we undervalue how much just time saving techniques can add back production. So Dana, you've worked with a lot of pediatric practices as well, and GP practices, but where else do you feel like from a

office standpoint, simple things like that. What else have you seen practices do to really get the back office on board with the goals? Because I do think a lot of times for an office we think numbers, right? It's not always, and I say that I'm a dental assistant by trade as well, but for an office thinks numbers first most of the time. Back office it's much more difficult to think the numbers because I think it's because it's more difficult to see the impact that we can have on those numbers. So what are some other areas that you've worked with practices on?

that have worked really well.

Dana (17:44.886)

Yeah, and I will say in my last pediatric practice, was we worked a ton on how the back impacts AR and billing. And sometimes they feel like, no, we don't impact that world at all. Well, actually, you do fairly significantly. And so making sure that you are walking out and attaching

The Dental A Team (17:59.749)

Yeah.

Dana (18:03.828)

everything that you did, every single thing that you did because you were in there. You know if that surface changed, you know if you added a tooth, you know. So making sure that everything is in there, making sure that you have, that the billing team has all of the pieces they need to build successfully. Did you take that pre-op x-ray? Did you take that post-op x-ray? Do we have period charting? Do we have all of the things that we need? Do we have the IOP of that decay of that tooth? So really just full picture of you guys actually impact billing tremendously and you also like you are

heavy hitters on the amount of time it takes for an insurance to reimburse or all of those pieces. And so we worked a ton on making sure everything was walked out, making sure everything was updated in the chart and getting them to check codes for the next appointment. You just saw the patient, you know that they had bite wings this time. So what better space for you to do than check codes for the next appointment.

The Dental A Team (18:38.671)

Yeah.

The Dental A Team (18:55.798)

Mm-hmm.

Dana (18:56.354)

So that's another space where oftentimes like they don't realize that they impact those things. And I don't think a dental assistant is like, well, the things that I do really impact the timely filing and timely payment of insurance claims. It absolutely does though.

The Dental A Team (19:10.598)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I agree. I think that's brilliant. And when you're doing that, all you have to do then is take those pieces that Dana just spoke on and turn it into a measurement. The easiest space to do that is a percentage. Because if you say, sell five fluorides a day, or convert two same day treatments a day, a dental assistant is like, cool, I didn't have any opportunities for that today. So I got a big fat zero. So if you say we're converting 80 % of the opportunities given,

we can say I converted three out of five opportunities today or how many times, you what's the percentage? I want 100 % of all of the codes attached every single time. So then we can go back through and say, hey, there was 10 % here that we had to go back and ask questions or fix it. If you change that metric into a percentage or this out of this, you're going to get a much higher success rate and also doing it on a daily but weekly. So a lot of times I'll say, okay, everyone needs to ask for two

reviews a day, but at minimum 10 a week. So if you get to Friday and you were like, only asked for four this week, you know you have six people you got to ask today. So it's two a day, 10 a week or whatever that metric might be. But I love that you said that Dana, it truly does. And I do think as dental assistants, we underestimate that and we want to give everything away for free, by the way. We want I know hygienists too. We just want we just want to like, we just want to fix it. We want to make it better. But really seeing the value of those missing

those missing attachments like that $12 that $16 add that up over the course of 20 patients a month and that's a significant amount, you know, you're asking for cavatrons and I'm like, well, give me some PA's pay for it. I'll get you a cavatron tip. How can we calculate this? So just bringing that awareness up to your team I think really makes a difference you guys and they start thinking about it the same as they do their finances at home. It's finances at work as well and

Dana (20:57.272)

Yeah.

The Dental A Team (21:13.64)

in order to reinvest back into the patients, back into the practice and into your team, the profit has to be there. We have to meet these metrics. So biggest ways to get a team on board with that is to show them the path.

to win. If they can see it, they're going to freaking go for it you guys. If they know what that goal is, if they know what the metric is that they have to meet to say I won today, they're going to do it because everyone wants to feel really good about their jobs and this is an easy way for them to win. Just find those metrics. Dana, thank you so much. I knew picking your brain was going to be fantastic on this one. This was a super, super fun one to do and you guys, we do this all day. We do this with a lot of practices.

I know the back office side can be a little bit more difficult to pinpoint those pieces. office is a little bit easier. If and when you have questions, please reach out. [e-mail]. You can drop something in the comments below. Give us a five star review. Let us know how you loved this. All of those pieces. Instagram, we're on Instagram, we're on Facebook. And just so you guys know, when those things come through, those questions, you email us, you Instagram message us, you Facebook messenger us, whatever the path is that you're

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