Episode : #911: Building Your Perfect Day Is as Easy as This

Podcast Description

Often when scheduling appointments, it’s all about the patient. But what about the doctor or team members? Britt and Tiff give tips for scheduling while keeping efficiency and quality in mind (for both parties).

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Transcript:

The Dental A Team (00:01.057)

Hello everyone out there listening. I am so excited to be here today. I have snagged the one and only Britt Stone again today to do some podcasting with me. Britt, how are you today?

Britt (00:13.087)

doing great. I mean, we’re cooling off a little here in Arizona and it’s a great time of year. Fall’s beautiful.

The Dental A Team (00:19.89)

I agree. I loved the weekend weather. I know you weren’t here for all of it. You had an awesome vacation, but it was really truly beautiful. And then I saw, well, Sunday got a little bit warmer. We went for a hike and we were like, well, this is a little bit warmer. And then I saw, gosh, by Thursday we’re supposed to be like 95 again. So it’s only here for, I think the heat’s only here for a moment again. And then we’ll drop back down, but it has been a wild.

summer, like it’s still summer here. I don’t know how we’re still experiencing summer. And I know, Brett, you and I both grew up here and I think people always ask us like, how do you do it? And we’re like, I don’t know, it’s like three months of heat. And I think this year they challenged us and they were like, the universe was like, I’m gonna give you six months. And then their nature said, no, we’re gonna like see if you can handle this. I feel as though I’ve never experienced anything like this in my life of living here.

Britt (01:10.389)

I mean, we broke some records. Sometimes that’s an exciting thing and sometimes that’s not an exciting thing to say.

The Dental A Team (01:16.857)

Totally agree. Not the records I wanted to break, but that’s okay. We’re still alive. You guys were still surviving. and I think we both probably, yeah. And I think we both probably can still say that we love where we live. So I love it. Love it. Love it. Thank you for being here. today I really wanted to pick your brain on some efficient appointment, scheduling, tips and tricks for the doctors out there. I really want to speak to, we always speak to both doctors and teams, but I really wanted to speak to doctors today and I wanted to

Britt (01:23.351)

I’m not trying any place.

The Dental A Team (01:46.223)

pick your brain a little extra because I you’ve really, really hard on some efficiency tips within the, you know, cost world as well. So we’ll dive more into that. But Britt, from hygiene perspective as well, dental assistant perspective, we’ve got all of those different spaces. I’m really, really looking at efficient appointment scheduling. And for me, I’m constantly reminding teams, team members and

doctors because I think doctors will stick their foot in their mouth sometimes too, to really, really look at what’s working well for your practices flow. Like what’s going to work best for you. And as the doctor of the practice, like when do you want to do these appointments? Do you want to do a root canal at 8 a.m.? Maybe possibly like do the root canal at 8 a.m. Right? Do you want to do a root canal at 2 p.m.? Would you rather do it, you know, after lunch, before lunch? Like where do you feel the most yourself?

and the happiest to do these procedures because if we’re just constantly looking at where the patient wants to come in, what’s convenient for the patient, that’s not always going to give them the best experience. So in that moment of scheduling.

The patient might be excited and happy because they got the appointment that they wanted, but when they get there for the appointment, are they getting the best experience that they possibly can based on the flow and energy of the practice? Or did we just schedule you something super late in the day when you’re exhausted and tired and you’ve been working so hard or you had pizza for lunch and you’re like, I don’t want to do this freaking root canal. Like, I don’t know. know my doctor that I worked with side by side for years, hated nothing more than coming back from lunch and having

fillings, like interproximal fillings and crown seats for three hours. He was like, this is going to be the worst three hours of the day because it was so much movement. It’s like, just want one crowd, like, or one long appointment, right? Like I just needed one patient with three crowns. Like I just want one something long that we can just sit down, dig in, be done. All of that like crazy running around and like sporadic energy.

The Dental A Team (03:48.869)

for him needed to be earlier in the day when he was more like spry, right? He’s just like ready to run. And I could appreciate that too because I felt the very same. And so when we figured that out for this doctor specifically, we were able to really switch the way the day works. It was better for me as his assistant.

It was easier for me when I was doing scheduling and the patients actually had a better experience. So when I think of effective and efficient appointment scheduling, it’s one of the first places that my brain goes is really what does the doctor want? I think we tend to look at what do our patients want? What does our team want? Our team wants easy and it’s easy to let the patient dictate the schedule. But we forget to say the doctors, what do you want your day to look like? And I think

Today, focusing super hard on that doctor aspect and really leveling up how much the doctors take into consideration and take that control on within that is what I’m here for today. Britt, what are your thoughts on that efficient appointment scheduling and from a doctor’s side, like a doctor’s angle, what could that look like for them?

Britt (05:00.515)

with you and everyone’s different right some doctors want the big things in the morning and the smaller things in the afternoon some function the opposite and the reason why ultimately we want to know what doctor wants and how they’re gonna work best is because one when doctors always are limiting factor right so like when we can have them functioning at their best everything’s gonna run a little bit smoother and so like you said when it comes to guiding patients in the schedule think of

What’s going to help everything over all run smoother? Because that’s going to give the patient a better experience. The team’s going to be functioning a little bit better. The day’s just going to run smoother when our limiting factor, which is doctor, is able to function at their best. And when they’re functioning at their best, they’re also going to be the most efficient. So I love that when it comes to taking that into account.

And we’ll talk about some things today that are even some like good like numbers or metrics to know of and be aware of to see like, it working? Is it not? Where are we? What can we improve upon? Right? Because at the end of the day, I know all my doctors, right? We want to be able to also like produce as much as we can in the time we’re there, right? You’re spending time away from your family, you’re working. So how can we do the most with the time that you are spending at the office? And it does come down to scheduling and there’s some ways to track it to know exactly how we’re doing.

with this, whenever I start to talk numbers, I’ll always say, we always want patient experience to be fantastic. And of course, quality of work to be fantastic, which we know you guys do as well. And there is a point where you can like push that line a little too far. So when we’re talking about these things, even when it comes to scheduling, quality of work and quality of patient experience are always top of mind. we make sure we remember those. But some good numbers to look at to see how we’re doing when it comes to scheduling will be like your doctor

production per hour. So do you know how it’s averaging out so you can take your whole entire month? How many hours did you work in that month, are patient hours? We know you guys work a lot more hours, but how many patient hours did you work? And what’s your production per hour? Because that’s when it comes to efficiency or how is our block schedule working. That’s kind of what we’re playing with is how much can you do within the time that you have? And if that number is low or not where we need it to be, then

Britt (07:17.377)

How can we be more efficient, schedule more appropriately with the correct production, or tighten up the schedule if we can and still giving that a great experience and the quality that we need to have there. What can we do to get that production per hour up? So it’s a good number for doctors to track. If you don’t know your number, figure it out, super easy. What did you produce last month? How many patient hours did you have available on the schedule?

divide it and it’ll give you your production per hour and then you know where you’re starting and then you know where you can go.

The Dental A Team (07:51.121)

I love to do that formula as well in looking for open hours on the schedule because it really, really shows us how efficient or effective we could have been or what we could have produced as well. So efficient appointment scheduling, think with the block scheduling, you guys, we talk about block scheduling all the time. So we’re not gonna dive into block scheduling a ton today. There are a million podcasts on it. Like reach out to us, [email protected] if you need more information on that.

So we’re not going to do that right now, but when you do have that set, which is what Britt and I were alluding to, like where do you want to do these procedures? Where do you want them scheduled? How do you want your day to flow? When you have those things set, meaning you have to know how long it takes you and your assistant to complete certain appointments, you need to know.

how many of each appointment you need in a day to get to your production projections, right? Like what’s my goal for production per day? I’m gonna build that out and do a perfect day schedule and then I’m gonna go back through and like Britt said, really count my hours. And you can do this for hygiene, you can do this for a doctor, count how many hours were available to be scheduled and divide your production by that to get your dollar per hour, to get your hygienist dollar per hour.

If you’ve got assistants who are operating as producers because they’re FDs or whatever you’ve got in your state, you can do it for all of those different spaces and really see how well you or your associate or your high-dense or dental assistants are really paying for yourselves and what that could look like. Now on the flip side of that, I like to go in then and say, okay, well, this is my dollar per hour goal. Owner doctors, Britt.

Tell me if I’m completely off base here. I’m typically gonna have my owner doctors 850 plus per hour. My associates, I’m like 550 to 750. I would love to see an associate at 850. Totally possible. Owner doctors, I would love to see you closer to like 1050, 1200. Like those are the numbers I would love. PPOs, like they’re gonna drastically change that for you. But we can work around it and it’s the time of year to ask for being pieces, all those pieces. So we don’t need to get into that today, but those are like.

The Dental A Team (10:04.485)

good goals to mull around. So then what I do on that note of the schedule, right, is look at these were my available hours. Well, as I’m doing my available hours, I’m also going to count my open hours. I just did this actually. I was in Utah a couple weeks ago with a prized practice and I just did this for him because he’s like, tiff, like, we just tanked. I don’t know what happened. And so I went through the whole year and I did available hours.

Britt (10:22.58)

Thank

The Dental A Team (10:33.214)

And then at the same time, I had one screen was available hours. The screen over here was open hours and it was how many for each provider I did the doctor, I did all of his hygienists and I did it for each one. And I said, okay, so we’re about 40 to 50,000 off from the goal we’ve set this year. Let me show you where it’s at. And we could literally pinpoint the month that had enough open hours just for him alone, not even including hygiene that was that gap.

the month, like not even just production for sure. You can say like, we were down a little bit here, but there was a month that he should have far exceeded the production, the monthly production goal that they had set that he was still under. But you could easily see because we had that perfect day scheduling in, we had the blocks in there. We were able to easily see how much he should have been doing and then calculate it backwards and forward. So we could do the lab measures to see

Why didn’t we hit those goals and where was it and how could we have been more efficient with our appointments? And then the lead measures to see, okay, well, if that’s the case, what do we have to do moving forward? So I love that you said to do that. And I think, too, what you’re alluding to and what you’re getting to with that is really looking at what are you doing now? Because then you can see, am I using this time efficiently and effectively? Like perhaps you’ve got the perfect day schedule in there.

and you’ve got your blocks, but maybe you did it two years ago or even six months ago and you’re like, I’m still not where I thought I would be. So now go back through and see one, what were your open hours? And then two, is it actually working? Cause Brett, think I’m, you know, I’ve experienced this and tell me if you have where I’ve gone in and doctors are like either scheduled, not enough time.

for certain things and they’re going late and now patients are like, but we’re using blocks. And I’m like, but these patients are like waiting, like there’s such an issue here. Or they’re scheduled too long and then they’ve been done for an hour before the patient gets back. But on the schedule, they’re not changing it. And so there’s no reality set in. Have you seen that as well where doctors are like, well, I’m full and practices, right? Our teams are like filling the white space, it’s full, but it’s still not reaching goals.

Britt (12:57.111)

Yeah, and though agreed and you’re right on your numbers. I’m like 500 minimum That’s my low end for anyone per hour that you should be hitting so if you’re not there Hey, that’s an opportunity for you to get there and know where a benchmark is and agreed in a PPO office 500 to 850 like it’s it’s attainable fee for service and

Just to kind of clarify one thing when you say owner doctor right getting that 850 or plus Even easily some doctors into like thousand pretty easily or more Owner doctors usually when you start to bring on associates you get to do the more complex things that you like Usually to do and so you’re getting those higher dollar procedures while associates are taking care of some of the lower dollar one Which is why we say that so just to give a little context behind some of those numbers

and agreed when we look at open space or how we’re scheduling, then it’s like, right, if I’m able to produce $850 an hour and I’ve just got like 30 minutes of slush time in there that we’re not using, that’s like opportunity costs. That’s like 400 bucks easy that we’re losing that if we scheduled better.

We could have added another $400 in that day just with that 30 minutes when it comes to scheduling. So starting to see the schedule in that way, it’s not just full or not. It’s what’s the quality of the things that you fill it with and looking at those open space, like what’s the opportunity cost? it is, it’ll take your production per hour real quick when you’ve got that open space, because it’s a big zero in there. So filling the schedule.

which I know everyone wants a full schedule, but it’s like, all right, what are we doing and what do we need to work on and are we filling it in the right way? So just viewing the schedule in that way and helping your team to see it, right? Sometimes team members don’t see it that way, but you see it that way now and helping them to understand what we could put in there. And with timing, when it comes to efficiency in the schedule, right? If doctors…

Britt (14:57.449)

always give time for your assistants. So I’m not saying like tighten up your schedule so much and forget about your assistants and the time they need to turn around a room or do what they need to do. But it might be a good time if you’re not hitting the production per hour that you want to, to start kind of seeing how long does it actually take you to do procedures and do a time study and say, all right, how long does it take? Can we schedule smarter or more efficiently with reality of how long it takes instead of kind of adding in some buffer time?

The Dental A Team (15:25.663)

Totally, totally makes sense. And something you said there was really that cost per hour that you just lost with that slush time. So there’s that happy medium, you guys, that Britt is mentioning where it’s like patient experience, right? Patient experience trumps everything. And so you need that slush for the patient experience, fine, but really evaluate, did you actually need it? So there’s a lot of practices we work with that the doctors are like, I need to build relationship.

100 % we are relationship driven people and we are a relationship driven company. So we are never going to discredit that or take that away from you. But what tools are we using to help build that relationship? Is your support team supporting you in that? Are they passing off information? Are they having conversations with you, with the patient? You know, are they just standing there stoic and quiet like, I’m waiting for you to initiate, right? Like your dental assistant needs to be like,

engaged and having conversations because if that’s all on you, it’s going to take you extra time and you’re in there for a very short amount of time in comparison to your support team, whether it’s hygiene or dental assistance. So ensuring that they’re giving you that proper information and those handoffs and really involving you in conversations that they are or have had with the patient far outweighs and exponentially increases that relationship with the patient. And so it.

decreases the amount of time and effort you’re having to put in to create that relationship and to add that extra value. You’re actually adding more value because they feel a relationship with two or three or how many ever of you there are, they’re feeling that relationship with multiple people and they feel an attachment to the practice. so take some of the stress off yourselves, ask the support team to really support you, right? Call them your support team. That’s what they are there.

to do, especially your dental assistants, they’re there to support you and support the patient and see how can I increase the efficiency, the timing, right? The experience without making things longer. Because now that 30 minute slash time, that potentially $400, right? You can slide something else in there and know your patient got a better experience potentially.

The Dental A Team (17:44.809)

than what they may have with that slush time, right? Patients wanna be in and out as well. You’ve just gotta do it in a way that doesn’t feel rushed. And number one, your treatment has to be good. Your work needs to be good. You’ve gotta take the time that you need to accomplish great dentistry and then make everything else really, really efficient and effective. People appreciate that. People appreciate when you value their time as well.

and you’re not just kind of dilly-dallying. You’re like, yeah, let’s get this done. It’s gonna be freaking amazing. And as long as you keep that high energy there, they’re gonna trust it they’re gonna come back. Britt, you have this incredible sheet that you showed us recently for consultants. You’ve been working your tail off on. We don’t even talk about the whole sheet, but kind of talk for a second about how you’re doing the cost analysis by procedure, maybe even just like a crown, like to really

not only look at your doctor per hour, dollar per hour doctors, but also to look at how effective is the cost management per hour or per procedure. So walk us through that just real quick and they can get a little smidgen of an idea.

Britt (18:58.399)

Yeah, some of the things that we’ll work through with our clients when we know, all right, let’s look at how efficient we’re running and what the cost is for things is looking at what does it actually cost us for a procedure? like breaking it down by the amount of time, how much is like the facility costs? How much does it cost me for my assistant? How much am I paying the doctor associate for this procedure? And then what’s my lab fee? What’s the cost of all the supplies that are used for that procedure?

So I can truly see what is that overhead for that procedure. And especially for some of our lab procedures, especially when you get to like your all on X cases or sleep appliances even, places where depending on where you’ve got your fee or what insurance fees that you’re contracted with.

The Dental A Team (19:39.098)

for sure.

Britt (19:47.209)

Sometimes that profitability is not so great or sometimes even in the negative on some of these procedures Which just allows you that information allows you one. It’s a reality check a gut check a little bit Allows us to straddle up strategize a little bit better to see all right What procedures are worth us doing right? I’ll say if you love doing it then let’s figure out a way to do it to where it’s also Profitable so it makes business sense along with the things that you love to do If you don’t love to do it and it’s not super profitable for you

maybe you refer those things out because it’s just not necessarily like completely worth the time. But until you start to kind of look at those things and know what the cost is, you don’t have the information to make some of these decisions. And also it’ll help you to guide you on insurance plans we are in network with.

When we get to the point of being able to go out of network, what ones do we want to go out of network with because our profitability on those procedures are just so low. So it’s just good information to have to dig in to see, all right, where are we?

and you can play around with time, right? And efficiency. If you can go from 90 minutes to 60 minutes for something, that’s gonna impact your profitability on that procedure. And it might just be that little switch if we can do it a little more efficiently that allows us to be like, okay, that makes business sense for us to do that procedure. We just need to ensure that we’re not taking a ridiculous amount of time on it.

The Dental A Team (21:11.642)

Yeah, I totally agree. I love that. And it made me think of a client that I have near and dear to my heart that was doing all on X cases in his practice. he liked them. He thought he loved them. And he got real tired of them real quickly. And we did a little cost analysis and really saw that, well, he realized for one that he brought them in because he thought they were going to be game changer for the practice. And it was going to be this

Britt (21:24.599)

you

The Dental A Team (21:41.62)

lucrative situation where he could take a step back and he could do a couple all-in-x’s a month and be done. Like he didn’t have to do all of these other little pieces. And so he thought, that’s going to bump production collections. My overhead is going to be fantastic. I’m going to be profitable and I’m going to do less. And so he brought all-in-x in-house and come to find out, right? It’s a lot of freaking work. And he was not, he wasn’t bad at them. He was fantastic at them, but the follow-up.

And the denture work like who loves like if you love dentures, like you better shout it to the world because there are doctors out there that need to know you’re there. We need to know where you are because we need to send you all of our dentures. Okay. If you love them, shout it to the world, right? Shout it from the rooftops. And he just was like, this is a pain in the butt to follow up and how many post-op appointments there are and adjustments and the dentures are this denture broke and I’ve got to remake it and I’ve got another lab cost and I’ve got

Britt (22:26.187)

Thank you.

The Dental A Team (22:39.102)

So when we did that kind of cost and time analysis, he realized real quickly, because when he came to us, he’s like, I am, he has like 72 % overhead. He’s like, where’s my profitability? Right? He’s like, I’m doing all my nexes. I’m like, well, let’s figure that out. And so we realized real quickly that something that he semi liked that he thought he would love, that he thought was going to be a game changer for his practice was actually costing him money and losing profitability for the practice because of

just all of the pieces that were involved. And he was like, you know, I don’t like it that much. Like I’m really not like, I’m really trying to get my feet wet with it. And it’s a lot to deal with. It’s a lot to handle. And Tiff, don’t think I actually want to do this. I was like, fantastic, start referring them out. That’s, it’s okay. That’s why oral surgeons are here. That’s why, you know, there are other people who do love to do it. And for my oral surgery practices, like they are incredibly lucrative. They are a really great.

tool for those practices because they’re not doing fillings and crowns and crown seats and limited exams and re care exams and new patients with it. So for this specific doctor, we did exactly that where we did this cost analysis, we did this appointment efficiency analysis, really looked at his dollar per hour, his hygiene dollar per hour, his open hour, like we did all of these things that we’re talking about you guys and came down to what is it that you want to do in your practice?

And what are you doing that you’re trying to save your practice with or create something that you don’t actually love that could be costing you money and time. So we had to really take that analysis. Like he also, you know, hates doing fillings. So we’re trying to figure that out, but most doctors are like, get these fillings off my schedule. So, you know, we try to figure that efficiency piece out too, but I think when it comes down to it, these steps that you’re saying to take.

really are the make or break to really figuring out what your practice looks like and what it could look like. So inventory wise, right, I would say go through and make sure that your appointments are the way that you want them and the length of time that you want them. And encourage your team, you guys, when you go long or when you go short on an appointment, change it on the appointment book so you can see the reality because then I’m gonna tell you, like Britt said, I want you to go back.

The Dental A Team (24:57.214)

through and do an analysis of your actual dollar per hour. So in comparison to your production, what was your actual dollar per hour? And also look at your open hour time. So what could you have produced if we had scheduled more effectively? And then also I would go through on your procedures and do this cost analysis because I do think hand in hand with the appointment efficiency goes this. You want an efficient and excelled patient experience.

and you want an efficient appointment and to know your dollar per hour that you’re supposed to be getting in conjunction to what the cost is per procedure based on the time you’re taking, I think is just like the magic sauce of really figuring out what you can do with your practice.

I would do those things. And if you need help with them, if you need ideas, if you’re like, I don’t understand this cost analysis thing, because you guys, it was over my head for a split second too. And I was like, wait, say that again. Just reach out, [email protected] re-listen to this podcast, obviously, but always reach out. You guys were here for that. So Britt, is there anything that I missed in those action items or last minute thoughts you want to give to these incredible doctors who are listening today?

Britt (26:13.717)

Yeah, I think those are great action items to take and I think.

This is for our doctors that you’re banging your head against the wall like how am I not as profitable as I want to be, right? What are the issues? Or you’re like, I don’t think we can fit anything else into our schedule, but I’m not as profitable as I want to be. These are the things that are going to give you the information to bring some reality to it. And sometimes it can be those conversations of like, hey, we’ve got those doctors, we’ve got those people we love them who are a little chatty and you can still have a great place to experience and not talk so long.

So like sometimes that’s the reality of like, hey

We make a choice, right? Either let’s adjust that, still chat, but like, it doesn’t have to be as long and we can fit a little bit more into your schedule. Or like, you get a little bit more time for talking and we’re as profitable as we can be or as efficient as we can be with our schedule if that’s the ultimate patient experience you want to have. And so I’ll just allow you to make smarter decisions. I mean, I’ve had some doctors that are in rural areas when it comes to certain types of procedures that maybe aren’t the most profitable, but they’re like, hey, I want to be able to provide that to my community.

Awesome. I love that. Let’s just be aware of it, see if there’s anything we can do to manage the overhead and make it efficient. And then we may just manage how many of them that we do out in one day or one week or one month to ensure your space to kind of make up the difference with other procedures.

The Dental A Team (27:38.389)

Yeah, okay, awesome. You guys, this was incredible. Britt, thank you so much for always being open to diving into more numbers with me than we do on a lot of the podcasts. This one or one is super dedicated to our amazing doctors who are out there really just trying to make sure that you’re giving the best to your patients and that you’re getting the best for yourselves because we at the Don’t Ateam truly believe if you are giving exactly what people.

deserve if you’re giving that experience that people deserve when they come to a dental practice, you will reap the rewards. And those rewards should be insane profitability. In our opinion, you should be insanely profitable. You should be living your dream life because you’re giving an incredible thing to patients that they can’t get anywhere else. So with that said, go do these things, go figure it out. If you need help, if you are a current client, reach out to your consultant, or to our consulting team because we’re here to help you with that.

If you’re not yet a client and you’re a future client or you’re someone who’s just listening because you love listening to our voices, reach out. Hello at thedoubleAteam.com. You guys, we’re here to help you and we will give you whatever information that we possibly can because we just want everyone to experience the best lives you truly possibly can. So Britt, thank you so much for being here. I cannot wait to hear how everyone loves this podcast, so drop a five star review below.

We wanna hear how much you love this. We wanna know how much you love diving into the numbers side and really, really effective doctor style items. Like I’m so excited for this one. So Britt, thank you everyone. Have a great rest of your day.