You are constantly at choice
You are constantly at choice. In any given situation you can:
1. do nothing
2. do what you are currently doing
3. or try something else
That’s It. It isn’t what you should do. It isn’t what you can do. It is what you will do and that creates your result. Whenever you don’t have the results you are looking for, remember this.
Force vs Power
What you want and see versus what they want and see is influence. If a kid doesn’t brush and floss, what will you do? What you will do is not right or wrong, it is what you currently believe. If you are not getting what you want, you can change something. What can you change? What causes what you will change is your belief. If you believe something outside of you must change, you are not in charge, you are at the effect of the outside world. There is nothing right or wrong about that. HOWEVER, feeling bad about a result when you are not in charge is not healthy. If you are feeling bad about something, take charge. Or else what happens?
Getting Into Action – Ready or Not
“Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire,
and begin at once, whether you’re ready
or not, to put it into action.”
— Napoleon Hill: Was an American author and motivational expert
Here is a secret, a successful pattern is to put yourself in a situation where you have to succeed. Put yourself on the line and you will be impressed with what you create and surprised at what you can handle. Be careful, you may actually enjoy doing this whether you are ready or not. Try it. Are you ready?
To Be or Not To Be…
To Be…or Not to Be… – ahhh, now, that is the question.
In today’s economy and with all the ruckus about Health Care, perhaps being a preferred provider / accept insurance is something to consider as a way to get new patients. From a patient standpoint, if I were looking for a new dentist, I might be more inclined to look first at who accepts my “insurance” and then get the opinion of any of my friends who have gone to that particular dentist.
I know, I know, I know…for many dentists, mentioning the possibility of becoming a preferred provider is akin to fingernails on a chalkboard. Historically, I would have to agree – we’ve worked hard at getting some of our clients out of contracts with dental coverage plans. I’m sort of thinking twice about that (at this particular moment in time, anyway). We have clients who are participating providers in various dental benefit programs, and we have clients who have not and will not consider it. We recently compared two of our practices – one who specializes in high end cosmetic dentistry and is NOT a preferred provider; the other practice is a preferred provider for more than one benefit plan and accepts Medicaid (state assistance). Guess which one met their production / collection goals for 3 months running and guess which one hasn’t for the past 6 months?
I’m not making any rash decisions based on just these two practices,…however, I really think it’s something to think about.
Of course, if you do decide to go the route of becoming a preferred provider, you MUST do your homework; uncovering fee schedules, the percentages of folks in your area that are employed by companies that use plans you are considering, etc. Also, be aware of any negotiation capabilities you may or may not have with each particular plan. When all is said and done, you will probably have learned a whole lot more about the insurance industry that you really ever wanted to know 
, but it is imperative that you make an informed decision.
I’d be curious as to what the other opinions are out there regarding this issue. Please leave your comments as to whether or not you think that due to the economic times, it might be a good idea to consider becoming a preferred provider to attract more new patients.
Until next time…
Three Questions to Ask your Practice Managment Consultant
Here are three questions to ask your practice management consultant. They aren’t trick questions and they have a concise easy answer. The important point is, if you know the answer you will be much more effective in your practice and really enjoy the practice even more. Either way it should be interesting. Let me know what they say. Good luck.
1. What is it everyone wants?
2. How do I get that right now?
3. How do I link up my services to what they want?
6 Months and Two Weeks
A practice we visited recently has a terrible time keeping their mid-day hygiene appointments full. They use a quick call list. They use Smile Reminders and they make calls and e-mails to bring in mid-day appointments. Unfortunately most folks want early or late appointments. She tried to move people up but didn’t want to disrupt dental benefits usage. The solution? If she starts scheduling hygiene appointments out six months AND two weeks she now has two weeks worth of people she can call that already have mid-day appointments and can find one of them to “move up” to fill the current opening. This gives the front desk more time to fill the opening of the person that helped by moving to fill today’s appointment. Surprisingly, mid-day folks are rather accommodating. It won’t eliminate broken appointments but it sure will create more opportunities to find someone. It really works. I suggest you try it.
Team Building vs. Bonding
Many of our offices ask for “Team Building” – “…give us some ‘team-building’ exercises…”
While perusing the web this weekend, I made some (what I think are tremendous) distinctions regarding Team Building and “Bonding” exercises.
Most of the time what they are really asking for are some things that will bring their group closer to each other. They need to “get to know each other” in environments outside of the office. Many high performing individuals take on a somewhat different persona while at work than they do socially. If the only person you meet on a daily basis is a no-nonsense, down to work individual, you could very easily label that person as a bitch. (Now, come on…you know that’s what you’re really thinking – you just don’t say it out loud…). Remember, no matter how thin you slice it, there’s always two sides!
I agree – getting to know your co-workers outside the office is very important. And, most of the time, there are very few opportunities to make that happen. Therefore, many offices ask us to help facilitate that opportunity.
There is however, a greater need for Team Building (in my opinion). Think about the term: Team Building. Building a Team that is going to work together to accomplish the results you need.
Let’s take a look at professional sports – or collegiate for that matter. They are in the business of Building Teams that win. Right? So, how do they do it? If someone on the team isn’t in the right spot or they are not performing at the level needed, they do what?… “Fire” that person and “hire” someone who can do the job. What do most dental offices do? Keep tolerating less than what’s expected or needed, and bring the rest of the performers down to a lesser standard. How fair is that?
If you were going to build a team that will fulfill the requirements you have in mind for your dental practice, AND, if you knew what you currently know about your present staff, would you rehire them? If not, why not; and if you would, why would you?
I’m certainly not proposing that you fire everybody and start over. By answering the question, “Why Not?” you are allowing yourself the opportunity to evaluate the performance and be able to better identify what needs to be in place to better that individuals performance. So, instead of getting rid of it – fix it!
Experiential Marketing
For over a decade now, we’ve heard about experience marketing. The famous quote from Tom Peters was, “experiences are as distinct from services, as services are from goods”. We all know the difference between services and goods that we sell. Learning to create an experience that is unique and uniquely attractive is often difficult for dental practices because you are used to doing things just to certain way or you adopt, what everyone else is doing. During these tight times, we can separate ourselves from others by creating an experience that is unique and uniquely attractive and not what others would expect. When you create those experiences People talk. Plus the cost of creating a unique marketing experience is considerably less expensive, and a whole lot more fun than the other marketing efforts.
Knowing is not enough.
Our job, our calling, our profession, whatever you call what you do day in and day out is to get people healthy not to teach them why they’re not healthy. Our task is to not solely educate. Our task is to educate and motivate. There is no difference between a man that cannot read in a man that will not read. When you don’t know how to motivate, ask a question.
Quote – mastery comes from
Mastery comes from, “better than yesterday but not as good as tomorrow”, small changes done daily with repetition and great intention.
Practice; we’re talking practice.
With apologies to Alan Iverson, yes we are. There is a singular mindset that is focused on getting better. You either have it or you don’t. Top athletes all practice. Top teams all practice. In Hollywood and Broadway they call it rehearsal. Before any great performance there is practice. How can you make the presentation/performance better? Every patient is a performance with an audience and each audience (patient) is different. So how do you work/practice at getting that performance better? Do you give the same stale performance? People pay for great performances and are sold out. Okay, or good, performances have empty seats and don’t run as long. So let’s talk about practice. Practice? How do top teams do it? Copy them. That’s what we do.