Episode : #1,186: The Best and Smartest Way To Fill Holes in Your Schedule

Podcast Description

Kiera shares three approaches that will help you consistently and quickly fill your schedule on a daily basis: maximizing your current patients, creating the perfect handoff, and building consistent marketing.

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Transcript:

Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (00:00)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today we’re gonna talk about what to do when you’ve got like holes in the schedule. I wanted to have a tactical one. I just came from a practice that is like an amazing same-day converter. but I want to just like talk about like it’s very, very stressful when you’re looking at your schedule and you just see holes, like holes everywhere. And so, what can we do to fill those holes? How can we make sure you have a very productive practice? and it’s not always a marketing problem. It’s not necessarily that we need more patience.

Let’s just figure out how we can do like what are some simple things to help you fill those holes to have a very pro productive, predictable schedule. And like really, there’s going to be holes. So let’s make sure that team members and doctors have a really good solution. That way we can make sure that we take care of it. So I want to talk to you about like if you’re not busy enough, how we fix it, where we can get that growth with predictability, and like three things that are gonna help you consistently fill your schedule on a regular basis. So

Dental A Team, we’ve worked with hundreds of practices across the nation, you guys. This is something that we see. This is something that’s common. We consult them in person. We consult them virtually. And it’s just something of like filling a schedule is always top of mind. It’s always how do we how do we make sure it’s consistently up to goal? and I think it’s just a discipline. It’s not something that is always talked about. It’s a, it’s how do we make sure, like what are the, what are the core tools to get my system? And

I think that that’s just a way for you guys to to be able to be consistent and you don’t need to worry about as many new patients. Like it’s still a thing and I’m not here to just click it away. But this is like, let’s just look for opportunities that are already sitting inside your practice that are easy. Again, they’re already in the toolbox. Let’s just pull these tools out for you. So what are three big areas that you can focus on quickly to help you? So I would just came from an office. It was awesome. I swear this office, like they’ve got holes and they just make it rain every day. It’s like, all right, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna convert?

And I will say being really, really good at same day conversion is going to be a great thing. So it’s maximizing the patients you already have. So instead of going after new patients, like what are the ones we already have? So what this looks like, we like are gonna look at our unscheduled treatment plans. We’re gonna look for patients that are overdue and hygiene, and we’re going to make sure that we’re reactivating and recare and then making sure we’re reappointing all patients. So number one, like a good morning huddle can fix a lot of this. So I love people to prep the day and let’s all talk in huddle.

To see who has outstanding treatment. And if we are consistently doing this, of every patient who has unscheduled treatment and we schedule them in office, like the fastest, easiest way is like not going and hunting and looking at lists, but it’s doing the things in office that day. Also, every morning huddle, which patients need cleanings. You can fill your schedule so quickly with a great morning huddle and with people coming prepped and prepared. So front office team members take notes. Their clinical team should be giving you a wealth of knowledge. And then as patients are coming in, we are going to be scheduling.

Any treatment that we can get scheduled and any patients due for cleanings, whether we have an opening or not today, it’s good hygiene, good practice for us to get those patient schedules in office. It’s so much easier to schedule them when they’re in office rather than chasing and hunting them. So, number one, when they’re coming in and do it through morning huddle. Number two is we need to have a set process where we’re calling unscheduled treatment and recare every single day. I’m not joking, every single day. Let’s make sure we have good processes. I had an office.

We just worked on it for three months. Everybody, we had a huge list of this. It hadn’t been worked in years, and we’re like, we’re gonna get a process and a system in play. So we listed it all out. We divided the list amongst team members and we went to town. And then every single week we reported how many pay like how many dollars we were able to schedule and how many patients we scheduled. I want to say in three months they scheduled about $500,000 of unscheduled treatment. To me, that is a great use of time in three months. It’s an incredible way. Every single week they were doing it. We found out who the best person was at it.

What their verbiage was, but we’ve got to be calling every single day. So you’ve got to be able to have it. There’s so much out there. Unscheduled treatment, usually, like the practice I was in, and they had a bunch of holes. They’re like, here, we have so many holes. I went and ran the unscheduled treatment report. They had $1.7 million worth of unscheduled treatment. And in the last six months, they’ve added an additional 700,000. Now, could that be duplicated treatment plans? Absolutely. But do I also believe that there’s a decent amount of treatment sitting in that schedule?

You better believe it is. So, with that said, I want you to know that these items can be taken care of. You can get them done. They can be great for you. Get that process. I recommend at a minimum. Let’s start with five calls a day on unscheduled treatment, unscheduled recare. Let’s just have that. It’s kind of like brushing our teeth. Okay. We brush morning and night. We call unscheduled treatment. We call unscheduled recare every single day. All the time. That’s just part of what we do. It’s part of our process. We do confirmation calls. We do unscheduled treatment and recare calls.

We also schedule every single patient that comes in for their treatment. We also schedule every patient due for recare. Another thing that you can do is you can ask when you are scheduling for recare, who else do you have that we can schedule? I cannot tell you how many people we’ve scheduled from family members. Me and my husband, we don’t go to the same dentist. Guess what? We’re about to start going to the same dentist. They ask us who we can schedule? We got scheduled together. It’s very easy, it’s very convenient. Just ask. It’s a great way for you to fill those holes. So

You are usually sitting on tons of production opportunities that we already have. We just need to dig in our gold mine and actually be consistent with that. The fastest way to grow is usually already just sitting there. So unscheduled treatment, unscheduled recare. Let’s talk about morning huddle. Let’s make sure we’re making those five hygiene calls a day. Like, I’d love you to do more than that. I’d love you to just fill your schedule and always have it full. But making outbound calls on a consistent basis, minimum five up to Tiffany, you sever team call, 50 calls a day. I’m not joking. So

Know that five is really, really, really low. And make sure it’s a call and a text. Don’t just go the the easy way and do a text, a phone call and a text. You get double whammy and call at times when people are gonna be around. So I usually like to make calls around eight, noon, or around four. It’s usually when people are gonna be the most around that we were maximizing our time. So we can run the unscheduled treatment list. I always run it every single month. Divide the list up amongst every person. If we have an opening in the schedule where we’ve got downtime, everyone’s expected for every 15 minutes of downtime we’ve got, we are going to be making.

Five calls. You can do it for 30 minutes, but everyone give the script, have everybody do it. It’s there. So that’s one tip to fill your schedule very easily and keep it full. The next one is gonna be like, let’s boost our case acceptance. I kid you not. Like we don’t need to go after more patients. A lot of times we just need to improve that case acceptance. So getting really good. I work a lot with offices when we do our consulting on just improving case acceptance. It’s one of the fastest, easiest ways to grow a practice is just to get more patients to say yes.

If you’re a great clinician and we’re diagnosing, we should get patients to say yes. I have an office that I’ve been working with for several years. And truly, what we do for the bulk of our time is we work on their treatment plans and we just improve it and we improve it. We grow them usually a million to two million every single year, just by working on case acceptance, not pushing more new patients, not doing a lot of systems. It is truly just working on case acceptance. So when we have patients that are like, let me think about it.

We’re not getting treatment plans scheduled. We also have low treatment plans. So it’s a closing cases, but also diagnosing enough that’s going to be there. If you want to produce your like the goal should be you’re diagnosing at least three times what you want to produce. Then we need to be closing those cases. So what we need to do on this is it’s strong handoffs. So I usually recommend NDTR. You’ve heard me talk about it million times. We’ll link those if you haven’t heard it. Welcome. It’s next visit, date, time, recare.

So we gotta tell every patient what the next visit is, be clear and concise, what the date is to return, how much time, like one week, two weeks, three weeks. Do not say ASAP. I had an office I’ve been working with for years, like, I tell them ASAP, and I was like, excuse me? No, ASAP is very different for everyone. We’re gonna say when you’re scheduling my schedule align, or one week, two weeks, non negotiable. How much time is needed for that appointment and also recare. I’ve also had teams tell me, like, Kiera, we already know.

I know you know, but the patient needs to hear it. It’s gonna help you get higher case acceptance. So everybody says that we involve the patient, we don’t just talk to each other. The patient’s involved in that. So strong handoff, NDTR. Make sure they all have it. Then after that, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna have really strong case acceptance and we’re gonna track on a treatment tracker. I have an office that does an amazing job with this. They track every single treatment plan. They come through what is it? They have multiple doctors. How is each doctor doing? What’s their case acceptance?

How many dollars are we diagnosing? And we review it weekly, if not monthly, across the board. That way, doctors are constantly improving their case acceptance. We’re constantly improving our handoff. Hygiene is constantly teeing up treatment. Let’s get better and stronger to where we get this high case acceptance. You do that alone. Your diagnosis, your handoffs, and your closes are going to improve. What we track and measure improves. You probably have so much treatment that’s not being diagnosed. So hygiene and doctors work on what would doctor do? Let’s tee up treatment. Hygiene should be able to.

tee up treatment, 90% exactly what a doctor is going to diagnose. Doctors should be able to come in, give a perfect handoff. We then take that up to the front office. And then front office is really, really strong at being able to schedule first. Then let’s talk about objections. Let’s work through it to get them scheduled. I love a strong treatment coordinator who just closes like, let me think about it. Let’s work through that. What are the reasons? I have an entire thing on root causes and objections and how to work through objections. So if you guys want to know a couple of objections, I love these.

I love to work with treatment planning. and these are just things of what are their objections? So we gotta go into this case acceptance, 80% psychology. Everybody says yes to me. There’s always a solution. We’re gonna find it together. Assume that they wanna do this. All right. So, like, yes, they want to do dentistry. We present the treatment plan, we edify the doctor, we schedule first. People think I’m crazy to schedule first. Schedule first, it puts it in. We are doing treatment. How you pay for it, that’s your decision.

But on this, we’re going to make sure that we’re scheduling first. And I’m not going to say when do you want to get scheduled? I’m going to say let’s get you scheduled. I’ve got Monday or Wednesday. Which do you prefer? Then after that, we’re going to then present the trim plan. So it’s going to be $76, it’s going to be $7,600. Insurance is estimated for this amount. This will be your total out of pocket when I see you on Wednesday. What questions do you have for me? I want you to be rock solid confident moving forward. Now, fun fact, today I was in an office. there’s only one gal up front. The other one wasn’t there. And

I got thrown right back into the saddle. I was answering phones, I was scheduling, I was treatment planning. I was like, whew, gotta see if I still got it or if this is just something I podcast about. Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like you to know Kiera Dent still has it. I’m still very good at treatment planning. Closed every single treatment plan I presented today, had all of them signed, it did same-day treatment today in office, doing this exact formula. Went in, presented it exactly like I tell you here. Every single patient signed, even if they have questions or objections, we then tie it back.

Amazing. Let’s talk about it. Tell me what’s going on. Tell me more. I want to understand. Tie to their driver. Is it cosmetic, function, cost, or longevity? You go past the no two times. Let’s look at it. We don’t plant like objections that they didn’t talk about. Don’t talk about money if they don’t bring it up. Don’t talk about time if they don’t bring it up. Don’t talk about pain if they don’t bring it up. Wait for them to ask those questions. Don’t sit there and plant it. If they don’t say it, don’t bring it up.

if it’s a spouse objection, I’m like, what questions do you think they’ll have? I want you to be sure you’re fully prepared to answer all their questions. At work, absolutely, let’s get you scheduled. I, Kiera, would hate to forget about you. So, like, if something comes up, no problem. Just give me a jingle, I’ll take care of it. but this way I don’t let you slip through the cracks. I would hate to forget about you. They will schedule. Everyone wants to be important. Money, let’s talk about it, will never be cheaper, more predictable than it is today. Time, like they should already know that through that perfect handoff. It’s gonna take 90 minutes, it’s gonna take two hours. Like,

We can figure that out. Pain, like this is what most patients experience. Like, don’t make it worse than it is. Don’t make it better than it is. Like be honest with them so they trust you. If it’s overwhelming, let’s make sure we’ve got a clear next visit. Let’s don’t give them five options. There’s so many ways that you can overcome objections. It’s not hard, but you do need to track it. You do need to measure it. We do need to get better at our case acceptance. It is one of the fastest, easiest ways to grow your practice without needing to go and get more new patients.

You just increase your diagnosis and your case acceptance and your handoffs. Having a nice case acceptance protocol where we practice it, we rep it, we repeat it. I love it. I’ve been able to get about 15 treatment coordinators across multi-offices, really, really strong. Then we go to the next level. So, like people who weren’t able to present like $1,000. Now they’re presenting $15,000 cases with confidence. What’s the next level? What are we struggling with? What are the areas that we’re not able to close? Let’s work on that. What’s the objection you’re hearing?

Kiera, people are maxed out on insurance. Okay, let’s work through that. What are they saying? Let’s role play through it. Let’s figure it out. But having treatment coordinators and doctors realize that case acceptance is an art. You need to just keep constantly refining and improving. And if you don’t have it in your calendar to work on your case acceptance at least once a month, you’re missing a ton of opportunity. That’s with your treatment coordinator, your hygienist, and your doctors. Let’s work through it. Let’s look at all the ones that are going to be like let’s look at everybody who didn’t say yes this month.

Why didn’t they say yes? Let’s role play through it. Let’s hear what we said. How did we present it? How could we present this better? What like case acceptance is usually won or lost within one word. It’s usually one or two words that you said. Like listen to it, record yourself. Listen back to the exams. Share those exams. Share how we presented it. Front office, record yourself. Let’s listen to it. You listening to it back is going to teach you so much more than what you think you said. What people think they say versus what they actually say. People are like, Kiera, I didn’t say that. And I’m like,

No, actually, I was like standing here and you did say that. Or they’re like, I hear all the time. so do you want to get that scheduled today? Why did you just ask that? Let’s get you scheduled today. Let’s schedule you. Then it’s like, well, you know, you want morning or afternoon. Why don’t we say, like, doctor dentist does their fillings at 8 a.m. or 3 p.m.? Which works best for you? They’re a doctor. I never go to the dermatologist and they’re like, Kiera, when does it work best for you to come? No.

They’re the dermatologist, they’re the oral surgeon, they’re this. They tell me when I can schedule. It’s not the other way around. Let’s start doing that. Let’s start helping patients see that they’re so lucky to come here. Now that doesn’t mean we can’t be accommodating, but it does mean that we don’t walk ourselves into traps accidentally. So improving your case acceptance, having a solid case acceptance protocol, you focus on that. You’re gonna grow your practice faster than anything else. So review it, have it set, review this every single month, non-negotiable, and you will grow.

Then the step three that you can do, it does come into marketing. Okay, okay, okay. but having consistent marketing, not random marketing. So marketing is predictable, so it’s not like panicking, like, we don’t have patience, let’s market. Marketing is one of those things where you’ve just got to be it’s like branding. You’re out there constantly. So we’re out there and we have getting reviews. Reviews is the fastest, easiest marketing that doesn’t cost you a penny. Like you can get 12 or $149, I think is what it is.

Just tell them Dental A Team sent you. I think it’s about that. They’ll send out reviews for you. Like, sure, that’s $149. But if it gets you reviews and patients, very inexpective. The best marketing is Google reviews by far. You can have that in your office. You can have things where people are talking about it. You can talk to patients. You can ask patients for it. Like you have to have a way to be collecting reviews. It’s the fastest, easiest way to grow. Be involved in your community, have referral system where people they refer patients to your practice and it’s a consistent referral. And then track your marketing performance.

Do that. What I find is most people do not stay consistent on that. Everything I told you comes from consistency. It’s consistency on scheduling. It’s consistency on morning huddle. It’s consistency on calling on scheduled treatment. Then it’s gonna be on case acceptance, reviewing it, diagnosing handoffs, like just practicing that and then having consistent marketing where we look at this. You stay consistent on those three things, your practice will grow. Period. It will. But we all get crazy and we’re like, we’re so busy. We’re so busy that we’re running ourselves into open schedules.

I also have a rule. My team knows you do not leave the practice with holes in the schedule. Period. That’s you have an ownership. If you’re over my schedule, you do not leave without that schedule being full. Period. People can do it. And guess what? If that’s the standard and expectation, they get really good. Because we all don’t want to stay late. But you are calling. You’re sending out those outbound calls. Our case acceptance need to be this. Own the case acceptance. Have the doctor schedule to go. That is your baby. You take care of this. We review it. Have people own these areas.

But really own it. This is going to help you tremendously. So growth’s not always about just getting more in people. There is so much growth and opportunity in your practice right now. Every single office I go into always has unscheduled treatment. They always have unscheduled recare. Always, always, always. Let’s go for it. Let’s start asking. Who else can we schedule? There are so many easy ways. Let’s diagnose, let’s check our case acceptance. Let’s watch our marketing numbers. Do this. Be consistent.

You just need to do a better job with the opportunities you already have there. It doesn’t have to be crazy. It doesn’t have to be hard. It’s there. and so I just want you guys to know that it’s very doable. Now, if you need help with this or your team’s not bought into it, if you’re like, my gosh, my schedule’s light, or we have this and I hear you on the podcast, but I can’t get my team bought in. Reach out. We are the literally the dentist and team experts. We do this for a living. We are really, really, really freaking good at it. So reach out. [email protected]. Let’s make it to where we have a consistent, predictable schedule. Let’s get these systems in place. I worked with an office for three months.

500,000 collected. We worked with another office, millions added to their practice every single year, consistently, just by doing reps with our team. It’s not always about reinventing the will. Sometimes it’s just being consistent with the will you already have. So let’s make like, let’s make magic with what we already have. Let’s take care of those patients we already have. Let’s dig into those. I promise you it’s way easier than you think it is. Let’s just be consistent and let’s pull the right levers that are actually gonna grow your practice with ease.

Reach out. I’d love to help you. [email protected]. And as always, thanks for listening. I’ll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.