Episode : #1,203: Have This Problem? There’s a System For That.

Podcast Description

Establishing the right systems in your practice creates consistency, profitability, and freedom in ways that individual effort is never going to. Kiera talks about the difference between systems and the people using them, how to know if you need a new system, why the right system equals scalability, and more.

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Transcript:

Kiera (00:00)

Hello, Dental A Team Listeners. This is Kiera. And today I want to just go back to basics with you because I think that this is such an important thing because we talk so much about systems, but I think people want systems and we talk about systems and like what are systems? And like what is the difference between a system and needing to train people? And I think that there’s just this like back and forth in our worlds where we think like, hey, if I get a system, everything’s gonna work. Or

Hey, if I get the right people and train them, then it’s all going to work. And I think that they go hand in hand. And so today I wanted to kind of break down, dispel, disseminate, and like what exactly is a system? What exactly should we train? How do we put these two things together? And how do you really get the freedom that you’re looking for? Like, we’re about to roll into a mastermind and I was building the content. So spoiler alert, if you’re not a part of our in-person masterminds, get your booties over into Dental A Team because we do meet twice a year and have a leadership mastermind where doctors and OMs get together with myself.

our entire consulting team, and we really talk about things off record. So there’s no cameras, there’s no recording in there, and it’s just a rift area. And I was working on like what do dentists really want? And it’s the control paradox. They want control, but the way you get control is by knowing that your systems are working for you and people are reporting. You don’t want to actually do all the pieces, but you want it to report back to you and you want to know things are being done your way. Yes or yes yes. Like, am I speaking to you? And do I know you? I hope so. Because I absolutely love dentists. I want to just give you a giant hug and I want to remind you.

That you are doing better than you think you are. I want to remind you that there is an easier path than what you’re doing. And I wish I could find somebody that was the Kiera Dent for dental consulting companies. I wish, I wish I could find her. I had a client tell me today, he said, Kiera, you have blessed the world of dentistry in so many ways. And I take that as such a huge compliment because not only did we make their practice better, but that doctor is literally working seven to three, four days a week, taking home several millions a year, living their best life, being with their kids, and to be able to give someone their life back.

Be able to help grow them personally and professionally, that is the greatest gift in honor. And so I am so honored that this is the job I get to do. This is the company that we have. And so while systems are annoying, I want to remind you like this is the way that you’re actually going to get the freedom, aka the control that you want to be able to see if your practice is working. So I want you guys to recognize we’ve got to do systems, we’ve got to do training, we’ve got to hold accountable. We can’t just put it in play. Like there’s cure, this feels hard. I know one of our core values is ease. So I’m gonna try and break it down with you.

Of ease. These are things that we’ve done hundreds of thousands of times. We work across the nation with small boutique practices. We’re talking Medicaid, FIFA service, boutique, natural path to multi-locations. I’ve got a practice that is building, I’m not joking, a 50 op location. So you name it. We’ve seen so much in our world. We’ve seen the DSO world. We’ve seen the private practice world. We’ve seen DSO’s gone wrong. We’ve seen DSO’s gone right. I feel like having that experience and credibility is something whew.

You can’t get other than just living through it. And then my job is to give you as much of that and to hopefully work with you, empower you, change your world, whatever it is. All I ask in return is that you leave us a comment, you leave those five stars, and you share this with someone. That’s all I ask. Because if we can serve and help more people just like you, that is the greatest gift. You guys know my mission is to possibly impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. That’s why I do this. This is why I do it for free. I don’t charge you anything. I don’t ever, we don’t even have ads. We do our own thing because

Wanna make sure that we’re giving you guys back high value quality. So, with that, what I want you guys to realize is systems are going to create consistency, profitability, and freedom in ways that individual effort is never going to fix for you. So, number one, systems are what’s gonna create that consistency for you. So when a person leaves, we don’t want that knowledge to go out the door with them. When someone has a day off, we don’t want that knowledge to go with them. We want to have that system of stability through all of it. And that’s what it’s gonna create. I remember the day that I had my company go through, it was a three month project, and I had us work.

Actually, break down our entire operations manual. There was like a sense of relief in breath that I could relief that I never realized I had. Now, that is a hard project, and usually it’s not gonna move the needle for you. I’ll tell you that was one of my worst quarters. Profitability-wise, we didn’t grow, but stability-wise, we exponentially grew. Now it’s been about five years since I did that project, and guess what? We’ve outgrown those systems. So guess what? It’s probably time for us to do it, and we are actually working on our next version of it. And I’m so excited about it because it’s gonna be so much better.

We do not like the way you can tell a system is missing is every team member does it differently. So if you walk in and you’re having different assistants work with you and every assistant sets it up differently, guess what? You probably don’t have a system. You just have people just doing it their own way. If different schedulers or if a scheduler is out and our schedule doesn’t go the same way, now that doesn’t mean case acceptance is perfect because there are some skills behind it, but that does mean that we have a set follow-up, we do the same billing. If this person’s out for a week, everybody would be able to do it. That’s going to help.

If new hires struggle to learn, we don’t have a system. We have it being where people are telling each other. If results depend on who’s working that day, you don’t have a system. You have a people thing. So what we want to have is, excuse me, you want to have documented processes, you want to have standardized expectations, and we want everybody to be trained the same way. But we also want to make sure that that system really is getting us the results that we want. So what we do is

I’m big on when we take on an office instead of doing a whole operations manual like I did. You can do that. Don’t worry, we can help you with that if that’s your like main shebang. but typically what we’re gonna do is we’re going to look at what is the vision of the practice, what does that doctor and owner want? And then what are the numbers telling us? And usually your number that’s the lowest number or what the PL tells us, that’s where we’re first gonna build systems because everybody wants the system to win, right? Like if I come in and I put in a protocol for I don’t know, like scheduling.

But your schedule’s great. We’re all out on time. We’re hitting our productive goals. Sure, that’s nice to have. And I’d like it documented of what we’re currently doing to make sure, like if that person’s out, we can repeat it. But odds are that’s probably not my biggest pain point. Now, there is a flip side to that. And I will say that if team members leave, then yes, it is a very detrimental. So at a minimum, I like every team member to have a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly list of what they do and at least those protocols written down. So if someone’s out, I can grab their checklist and I can be like, all right.

Sarah daily does this, and here is where it is in the drive, or here’s a video of it, or here’s a checklist of it. So that way if Sarah’s gone on vacation, nothing that Sarah is doing is dropped. So non-negotiable for me is everybody has to have a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. If you want those, guess what? We have them for all of our clients. So makes life real easy. And that’s just something we’ve built, but every person should have that. Then what we’re gonna look at is we’re gonna actually build systems based on the metrics and the numbers. Because basically we’ve got the core processes done.

Those are core processes daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, what do we do? And we’ve got quick systems built behind the scenes. So that way I’ve got everybody’s job. So if anybody walks out and leaves me, I’m not sitting here like, huh, how do we like it’s crazy. Whenever someone goes on vacation, I’m like, awesome. Let’s see if we’ve got a protocol written for this. Let’s see if we’ve written it down. Can we figure out how to do podcast scripts? Can we figure out how to do podcast reels? Can we figure out how we do podcast recordings? Can we figure out how we do payments? Can we figure out how we schedule?

And if we don’t have all that written down to where anybody without being told can do it, let’s start with that. So, and then after that, let’s look at what our numbers are telling us and let’s build systems there. So if like a front office doesn’t have a great scheduling system, which happens, you get wildly different outcomes based on who’s answering the phone, who’s there. Once you put into play a scheduling protocol, here’s our block schedule, here’s how we do all of our scheduling, instantly consistency improves, production goes up, everybody goes home on time. That’s a system.

So I believe that great practices aren’t dependent on individual memory. They’ve got to be dependent on you and your practice and like where no matter who comes in, yes, I want eight players, but I want eight players to be able to follow a system and a process. Systems make excellence repeatable. And I think that that is a great line for you to take down. Systems make excellence repeatable. So what do you have going on? How is this for you? And so I just want you to like quickly look through if you don’t have your daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual plans, start there.

If you do look at an area based on your numbers and your metrics of where are maybe we are missing in this section that I could have variable results and we could document a process so I get set results per people. That’s gonna help you have just a process for it. And like I said, this is going to reduce your stress, give you the control that you’re looking for, and the consistent results that I know you’re dying for. So next step is systems actually reduce stress and decision fatigue. Once we have a system and a process, like this is how we always set up for a crowd.

This is how we always schedule. This is what we do for hiring. Here’s how we place the ads. You don’t have to constantly be thinking of what to do. Teams get overwhelmed not because they’re busy. It’s because they’re constantly deciding and making up new processes and protocols. Like, yes, they’re busy, but think about what they’re busy on. It’s like, shoot, we don’t know how to hire. We don’t have a set process. Like we don’t have a recare reactivation process. So it just automatically goes. So our schedule is always full.

Like we always call 20 people every single day, non-negotiable. I don’t care if it’s a busy day, a bad day, a great day, a wonderful day, a horrible day. We make 20 phone calls every single day and we send out 20 texts every single day, non-negotiable to make sure our schedule is full. Then we have a recare reactivation. So at the beginning of every month, we run these items, we send out the postcards, we send out the letters, we send out the text, whatever your process is, we do that every single first day. For me as a CEO, every single like I literally woke up.

At midnight this month because my standard is by the 30th or 31st last day of the month, all of the money transfers for profit first are made non-negotiable. That’s what I do. I don’t want to think about it, I don’t want to make that decision like, am I gonna save money this month? Am I no, it’s just a process, it’s a cadence. So when we’re missing a system, it looks like team members are asking the same questions repeatedly. Like, pay attention, what questions are coming up? We need a system and a process that’s easy and repeatable. Leaders.

Solving problems day in, day out. Doctors, you are the solving machine. It comes to you constantly, constantly, constantly. You don’t have a system for that. Or constant interruptions throughout the day. Hey, what do you think we should do about this? Hey, what do you think we should do about that? Hey, there’s a process for this. Hey, we already have that written. So, what successful practices do is they create clear workflows. We have established expectations, and then we just repeat build repeatable processes and systems that are very easy to find. So again, that daily, weekly, quarterly has been my easiest one for people to just find like.

What am I supposed to do? I don’t know. Well, great. Here’s what we do on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly per position in our practice. And then here’s how to do it. So if daily we join morning huddle, well, here’s our process, here’s a form, here’s the agenda that you fill in and it has it written out. Office manager does this part, dental assistant does this part, hygienist does this part. No one has to think about it. Everybody knows we all come prepared for morning huddle. We win our day.

At the end of the day, we have an end-of-day checklist that just makes sure we have all the pieces checked off. This is what we do. We’re set up to win in billing. We know every single first length Monday we run this new report. We’re working through these accounts. By the end of the month, I’m expected to get all the way through all those items of every single patient in the AR. every single day I resend batched claims, like those are just systems. New patients, we have a new patient form. We are able to schedule them within 15 minutes.

and we make sure that they are always confirmed 48 hours in advance. We leave no open holes. Like if someone’s unconfirmed, they don’t get to stay on the schedule. Case acceptance, here’s our follow-up process for every single appointment that we we present. Hygiene, here’s our period protocol. So every hygienist is presenting period the exact same way. We have NDTR handoffs on our route slips, like simple, easy things that are going to fix your practice because not only will you get higher production, but there’s less chaos.

Like team members just know what to do. They’re like, well, how do get that well operated? Like, there is the lean management that you can look at. It’s really how do I break this down in the most simple, repeatable processes? And for me, I don’t like yes have a form so people can follow it, but I’m big on like what can I have the software do for me? What can I do to set this up? So like block scheduling, it’s very clear that we don’t schedule within that. Now, do people have to follow the blocks? Yes.

So that we just have an accountability piece that we follow this through. And if you choose to schedule in the block, great. We have an audit system. Our OM has an audit system at the end of the week. Anyone who’s scheduled inside those blocks gets to call that patient on Friday. Ding, ding, ding. Nobody wants to do that. Nobody, nobody breaks the blocks. We have an end-of-day checklist. It’s reviewed every single day and it’s turned back into our team members at the morning huddle. We have a morning huddle agenda that we follow, non-negotiable. We have a weekly meeting form. We have L10 meetings that we run with our teams.

These are systems that just make your practice run. And so for that, I want you just to see like systems are going to help create that mental space that you and your practice are craving. And so when you think about your team, think about fewer decisions that they have to make. That’s going to give them more energy to serve patients, more energy to be able to like have that customer service, that care, rather than like, shoot, I don’t know where I need to schedule this person. Or like, hey, what do I do when a patient calls for this? The goal is that people should be able to do this without you.

So I would ask your team like, what’s one or two tasks that if we handled it differently every time, what’s one of those tasks that we just every one of us does it a different way? And then let’s build a system for that and all of us follow through on that. And then systems just, you know, they do create the scalability and the freedom. So I love to build like you and your vision, make sure your earnings and profit are there. And then we put systems into place, but it should be like systems that lead to scalability and scalability that leads to legacy for you. So you want growth, you want freedom, you want that. Systems are gonna help you do this.

Think if you went and opened up another practice today. Trust me, I did this. I had my first practice for nine months, opened up our second location. Yeah, that was super thrilling. And I thought I had systems. We did not have a system for how we scheduled. We did not have a system for how the doctors were scheduled. We did not have a system for how we check in, check out patients. We did not have a system for how we do sterilization. We did not have a system for how we do hygiene perio. Guess what? That became double. Remember that? Like double the flavor, double the fun, double, I think, I don’t know, the flavor with double mint gum.

That’s what happened. And it was double the stress, double the chaos, double the nonsense with double the practice ownership. So there’s your little jingle for the day. So we have to look to see like, all right, whether you want to scale to multi-locations, whether you want to have less clinical days that you’re working, systems are gonna create that scalability. But again, you can have a system written. So we build the system first, we train leaders on the systems. Then this is the third clutch piece is we have to have accountability around the system. I don’t know how many teams roll out a billing procedure.

But they don’t follow up with it. So then it just goes by the wayside. We create a scheduling protocol, but we don’t audit the schedule to ensure it’s working. You can’t just have a system that has no follow through. It has to have accountability. Otherwise, you’re always gonna just have a lot of words, a lot of pretty paper, and not get the results you want. So for me, I’m big on cadences like end of week checklist, end of month checklist. What needs to get done? What are the things that need to be reviewed and audited? Let’s create that for you. And we have that for office managers, we have that for

l leaders. this is a big space to be able to have it. And so I think once a a good example of this is there’s a doctor who wanted to have a vacation. This is a doctor I’ve worked with who I think has been in practice for about 20 years. And last year they went on a vacation for a month, a whole month. This doctor went off they went and did golf they went and raced cars. They had just the best time and the practices actually did better than they’ve ever done. And all the systems were intact. All the team was there.

Team knew what to do. There were a couple of things that the office manager was like, I don’t know what to do, Kiera, like help me out. We worked through it. We created a system and a process. So in the future, those things are done. You’ll never be able to have everything done. But if they know who to go to, they know where to go. But all the doctors were able to hit production, they were able to run their morning huddles, they were able to have of day checklists. That doctor was able to truly have a real vacation and the leaders were to keep the systems going. They didn’t come back to fires and chaos and like the schedule broken.

They have these as systems, they have them as protocols, they have them with accountability, and the practice can continue running successfully without you there. That to me is the pinnacle of systems creating that scalability, that structure. Because, like again, going back to the beginning, where we’re like, is it systems? Is it training? It’s systems, then it’s training, and then it’s accountability. Systems train accountability. I wish I could say it sat, like the SAT.

systems accountability training but it’s got to go the reverse so STA sorry maybe that’s like the beginning of start STA figure R T if anybody wants to come up with an alliteration for me go for it but it’s systems training accountability maybe then it’s results the freedom there you go there’s your start you’re welcome so systems training accountability results the freedom okay there’s your start acronym I hope that Alex has a good time with these show notes for you

But that’s systems, that’s scalability, that’s repeatability, that’s getting the results you want, but it’s systems training accountability. That’s how we start getting the freedom we want. That’s how we start getting the results we want, that’s how we start making the progress that we want, that’s how we get started. So, what I would recommend is remembering that systems do create this consistency, systems do reduce stress, systems can create scalability and freedom if done correctly with the system written down, documented.

Then trained to the entire team and then held accountable that we actually follow through. And for me in that training piece, I like it to be anything that’s automated. Put it on a route slip, put it in a note template, put it as an automated thing at the end of the week, create it to where it automatically emails out to everybody. And here’s the checklist that we do. Whatever you gotta do, automate it as much as possible. that should be sk system training, automate and accountability. There you go. Results, the freedom. but really

People are so powerful and systems make that power repeatable. So if you want help on this, if you need help on this, if you want to go from where you are to where you know you could be, if you’re sick of being in the rut that you’ve been in for so long, reach out. Because guess what? You don’t need to keep solving the same problems over and over and over again. And when I look at Dental A

Team and the struggles I have, I have hired people that literally know where I need to go and they’ve been able to get me there. And then I’ve also had people that didn’t know how to get there and it was a struggle for me.

So hire somebody who’s been there, done that, and can actually like cut through the noise for you, get your team aligned, get things moving forward. That’s what we do. So reach out [email protected]. This is your time to shine. This is your time not to stress anymore. And I can’t wait to help you get the freedom, get the control that you’re looking for. And systems are a great way to do it. So reach out [email protected]. And as always, thanks for listening. And I’ll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.