How to get the most out of that little gray box.
Dental Practice Management Software is such an important tool of any office. The key to efficiency is to be able to extract the important information that will help drive the practice upward. In my own experiences in the last 26 years in dentistry and with information that I receive from thousands of dentists I speak to every single year, here is some key information that you need to be able to receive from your practice management software for you to make important decisions about your practice.
New Patient Reports – It is obvious that knowing how many new patients your office receives every single month is an important barometer of your internal and external marketing efforts. We often receive in the mail ridiculous claims by companies that claim they can send you 100 to 200 new patients per month. Simply put, if your office tried to embrace 100 to 200 new patients per month, you would not be doing any productive dentistry other than just examinations. You would have no place to put these patients. A healthy number of 20 to 30 is more than adequate to keep your practice growing.
Treatment Acceptance Reports – I’m going to put a little twist on treatment acceptance reports that you may not have thought of and which I learned from Imtiaz Manji. Tracking treatment acceptance for cases of $1,000 to $2,000 is really not going to give you much information at all. Most dental offices regularly present treatment plans in this range that are fairly easily accepted by patients. A tooth that may need endodontic therapy, a post, a buildup, and a crown, can easily surpass the $2,000 mark. Treatment acceptance reports that reflect how much case acceptance there has been in the $5,000 and up is an extremely valuable tool to see if you are presenting treatment effectively and in tune with your patients.
Procedure Type Reports – This report can tell you the breakdown of different dental procedures that you are billing for and is a very accurate measure as to whether or not you are doing procedures in tune with your treatment philosophy. Treatment mix is vitally important to the health of any practice. Comparing the kind of treatments that you do over the course of a few years will also give you an incredibly accurate snapshot of whether or not your practice is meeting your treatment philosophy goals.
Hygiene Recall List – This is not going to be the typical report that you may find is available in your software program. Can you answer this question? If you took all of the patients that you currently have now in hygiene, do you know what the average recall time is for your patients? Is it indeed 6 months, 9 months, 12 months, and 2 years? Do you even know or do you have any handle on this? I would venture to say that most of you reading this do not have any idea whatsoever. Most dentists that I speak to seem to think that their patients’ average time would typically fall between six and nine months.
Your practice management software is as important to your practice as any piece of dental equipment. It also needs to be routinely upgraded, maintained, and occasionally replaced. Make sure that you are getting the most out of your practice management software and that you have the right people who can generate important information that will help your practice reach the next level.