Is Your Practice Healthy?

Well, how would you even know that your practice is healthy? What does a “healthy” practice look like? What are the indicators? The good news is that, just as we can assess the health of someone’s gums by looking at a few key indicators, we can also assess the health of our practices. Here are a few key questions to ask.

1. Are we cash-flow-positive?

Understanding this involves more than just submitting numbers to your accountant each year. A healthy practice has an annual plan that forecasts actual expenses, and makes sure that the production (and collections) covers those expenses.

Your accountant’s job is to show the ATO that you don’t earn very much and shouldn’t have to pay tax, but what if you want to be able to budget for new equipment, or an upgrade of your chair, or give yourself a pay increase? Tax reporting is important, but is only half of the story.

Owners of healthy practices learn to project expenses, production and collections, and to keep track of their actual expenditure and income. This empowers you, and enables you to have all the things you want!

2. Do we have a strong flow of fabulous patients?

Practice owners often assume that being busy is a good thing and indicates a healthy business. But this isn’t always true; this mindset is similar to that of patients who think that brushing really hard means that their mouth is healthy.

Healthy patient flow should be equated with concepts like: are we getting the right sort of patients in the door? In other words: are your patients willing and able to get the dental treatment that’s best for them? A healthy practice has a strong marketing plan that generates a flow of patients who want comprehensive dental care. Ideally, every dentist does one comprehensive new patient exam every day that they work, and healthy practices track the effectiveness of those exams.

Adequate patient flow also means that everyone getting the treatment they need when they need it. In other words: is your patient base on a healthy cycle with their preventative care? A healthy practice has about 85% of its patient base cooperating with preventative care visits, and avoiding emergencies wherever possible.

In addition, fabulous patients rave about you!

A healthy practice uses surveys to assess the customer service so that you can act on anything that’s going wrong and embed the things you’re doing well.

3. Do we have strong systems?

There are 50 practice systems that work together to get a “win” for the patient, a “win” for the team and a “win” for the practice as a business. These systems work together like an umbrella to protect you from external influences that are beyond your control.

A healthy practice has implemented the 50 systems so that they achieve all three wins. The systems should also be independent of the knowledge base of any given team member, and should be so well embedded that it is effective even if team members leave. This means that your training system needs to be one of the systems that’s working really well!

Ask yourself: how many of your systems are that healthy?

4. Do we have a strong team?

A healthy practice has a highly motivated, well trained team that’s committed to the best interests of the patients and the best interests of the practice. The hiring system should be identifying the key attributes of the ideal candidates for each role in the practice. Practice owners should have strong leadership skills and know how to motivate team members to get the best out of them. (By the way, the good news is that you can learn to be a good leader even if you feel you’re not currently good at it!)

Healthy practices also provide career paths for their teams, and often have low staff turnover is low. They also know, though, that turnover isn’t always a bad thing and can lead to the opportunity to hire someone who strongly reflects the practice’s vision.

So: how are you feeling about the answers to these questions in your practice? If you want to know more, Momentum can help!

For further information, visit www. momentummanagement.com.au or call 1300 510 000 for details on all the different ways in which Momentum can assist you.