Effective solutions that simplify daily tasks while running your practice have proven to increase its growth dramatically over a shorter length of time. Delegating complicated tasks to a reputable dental consulting company can lift management burden and further strengthen the focus on patient care. This can be especially true, as client acquisition increases but also applies to offices who want to increase their database. Reputable consulting companies have experience with helping a practice address underlying issues related to production, staff, and long term goals. For those who have pondered the idea of working with a consulting company, or want to gain insight on what role they can play in building your dental practice, read on. We collaborated with Sarah A.K. Boylan Director of Business Development for ePractice Manager (a leading national consulting company) and her team, to ask a few questions on what advantages a consulting company can offer, along with how to find the right fit!
What challenges can a consulting company provide solutions for?
Our main focus is helping a practice with all of their internal streamlining processes (case acceptance, billing, patient flow, patient handoff, scheduling), front office staff training, executive leadership hiring and training, review marketing, KPI’s and partnerships.
What services can a consulting company offer to a practice, overwhelmed with handling a multitude of tasks?
ePM assists the practices with implementation through office visits, consistent phone/email support, webinars, an extensive online course library through ePM, and KPI tracking systems and evaluation.
Can you name major tasks a practice may struggle dealing with alone?
Employee management is a big one. Many doctors want to be able to focus majority of their time on clinical/patient matters. Oftentimes an office is lacking a strong OM who is aligned with the partnership’s Mission and can efficiently manage day-to-day office management.
Last spring during the COVID shutdown, a lot of clients came to us looking for answers on how to deal with furloughed employees, PPP Loans, and safely rebooting a practice. We saw many clients who has extreme growth during this period and came back with higher case acceptance numbers than before.
What is important to consider when searching for a dental consulting company? Is this a cookie cutter formula, or is it custom tailored to your practice? What experience does the team have?Check references with someone who it worked well for, and then didn’t work for. Get objective viewpoints.
Does it work? What kind of results can you expect? How long will it take to see improvement? Can they help you grow over time?
Over the past three decades we can definitively say that yes, it does work. The delivery to each client is unique, we have clients who are just starting off and buying their first practice, others who have been stuck in a slow decline, and some ready for expansion. One of the most important tools we implement immediately is tracking all Key Performance Indicators. We use these KPIs to track growth and pinpoint weakness in the infrastructure. From there we know what kind of program needs to be built for the client.
What are the top time consuming tasks that you see dentists / dental professionals dealing with?
Again, the biggest issue we see dental professionals dealing with is employee management. However, we also help doctors navigate partnership problems, transition problems, referral or practice growth issues.
In your time working with practices, what are the top related aspects to running a successful practice? Any unforeseen problems, that a consulting company can assist with, especially when first starting a practice?
Their referral base (for specialists) and getting a handle on their expenses, completing cost ratios. First starting a practice, depends on if they purchased existing or starting from scratch.
Consistent analysis of their own situation, the market, their goals, and their ability to get from where they are to where they want to be. GREAT communication with patients, staff, referring practices, vendors, their own executive team, to formulate, enact, adapt and revisit plans, projects, goals, progress and results.
Any advice for practices new to searching for the right consulting companies to work with?
Make a list of goals you would like to achieve by working with a consulting firm, interview consulting firm/ask a lot of questions to see if they are the right fit, are their priorities aligned with yours? Ask yourself if you are ready and willing to put work into your practice. Working with a consulting firm is very hands on at the beginning-probably for the first year to two years. Our program is custom tailored to help doctors achieve their goals in business and in their personal lives.
e-PracticeManager implements personnel and training systems that relive the management burden and allow doctors to focus on patient care. Thye have over three decades of experience and thousands of clients across the U.S. & Canada. They help doctors address a variety of issues ranging from, personnel and staff issues, low production, partnership problems, referral relationship issues, long term practice goals and more!
Contact info:
Sarah A.K. Boylan, MBA
Sarah@epracticemanager.comwww.epracticemanager.com
Authors: Lauren Hollander & Katerina Gelotte of e-PracticeManager. Sarah A.K. Boylan, MBA of e-PracticeManager