Kiera joins Dr. Paul Etchison on the Dental Practice Heroes podcast to talk about the infamous front desk and how to finally figure out what levers should be pulled and which should be pushed to get the department in ship-shape. The best part about this episode is that Kiera and Dr. Etchison make the steps to success easy to understand and implement.
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Transcript:
The Dental A Team (00:00)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today we are sharing a guest interview I did on another podcast. And it was too valuable not to bring you guys here.
this episode, you're gonna hear this host lead the conversation and then I'll wrap us up at the end. I cannot wait. It was truly one of my most incredible episodes and I truly hope you enjoy.
speaker-0 (00:19)
Kiera, so glad to have you back on the podcast. It's always a joy having you on here. And I'll tell the listeners, I've worked personally with Kiera a number of occasions, someone I very much trust, someone I respect entirely in the industry and just knows her stuff and always a great guest to have you on. And today we're going to be talking about, you know, front desk stuff where
I work with a lot of clients. Do you work with a lot of clients? I don't know if you share the same regard. I would love to hear your opinion on this, but I would say most of the clients that I work with, the front desk tends to be their most chaotic and unorganized department. I mean, do you feel that you share the same sentiment?
speaker-1 (00:59)
Yeah, Paul super excited to be on the podcast with you. Always enjoy a good chat and I mean, think proof's in the pudding. Do you remember the number one reason you called me to work with you the first time? Oh yeah, I was front office.
speaker-0 (01:12)
I think it was the second time and the third time.
speaker-1 (01:14)
It really all those times were and the answer is yes and this is why I created Dental A Team is because like Working in the dental college and seeing so many dental students like you guys learn how to Drop your box on an MO and like how do I have a perfect crown prep? You don't learn how do I do the billing and how do I do the insurance and how do I schedule patients like you learn how to have patient etiquette and great dentistry and so that's why I created Dental A Team like it's dentists and teams like hey dentist let's get you to rock your space and then let's work on the team side because
because even myself as a team member, there was no learning. It was like, just do it. And I'm like, well, what do I just do? And so I think the front office just feels so elusive. It feels so scary. And like, Paul, you're in someone's mouth. You're not like, ? how do I do an insurance claim? And so I think there's so many nuances, but also for dentists, the front office is the gatekeeper of your money. Like they're the ones who schedule for you. They're the ones who present your cases for you. They're the ones who collect the money for you. They're the ones who bill for you. So so much of your financial freedom and like,
your paycheck is also directed by a department you don't even understand. So I think that that's why there's so much just like, it's not conflict, it's just almost like unknown and it feels daunting. And so you don't even know what levers to push or pull because you don't even understand how the how the engine works. It'd be like, hey, Kiera, my car is making a sound and I'm like, good, I don't know what to do. Like, that's not even my realm. And I think that that's how a lot of dentists feel about the front office. So, yeah, that's why that's why I exist and why I love to
be on the podcast and share because it doesn't need to feel daunting or scary, nor do you need to do it all. I think just being aware and knowing what things to look for, what things you can expect and having a hopefully a trusted voice in the industry where like, hey, I'm here, no judgment. Like just ask all the questions and let's help you guys get your team up to par. And also for team members, cause they, lot of times don't even know what they should do either.
speaker-0 (03:05)
Yeah, absolutely. They're just thrown in there and said, here, figure it out. Do it. Just answer the phone and do all this fun stuff. I mean, like, I think what struggles for dentists as practice owners is we just don't understand, like you mentioned. We don't understand, like, how to send a claim, how to look at an insurance breakdown. But whereas every other element of the practice, we have a deeper understanding on it. Do you think, I mean, I'm sure it would be beneficial, but is it necessary for a dentist to learn everything about claim submission and all these things?
front desk related? Or can we get by with some more higher level organizations such as you provide?
speaker-1 (03:41)
I think, Paul, it depends on who you are. think Paul Etchison, I would say you probably can get by with some high level. You got it, you got it figured out, you can sift through. For some other doctors, they want to at least know. But I would say it's a blanket statement across the board. I think at least having a slight awareness, go up to the front office and just sit there and be like, hey, walk me through how you submit a claim. ? I think you even knowing some of the jargon, the language of
what's going on up there. Like, can I see an EOB? ? That's like, and I think it's kind of like, go back Paul, being a business owner, I equate front office to like a PNL and CPA and bookkeeping. We have all learned how to run a business without being a CPA or a bookkeeper, but it's because we're in the language of the PNL. And I think, how can you get into the language of the front office? You know yourself, but.
I think abdication and just like delegation, like hands off is probably a dangerous space to be, think for any business owner. Like I don't want to be in sales, but if I don't understand the sales process, that's not going to work. Marketing, like, okay, great. But I need to at least understand the nuances of it. And I think that's the same for front office. So I would say as a simple blip, why not just go up and listen to how your front office schedules? Why not go up and just see how they submit claims or verify insurance?
And then, yes, I would talk to and listen to podcasts by the Dental A Team or other trusted individuals in the field. ? We have online courses that we've created for all of these. Not so dentists learn it, but just to like, what's kind of my, I don't know, like front office for dummies, like go back to those books that they had, like, what's my quick overview to where I'm not going to get screwed over, I'm not going to get embezzled from, I'm going to know what to expect of my team. And I'm even happy to share even simple job descriptions of what those roles
can and should be doing. I think even that knowledge alone helps doctors just feel more confident and competent of like, ? my office manager should be acting like a COO. My billers should be acting like a CFO or an accountant. Like they should at least know this and be able to bring things in. And my over 90 should be know more than 5 % of my collections. Like knowing just those little pieces, I think ? that's just going to give people more confidence. But again,
equated to how you work with your CPA and your bookkeeper. You didn't know that, but you were immersed in the language of it. And I think the more you can just look, know, learn without doing. And I'm talking like this is like a week or a month. Like it's not like years and years. Like you could just quickly get affiliated with it. But I think audits and spot audits once a quarter would really be beneficial. And if you're a hands-on person like myself, literally have your front office have you like submit one claim and submit and
put in one payment onto the software, ? do one insurance verification, do one scheduling. It might feel weird, but just like you have your front office come back and watch a crown so they can explain it in a treatment plan, just doing it one time also gives you a lot of familiarity that I think you can catch a lot of things just because you almost know what does A plus B equals C, how does that equation actually work.
speaker-0 (06:54)
Yeah, and I love that CPA analogy because that makes a lot of sense. Like we don't get deep into the bookkeeping and deep into the profit and loss, but we do know enough that we can use it. You know, and I see with like the front office is that a lot of dental practice owners, just don't see the value and they just don't see like why to provide the training out there. And it's such a large part of the practice. I mean, just like, like if you could like pick just a few, what are some downstream things that happen that us as owners see that is more visual to us?
evidence of lack of training upfront.
speaker-1 (07:27)
Yeah. ?
Paul, I don't disagree and I think it's something crazy because it's like hygiene is so important and so we like focus a lot on hygiene and make sure it's there. But your front office is the, I call it like the bookends of the practice. They're the initial ? information for the practice and the first impression and then they're also the last impression. And I can't tell you how many doctors I'm like, Paul, you're amazing, but your front office is actually destroying your business and you don't even know it. So things that you might not catch or see are sometimes like your front office with billing, like look at your review.
because if your billing is having problems, it will pop up in reviews and they'll say like, they charged me wrong or they didn't quote me right. Like that's gonna do some red flag alerts for you just to be able to quickly see. Usually the billing issues downstream are gonna show up in the reviews and patients leaving the practice that you might not even know about. ? Other things that I think you can catch are like, if you have any type of recording of phone calls or have a family member that you trust, just be a random new patient with air quotes on it.
and give feedback of how they were treated on the phone. I think that's a really good way to find out because if your front office puts them on hold or they don't have like genuine care and customer service centric, patients are going to leave that you don't even get the opportunity and you're spending all this money on marketing. But then our front office is like, could you please hold? And it's like, great, super happy to be put on hold or I can't get you scheduled in or even like, I think sometimes dentists, you.
Kind of like myself, when I go into a practice, I'm like a creepy little hangout behind the scenes. Like, doctors, if you have a little bit of downtime, just go like hang on the wall and listen to how your front office team is answering the phones, how they're presenting treatment plans. You probably like, areas that I see a lot of opportunities that are missed are, how are we converting our phone calls and getting patients on the schedule? How are we scheduling? Like, are my patients saying, I cringe when I go in. I cringe when I hear phone calls.
I cringe when I hear another scheduling. I cringe when we're presenting treatment. If a patient's like, I'll just wait. They're like, OK. I'm like, OK. No, like, we should go past this two times. There's ways to do it. Or if a patient calls about a balance and they're like, it's OK. We'll just write it off. And I'm like, we're writing that off? ? You can look at audit trails to see what is being written off on your accounts in billing. ? You also can look at your AR. You could quickly just run the AR report. You don't even have to know.
A good benchmark is less than 1 % of your collection, or like one month's worth of collections should be all that's in your AR. So if you're producing 100 grand, we should have no more than 100 grand in total AR. So those are just some downstream of, think, like really making sure our schedule's full and we're treating patients amazing so they're not leaving before we even get that opportunity. Are cases being closed? And like we've got great verbiage to close cases.
And then honestly, like there was a practice and I walked in and there was a huge stack of checks and I was like, what are these doing? They're like, I just don't have time to enter those. And I'm like, well, we don't have time to like pay you either. So get those checks in like really truly. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but like you've got to get these in. ? And then looking at the claims and how much AR sitting in there just to see, and then doing a quick audit trail to see I had a practice. had about, gosh, about a million dollars worth of AR.
And I was like, is high. And they're like, yeah. Like if we can't get in touch with the patient, we just write it off. And I was like, I'm sorry, what? Like you just write? They're like, yeah, we try. But like, if they don't answer, we just write it off. And I was like, so that's like not allowed. And we need to have the doctor approve those. So I think some of those little pieces, and those can be set up with audit trails or permissions within the software. And I think even just some of those safeguards can really help a practice.
Like these are, think, a lot of red hot fires that could be worse than you realize. Dr. Paul, you could be doing amazing dentistry, but if your front office team is not great on the phone, not great with case acceptance, not great with billing, you might accidentally be losing a lot of, like there's just a lot of open holes and you're trying to put in more by diagnosing more and doing more dentistry at the top. But our buckets got quite a few little leaky holes that even if we put like patched a couple, you'd see your practice grow a lot more with minimal effort.
speaker-0 (11:47)
Yeah, I always like to think of the idea that if we've got like a $1 million practice and typically we see case acceptance in like the one third, like 33 % ish, you know, when we're looking at a fee. So you would think that we're diagnosing $3 million. So most doctors will focus on the things such as like, well, let's work on the way I talk to the patient. Let's work on this. Whereas completely missing the fact that, I mean, just even getting a 5 % increase in case acceptance that would come from training on the front desk end versus
stuff that you would do on the back. So it's like, it's a valuable part of the office. But, you know, I'd love to ask you, we've got this part of the office that is a lot of competing demands, a lot of different things to do at once. And what I see is doctors often getting upset at their front desk when they're not filling the schedule because the doctor has a cancellation and now the doctor has time to like say what is going on and they go to the front, they say, well, who's filling the schedule? And everyone's like, well, we're doing this, this, this, and this. How do you, as an owner, like,
help a department see these competing demands and have the right sort of priorities.
speaker-1 (12:53)
Yeah, Paul, there's a great book ? that I am obsessed with this year. We sent it out to a bunch of people and let's see. Hold on. I'm looking it up.
You know, I really love it. Clearly. I think it's called Begin with We. Let me just double check myself on it. I'm pretty confident looking it up real quick. ? It's We. Yes, Begin with We and it's by Kyle McDowell. And it was something that I really got obsessed with this year because there was a one of his 10 rules is outcomes over activity.
And I realized that I think that that is one of the greatest hiccups in the dental practice is we're so obsessed with activity, but not outcomes. And so in a dental practice, I'm really big on what is the outcome that this position needs to get.
I don't want them and I used to do this. Like I used to have end of day checklists that were like front office team needs to make 25 re-care calls. And then I was like, why am I saying that? What I really want from those 25 re-care calls is I want a full schedule and I don't want my team to be perfect, but I do need to make sure that the main outcome. So like one main outcome or KPI or metric per position and they know and like some people are like, Carol, how do get your team to do this? And I'm like, my team knew that if our schedule was not full, they were not going home.
like period, like you're gonna, I don't care, you're gonna stay until eight o'clock at night, but like that schedule is expected to be full. And it's not that I'm like driving hard lines. It was, this is the most important thing. So my scheduler, their goal is that they need to have my doctor scheduled to goal 90 % of the time, like we are scheduled to go or it's front office team knows that my hygiene schedule needs to be completely full with all confirmed patients because don't worry, they play games and it's like, well, my schedule is full. And I'm like, yeah, well, half of these weren't confirmed. They're gonna be no shows. So it's a...
My schedule is full or we're allowed one hygiene opening with all of our hygienists per day. But like by end of day, this needs to be done in every day that that's our goal. And our goal is to make sure that hygiene is up to goal 90 % of the time. We track it daily. We track it weekly. We make sure they're there. My treatment coordinator, my doctors need to be up to goal, like to their scheduled daily production goal. That's the expectation every day is that they're scheduled to goal. And when I look at the course of a week or a month, my expectation is that 90 % of my days, Paul, you're hitting your daily goal.
Well, now that and that's like, that's their main focus. I think so often we're like, we want the schedule full, we want the patient experience, we want this and we want that. But I'm like, if I can simplify it for my team, just like my AR, my AR needs to be less than one month's worth of collections and I need less than these amounts per category. Great. There's so many other things they can do that they can get busy and like, I got to answer the phone. But if I know before I leave, like the way I win and the way I check my day off is.
I've got my doctor scheduled to goal, I've got my hygiene schedule full and we've got our months collections done. Those are three of your biggest areas. Of course there's a thousand things, but when we lock and load on that and my doctor needs to diagnose X amount, ? it does also then impact our case acceptance because guess what? Now that treatment coordinator is like, shoot, I have to get Dr. Paul up to, I don't know, 5,000, 8,000, whatever your daily goal is. And I know that that's my expectation and I'm going to be reporting every single week on this.
And what happens if I don't hit goal? So some people incentivize with bonuses. Some people, this is just part of your job description. Some people are meeting on weekly one-on-ones and like helping them through it. Some people like treatment coordinators work with their doctors and they review treatment cases every single week. But if you can laser focus each one of them, but it's not a would like to have, it's a must have as a culture. And we are a culture of we hit our outcomes consistently and we don't miss those. We don't have to be perfect, but that's what we track and measure by.
That's how you improve at practice. And then all the other noise goes away because me as a team member, I'm not trying to compete for what I think is most important. You've helped me know and we've aligned and we've agreed. And I know what's going to be the outcome if I choose not to. And then everything else kind of falls into place. As a front office team member, there's a lot to do. But I think just giving one or two really helps streamline that.
speaker-0 (16:56)
So like what I hear you saying is that if it's important to you as the owner, you've got to.
make it important to the team as well. And that's by discussing, making it a focus. Yet, I find that a lot of practice owners are very scared, and I don't know if scared is the right word. Maybe fearful of ? pressing too many buttons up there. know, like upsetting people, over-asking, asking too many things. I mean, do you think that practice owners need to have a mindset shift around the leadership that comes with the front office?
speaker-1 (17:29)
I think it's a...
I don't know, like it's almost like a family motto and it's a team motto. Like we all work and contribute and each of us is part of this bigger whole. And so like if Dr. Etch does not diagnose enough dentistry for us, like that's a broken part in our whole like wheel. And I need to be as a team member able to count on Dr. Etch to be on time for our patients and to diagnose enough treatment for us. Like that's his part of our puzzle. And if he doesn't do that, I need to hold him accountable. And so it's not a Dr. Etch's
like top dog supervisor, we're all part of this to make a hole and we all need to be able to have like go to five dysfunctions of a team. Like how can we have more healthy debate and call each other out? ? I love thinking of sports analogies where like they want to win. We all know what like win on the scoreboard looks like and I can only imagine like, could you imagine like we'll just use the Chiefs. I like everybody knows the Chiefs like right now. So like could you imagine Patrick Mahomes?
Like someone doesn't block for him and he gets completely smashed and he's like, Hey coach Reed, could you please tell the team to tell them to block? It would be ludicrous. Like Paul, you even laugh about it because it's so ridiculous. Instead in the moment he's like dudes block for me. Like I'm not, we're not going to win if you don't do your job. But yet in the dental office, we don't see ourselves in that way of being able to call each other out when we're not, we're not doing our part of the puzzle to win on the team. And so I think doctors, I think that's the mindset.
mindset shift of you should be able to hold them accountable just like they should be able to hold you accountable and if we see it, a lot of times I like these KPIs to be up on a board where it's visible and it's either green or red and my name's on it and I know that I've got to contribute and we look at this whole family aka your practice every week and are we green or are we red? Did Dr. Etch hold up his end of the deal? Did I hold up my end of the deal? Did our other person hold up their end of the deal? And when you start to see that,
It's like a sports team and we say we have this scoreboard to know if we're getting the W at the end of the day or if we're getting the L and we have to call each other out when we're not. Yes, we're here to help, but we also are a team of outcomes over activity and a team of ownership mindset where I own that and I make sure that I'm blocking for you so you can like go and win the touchdown. But all of us are winning collectively together. We don't just have a superstar all star. It's a collective effort. So I think.
Yes, you can be concerned, I think doctors, you push buttons when you come up and you're like, who's filling my schedule? Rather than maybe you hang out and just listen for a minute and hear how things are going, that you could then take that into coaching in the future. ? You are always praising good behavior, but you have a clear scoreboard. It's like you don't have to go up there. But if we're missing the scoreboard, then we have conversations more consistently, so it doesn't feel out of the blue. We're able to coach and counsel more often, and that's just part of it. We call each other out in the moment rather than like,
talking around each other, we call each other in the moment.
speaker-0 (20:26)
I love like just the idea of that it's a culture piece and you make a part of your culture and it's more like macro level. It's like we're looking like, like you mentioned, the outcomes over the activity. ? if, if I'm a doctor and I'm listening to this podcast right now and I'm like, yeah, that sounds great in theory, but that would never work in my office, not with my personnel and not with my team. They wouldn't take that sort of constructivism or that, that feedback and they wouldn't have that, that team attitude. And I deal with this a lot with coaching clients and I'm sure you do as well.
It's a culture change that's required, but it could make the owner's life so much easier if we just only had to focus on the outcomes and not so much micro things. How would you suggest a doctor maybe have this conversation with their front office team to say, like, I want it to be more like this. This is what my vision is for this. Help me get to this point. Like, what do you think that would sound like?
speaker-1 (21:22)
Yeah, and I do love this. This is why we coach like doctors and teams. This is why we come in because sometimes an outside voice is easier than an inside voice, right? Like I get it. It's scary for me. This is why like know yourself and be free. And if you're not the one that's like I'm good at setting a vision, but like holding lines like this is not my jam rock on like you need a good pair to you. That's a great office manager who's really good at communicating this and getting a team on board. So I think like sometimes doctors show they've got to be
the producer, the diagnoser, the sales, marketing, all the pieces plus the accountability. I'm like, know what you're really good at. Paul, I look at you, you're an amazing visionary, you're really talented at dentistry, you're great at culture, and your office manager was kick a next to you. She did so good at holding pieces together and you would bring in training to give her support so they could grow to the next level.
You are like you're like I'll kind of do it, but like that's not who I am. I'm the same way I've got an operations person next to me and can I do it? Yes, but is that my zone of genius? No, and that doesn't mean we abdicate and we're like, well just because I don't like it don't do it, but I think like if you're really good at this then rock on and do it.
But doctors, we need a vision of where you're going. And that's your main thing that we need from you of like, what does this look like? Where are we headed and why? Like what's the lighthouse on the hill that we can all rally behind? And then we need a really good like leadership team or office manager next to us. And every time I talk to doctors about joining us in consulting, my first question is like, great, what are your issues, problems? Like tell me about your practice and who's your implementer next to you. And if they don't have a strong OM next to them, I know that that's 90 % of their problems. So we need to fill that seat next to them because
a good yin and yang, Paul you know this just like I do, they need to be that accountability person. You're drilling and filling, but then that becomes part of our culture and I think if you've never been this way, a good way to take this into action is like let's have a team like state of the company or like next vision or whatever you want to call it, but like this is how we've been operating.
And this is where we're moving to and this is why and this is how it's going to make all of our lives easier. And I understand that it's going to be a little jostly and hey, so maybe you hire a coach or consultant that's going to help with that. Maybe you and your office manager rally. But I have found and I have seen that a lot of times having somebody outside can help. Like Paul, that's why you hired us is because like we needed an outside voice even though we were saying the same thing.
to come and I love all of our consultants, we've been team members, we've been in the front office, like we've been there, done that, done it successfully to really empathize and understand. But I think it's gotta be a, is where we've been, this is where we're going, this is why. And if a doctor were to say, that's not my team, they won't relate to that, I would say, look at you first and say, like, choose your heart. If your team's that way, like, do you really wanna move into this next layer? Like, how bad is that pain?
Because if you're not willing to do this, your team's not going to follow you either. But you are the culture setter of your practice. So what you tolerate, it's not what you say, it's what you tolerate. And so that is truly your standards of the practice. So I would say it's also a, you got to have like a little like conversation with you in the mirror of, I really willing to change my culture? Am I really willing to go through the like, there is a chasm you've got to cross.
But the other side is truly beauty and it does work and teams do actually thrive if they know how do I get my win? What does my doctor truly want from me? And teams genuinely do want their doctor to thrive. Like that's why they're there. So I think you have to be committed to holding that line, to driving that vision, to having the uncomfortable conversations and making them comfortable and having a really good person next to you. It can be a DA, it can be an OM, it can be a hygienist.
But I think a lot of times having two voices that move it forward oftentimes are easier. But doctors, you've got to be a really strong lighthouse on the hill. And you've got to be committed. And you're willing to go through the effort to change a culture. ? Culture doesn't happen overnight. Culture is a slow burn that takes a while to turn. ? But I think it's like the Titanic. You don't think it's moving. But then when you look up, it has made progress, even though it didn't feel like it. And I think that that's the same with culture.
speaker-0 (25:35)
Do you feel that, I mean, it's almost like, and I see this with my clients, is that they're focusing on the wrong area. Like, we're looking at, someone might reach out to you and say, hey, my front desk, I want them to do this, they're not doing this. I want them to do this other thing. They dig their feet in, they say no. I mean, can you tell the story of a recent client that you worked with that maybe came in and was pointing a lot of fingers, but really, it just needed to look in the mirror?
speaker-1 (26:01)
Yes, this happens often. And I think it's like a whack-a-mole. And I think that that's why people do reach out for coaching. I think that they recognize that I'm spinning all these tops and I just don't know where I need to go. And it's like, great. So a recent client that I would say they were so obsessed about their hygiene department and they were trying to run around. They're like, we need to fix this, we need to fix that.
And I was like, actually what you're saying with all these words that you don't realize is you just want more profitability. You're stressed out of your mind. So you're going after all these different things when we just need to get your profitability dialed in. We need to figure out like where are we cash bleeding and fix that issue because your hygiene department probably only needs like a small uptick, but you're after that. You're after this person, you're after this, but your real main problem is your cashflow low. Like that's it. And that's a you thing. That's a you not knowing business. That's a we need to fix that.
And then we look at which systems do we need to implement or which department do we need to go attack that's going to actually fix that problem for you. And so I think so many times people want to, like we hear podcasts, right? So it's like, okay, I'm taking notes today. I'm going to go check in on all these KPIs. But sometimes like something I love about how we consult is a lot of consulting companies like ABCD, you got to do that. And for me, I look at, all right, what are we already doing really well?
what is the true pain point of the practice and what's the one, two or three things that are very easy changes that are going to exponentially get you out of the problem you're in and move you forward. I might have a set way that I want you to say a phone script. I might have a set way that I want your case acceptance to go but those might not be the root issue and the root issue might be you as a leader need to get us a vision. I will tell you Paul, we had a mastermind in person and people were like complaining like my team's not bought in, my team's not bought in and I was like all right guys, I just have a quick question.
If I were to walk into your practice today, how many of you like talk to your team, you're not allowed to give them influence. How many of them could tell me where we're going and like where we're headed in the next five to 10 years? They did not raise their hands. And I was like, that's your problem right there. You have not given this team where we're going, why we're going. And so they're just rowing their own little boats over here thinking they're doing the most important thing versus I'm headed towards this. This is my number. This is how I win. And you gave them that clarity.
and you looked in the mirror first and got the vision. So I say, this is twofold. There was one of, you need to give the vision to your team. You need to have the clarity of where you're going. And second, instead of playing whack-a-mole and like trying to fix every little thing, what's our true root problem that we need to solve? And if things are going good or like mostly good, let's go after the fastest, easiest levers. Like people are like, I need more profit or production. I'm like, okay, what are the easiest, fastest ways? Increase our production, increase our collections, decrease our spending. Production.
diagnose more, close more cases, look at our block scheduling and look at our hygiene. Like those are like your simplest easiest ways and make sure like our schedules fill to goal. Like that's really there's not a lot that we have to do that I think we sometimes over complicate when we could simplify and make it a lot easier. And I think that that's probably the whole message of this of there. I think it's actually a lot easier to get to where you're trying to go. I just think like go all the way back to the beginning.
It's like my car is making this sound and I don't know how to fix it. So I'm going to try the spark plugs. I'm going to try the brakes. I'm going to try the da da da. When really all you needed to do was just like fill it up with gas. So just finding that simple piece I think is where people, it's hard because they don't know. So they're going to play whack-a-mole rather than give me the vision, get the numbers dialed in and let your team thrive in those departments.
speaker-0 (29:39)
I couldn't agree more. I love that you said that. I think that's going to be so useful for so many people to hear. Talk about what the Dental A Team is up to this spring and how people can reach out to you if they want to learn more.
speaker-1 (29:51)
Yeah, we are always like, we're just here to help. So we do doctor and team training, we do virtual and in-person. We have in-person masterminds, which are super fun for doctors to get connected. And I didn't like to be the owner that like, I go get rallied and then my team doesn't. So I'm really big on like, let's rally you and your team so you don't have to try this. Like, got super pumped on the podcast, but like, hey, OM, could you go listen to this podcast and do your job better?
So we do a good job of blending for people. so, yeah, in February we're in person and then in April we're doing our master, our summit. So we always do a summit. And if you guys tell us that you heard about it ? on Pulse, definitely you will get ? a VIP ticket, but that's going to be on April 24th. It's a four hour CE. It's our amazing summit. Head on over to TheDentalATeam.com or you can email us Hello@TheDentalATeam.com I'd love to have you there.
But yeah, if you're like, gosh, I just need help. We do like a full practice like autopsy with you and like, hey, let me just give you some free advice. Let us help you out. But yeah, anyway, we can help you and your team streamline. So doctors can be amazing doctors and CEOs. Teams can level up to their highest potential and we do it together. Conjecture like Paul, Paul's an amazing doctor. Like talk to him about like doctor mindset. I don't know how to tell you how to do a fill. Like that's Paul's world, but how to get your team on board and how to rally with you and support you in the life you deserve. That's what deadly teams about. And
I would say doctors, be selfish. You're CEOs. You should be the dentist. You should be the CEO. You don't need to be the everything. You don't need to know all the front office. are people that can help you and support you. ? But learning that and getting your team the tools, that is your job to do. And I would encourage you to reach out if we can help in any way. And always, always a huge fan of Paul and his group. And listen to Paul. He's got brilliant ideas. He's one of my favorite dentists that I've ever coached. And he's an amazing person at culture and.
of being able to drive people to results. And I think I'm just a good jelly to his peanut butter. We do the team side. do the helping your doctors get to the life they want through team execution.
speaker-0 (31:50)
Awesome, Kiera. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I always enjoy having you on, love connecting with you and listeners. Go check out Kiera's stuff. She's brilliant. She is a brilliant person and she knows how to get your team on board and to do the things that you want them to do. So thank you so much, Kiera.
speaker-1 (32:06)
Thank you. I appreciate it so much, Paul. Thank you so much.
The Dental A Team (32:09)
All right, Dental A Team listeners, that was the guest interview that I absolutely loved. And I hope that if there was one idea that stood out to you, don't just agree with it, but actually go implement it this week. And if you need help setting this up in your practice or you need help just navigating or need a friend, head on over to TheDentalATeam.com and I'll be able to help you guys out. Click on the book of call or any way that we can support and serve you. That's what we're here for. That's what we're obsessed with. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.