Dental A Team with Kiera Dent
Dentists, this is your playbook for building a practice that THRIVES rather than just survives! If you're ready to scale, streamline, or simply want to lead like a CEO, we're here to support you with our strategies.
Blog By:
Dental A Team

Are Your KPIs Lying To You?

8/26/2026 6:47:00 AM | Comments: 0 | Views: 11

Key performance indicators are fundamental to a successful practice. But what about their dark side? Kiera shares how to know whether those metrics are telling you the right information or not, including what a false sense of KPI security can look like, common mistakes when reviewing those numbers, and how to keep your greater vision in tune with the indicators.

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Transcript:

Kiera (00:00)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and today's topic makes me giggle. because I feel like I'm such like hot to trot on KPIs, and I talk about them all the time. And this is gonna be like the other side of the coin of KPIs. And are your KPIs actually lying to you? Dun dun dun, like are those metrics actually not telling you what you want to know on it, like makes me giggle. And I loved because we've been podcasting for golly, so many years. I mean, I think about the conversations we've had together, the

tactical tips, the leadership growth, the confidence in becoming a CEO and running your business. And if you're not there, great. Come join us. Like let's take the easy route. You don't have to listen to all thousand plus episodes. you can take the like hit that easy button. My last name used to be Staples. So hit that easy button and come join us. But I felt like today would be a fun twist for myself as a podcaster and a podcast host of let's talk about like when do your KPIs actually lie to you because you can have some sexy numbers but still not be making money. And you'll be like, well what is going on?

Right? Your CP is like, you're doing great. And you're like, but I feel broke. your trainer at the gym is like, you're doing great. And you're I don't have the six pack. I feel like KPIs can be lying to you. And so I think it's a like, let's make sure that our numbers are telling us the entire story. And let's make sure that if they're healthy, our practice really is healthy and you know how to use your KPIs rather than be used by those KPIs. So number one, I hope you're tracking KPIs. If you don't know what a KPI is, it's a key performance indicator. I call them the vitals of your practice. So let's make sure that our

Our height, our weight, our blood pressure, our heart rate, all those are healthy and that they're tracking correctly. And if not, then like let's figure out how to fix those for your practice. Because they're not like our KPIs aren't a report card. They're KPIs are clues. And our whole consulting team, we have a KPI scorecard, and we all know that that is like the tip of the iceberg. And if one of those numbers is off or if all of them aren't looking right, we need to go and dig and dig and dig to make sure that they're correct. So I want to walk you guys through how something like KPIs can create some false sense of security, which ones to look for.

What are some mistakes that people often have when they do review their numbers? And then what are like maybe a couple of ways for us to make sure that those metrics are actually helping you to make better decisions? So, as you guys know, we're Dental A Team. I'm Kiera Dent. I'm obsessed with all things dentistry and obsessed with you. I want you to have your yes success life. I want you to have everything you want. I want your practice to serve your life. I want you to be profitable and successful. I want you to have structure and systems and stability where you just feel confident to be able to scale to the level that you want. There is no

Check mark and Dental A Team There is no you need to hit this level of practice ownership. It is what is your life? What is your dream? Let's make that a reality. And then let's make sure that you're doing it in the easiest, most efficient, fun way. Our job is to Posivate, impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. And I'm so happy you're here. If I could give you a giant hug, I would. If I could give you a high five and tell you you're doing better than you think you are, I would. So just take those today. Give yourself a squeeze, give yourself a high five. And just remember, as business owners, it can be hard, it can be challenging, but it doesn't need to be.

So let's make sure that we're we're showing up, that we're rising up, and that we're being the best that we can be. And today I really want you to like stop chasing numbers and actually like understand your KPIs and what it's actually telling you. So step number one is gonna be like let's stop looking at KPIs in isolation. So like one KPI does not tell you the whole story. And so like a lot of times we'll say like production's up, we're all celebrating, but our profit's down. You're like, this doesn't make sense. Like we're producing more, but we're not profitable. Like it feels like this like very off-kilter scale.

That's like, well, if production goes up, my profit should go up. But that's not always the case. What about like our new patients are up, but our schedule still isn't full? Like, what is this? Or maybe like collections, they're up, like we're hitting at collections, but our AR is growing and our bank accounts not getting better. Like, why? Like that number is healthy with air quotes. So what we've got to look for is like, what is the relationship between the numbers and what's the driving result of the KPI and using the KPI as a system, not just an isolated piece. So

When we look at this, we want to make sure that like while production could be high, let's make sure our payroll and our overhead's actually where it needs to be. Because sometimes our production can go up and our payroll goes up. So we're hoping that production and profit go hand in hand, but sometimes they don't. So we need to figure out like numbers don't lie, but they can mislead us. So I don't want you sitting there like, well, my production's great. That could be false. Our profit could be high. That could be false. We need to be looking at the whole story, the entire, like it's.

you know, I can have good blood pressure, but what if my heart's not doing as well? Or what if my, I don't know, my I don't know all the medical terms, but there's other things like what if my cholesterol's not doing well, but that would never show up if you're looking at my heart rate. So there's just different ways and I think it's the same thing. So when we look at the vitals, this is why we get labs that are comprehensive on us. That's why we look at multi data points of our bodies. It's the same thing with your practice. So let's make sure that it's like KPIs are clues, but they're not a conclusion. And you gotta know the whole

the whole picture of this. So what I would do is like when we look at it, production should be tied. Like I usually look like my my first step is going to be looking at your production collection, making sure those are sitting at like a 98% ratio of each other. I'm looking at your like and I want net production, not gross production. Then I'm gonna be looking at the profitability of your practice because those ones are going to tell me a lot, just production collection and profitability. Those ones are going to tell me a lot. And if one of those is off, then I know can I go dig into this, this or this? Like

If your production's not hitting what we need it to be, fantastic. We need to go dig. We need to look at our case acceptance. We need to look at our hygiene. We need to look at our period. Like those things are gonna help us. I'm gonna look at your block scheduling, but that's gonna dip. Now, if our collections, they could be high, but we need to make sure like again, if our profitability is not there, collections could be high, but what's our AR? Ped practices have like two to five million sitting in AR and they didn't even know that. Well, that would make sense when you're like, well gosh, I feel broke.

You could be having 105% collections, but you're broke because we didn't collect that money last year or months prior. So again, they don't they need to go hand in hand, which then ties into like step two, which is going to be focus on the leading indicators, not the lagging ones or results. And this I think is really tricky with KPIs because a lot of our KPIs are lagging indicators, like production, collections, profitability, where the leading indicators, and I always hated lag and lead. I like, these people are so dumb. I don't understand it. Like, ugh, like.

But they do like what leads into production? Well, that's gonna be unscheduled treatment. That's gonna be our case acceptance, that's gonna be our hygiene reappointment percentage, that's gonna be how full our schedule is, that's gonna look at our new patient conversion, it's gonna look at our block scheduling. Those are gonna be leading indicators. So we could be tracking how many unscheduled treatment calls did we make. We could be tracking what our case acceptance is to see are we closing enough cases? We should be looking at our hygiene reappointment rate that's gonna help me see if my hygiene schedule is full.

We're gonna look to see how filled out our schedule is at certain points in the month to see are we filling enough? Are we diagnosing enough? We can also be looking at our diagnosis percentage and see how much we're actually diagnosing. All those things are gonna drive you to where you actually can see, is my practice healthy? Is my practice not healthy? So when we do these items together, they're going to give you visible warning signs before you hit a plummet. So if you're just looking at production, collection, profit, which are the main ones I go after, because like, hey, if those are there, they're usually pretty good.

But what leads to it. And sometimes what can happen is collections can dip automatically very quickly and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Or production can drop really quickly. If you're not looking at case acceptance, unscheduled treatment, reappointment percentages, those quick items, you can get into hot water real fast because we could be like production, production, production, and then all of a sudden we have a September. Okay, well, why do we have a September? Please. And everyone's like, it's because kids go to school. And I'm like, is there a way though that even with kids going to school and this and that, if we knew that?

If we strategically scheduled and we called all of our unscheduled treatment, because not everybody is going back to school, you still have elderly people that are not in that population. So what if in August we started targeting elderly populations that do not have kids at school? We're not targeting those younger families and we're making sure that they're in there, that they've got deposits paid for their treatment. We're calling on scheduled treatment starting in July. And August, we're calling our recare and we're making like 50 outbound calls a day. That's going to help proactively prevent this.

Those are leading measures that don't hit us on the lag when our productions all of a sudden suck Tember. Can we look for this? Can we look cyclically across the board of which are my lower months? Can we schedule vacations during that time if we know they're historically lower? Can we proactively put like ortho cases? Let's do an Invisalign day where we actually pump our September. So we're always doing ortho and September like back to school braces or those types of things. Like, could you start doing some of those things? Those are leading indicators that make it to where.

Before the production drops, we are proactively looking ahead. So I love to have KPIs that are leading and lagging, but the best KPIs are going to predict the future, not explain the past. So when I get my PL from ICPA, that's why you're all annoyed because you're like they said I did great, but now I feel broke. Well, it's because they're always looking one month retroactively and you're living in real time today. Your bank account doesn't match. Like you did great. And you're like, yeah, but I already spent it. It's because your PL is such a lagging measure.

You get it, but there's nothing. So what's our leading? What could we be doing? What do we look at? Let's look ahead. Let's see how far booked out we are. Let's see our new patient conversion rate. Let's see how many case acceptance we have. Let's look at how many patients are on our unscheduled treatment list. Let's look at our recare list. Now, if those are up to date and current, then we know we need to be pumping more new patients in there. But if we're not watching those leading measures, which those are the annoying ones to track, those are the annoying ones. People don't want to live in leading measures. Nobody out there wants to be like, okay, care, I made my like 25 calls of unscheduled treatment today.

Team members are like, I'm so busy answering the phone and just keeping the schedule full. But what they don't realize is if you make those outbound calls every single day, every day, non-negotiable, just like we brush our teeth, have that as part of it, those leading measures. If we are reviewing our cases every single week to see how we did so we can proactively improve our case acceptance every single week, we are proactively doing those things and we just stick them in on routine, you're not gonna have the dips nearly as often as you currently do. We tend to live in firefighting reactive KPIs.

rather than in proactive looking to see what we can do. For us it was always like, okay, how many, how many calls have we booked? That is such a lagging measure versus how many outbounds did we make? We can control the outbounds, but yet so many people don't want to do that. So I'd recommend absolutely 100% step two is let's make sure we're also tracking leading measures, not just lagging measures. And then the other piece is like don't just chase a metric where we're ignoring like

what actually is happening. Like why are we even looking at this metric? So if we're only looking at production, well then we can have like stress and we forget about patient experience and all that. So again, numbers are should be like like I feel like they're the table of contents of the book. And we don't miss the book because we read the table of contents. It gives us the quick highlight. But ultimately production's impacted by great patient experience. It's going to be impacted by

having great case acceptance. It's gonna be having that warm connection with each other. And so when we look at these KPIs, and this is where a lot of times KPIs like they should drive behavior. Like they should tell us where we're lacking, where we're dropping the ball, where we could improve. They should be telling us what behavior should change in the practice. That's why we look at them as a key performance indicator. It's like the lights that pop up and they tell us like, hey, we're going too fast or we're going too slow. Like great, it should be telling us how we're tracking on those.

But it shouldn't be replacing stress. And like that's the only thing we care about. we don't want to have it to where we're like so many times people are like, well, we could get more patients in if we just cut hygiene and we've dropped it to 45 minutes. And I'm like, you're not wrong. But like, what's our ultimate goal? Like, what are we ultimately trying to achieve? And is there a space where if we kept 60 minute hygiene appointments, could we maybe possibly serve our patients more? So let's do a focus of we're all gonna hit our fluoride.

We're gonna do fluoride, that's a great thing. Then we're gonna move it into fluoride therapy where we do fluoride and toothpaste. Then we're gonna make sure that we're doing scans in the next six months. Like I do them in six month chunks for hygiene. I know like we can't like dump everything on the hygienist. They gotta have like a few things. If we know September's coming, let's start doing scans in Q2 so that way we have all of our orthoscans already pre-done for three months before we even get to that level where we start to have it where it's gonna drop on us.

That's where we become obsessed with making sure we focus on the patients and we use our KPIs. To me, they're like a forecast and a projections if you use them correctly. They can also be a like nail in the coffin and you're like, well, shoot, our production's down, our collections are down, we got to fix that. So it's how can I look retroactively and see what do we do? How can I use leading measures to proactively make sure that we don't get into that? But then put those two together and ultimately tie those under the vision and the goal and make sure that they're driving us towards that.

That's what it should be. The top of everything, the umbrella over all those. Like if you want to think of an umbrella and your KPIs are like the the spokes that hold the umbrella, the the core umbrella over the top is what's our vision and what's the purpose of our practice? and if your KPIs like if you're just production, production, production, that's not who you ultimately want to be. Like if we're just profit, profit, profit, like yeah, you should be. But ultimately, like, yeah, I'm gonna say like profit's number one. To me, we have a rule.

We don't lose money. That's been my rule. That's been my standard since I started the company. And I stand by that because cash flow is the most scary thing as a business owner, in my opinion. so profit is number one for me, and I will always make decisions based on that. but profit in conjunction with possibly impacting the world, the dentistry in the greatest way possible. Pro profitability in conjunction with having a place where team members love to work. You can have both. It can be an and it doesn't need to be an or.

You can have both of those. You can be obsessed with a patient experience and production. You can be obsessed with having the best patient experience and having a very profitable business. Both of those coexist. And so using your numbers as a compass, using them as a guide, and making sure that we're we're headed towards the ultimate destination of our our vision and our mission, which is why it doesn't only we do business fundamentals. We're going to work with you on getting your vision and your mission and your core values like.

What ultimately is your goal as a business owner? What do you want your life to be? That's the ultimate goal. Jump more freedom. And guess what? It's written in pencil. You can erase it, you can redraw it any day you want. It doesn't have to be set in stone and like we we chiseled that sucker out. No, this is a like, it's in pencil. So what does I what do I want my life to look like today? Because when we achieve it, we might want it to look differently. Or as we're walking up that mountain, we might say,

You know, I really thought that I only want to work three days, but I love dentistry and I want to work four days. I just want to do this type of procedure. Or I love to be in the practice, but I want to do two days clinical and I want to do two days of mentorship. That is totally allowed. Your business should just serve that. Your business should be the one that's there. So that's the ultimate arching is your KPIs then should be like the guiding pillars to that in leading and lagging measures. So this is where your KPIs, KPI numbers don't lie.

But isolated numbers can definitely give false positives and false negatives if they're not seen altogether. So, like just a quick recap is don't look at your KPIs in just isolation. Make sure that we're tracking leading and lagging indicators. And then make sure that ultimately all of those are headed towards our greater vision of where we ultimately want to go. That's how we use KPIs. That's how we use numbers too, to make sure that we're actually headed in the direction we want to go.

And you are welcome to have one of those in isolation. You're welcome to have KPIs that just sit on their own. You're welcome to have where we only are tracking lagging measures. You're welcome to have like we only think about our vision and our mission, and that's what we care about, and everything will follow. I will say you're welcome to do that. I would say an easier path that helps you have all the data and the best data points is going to be where you put all three of those together, where you're able to look at them simultaneously, use them as data points to ultimately make your best decisions because KPIs are incredibly powerful.

But only if they're used correctly, even if they're used to be tools, not like like goals or stars to guide by, not sticks to beat ourselves with. I don't care. Like we're just we're like, I don't believe in failures. I just believe that there are results. So are we getting the result we're looking for or not? And if not, let's change and adjust. if we're constantly missing production, what are maybe a couple leading measures that we could do? Also having too many KPIs, you get lost in data and you can't actually see what you need to do. So simplifying it, having less is more.

making sure we're actually tracking outcomes rather than activity. Like what I usually say like reduce unscheduled treatment by 10% every single month. So I don't care how many calls you make. Yes, I know I said like make 25 calls. You can do task or you can do outcome. I prefer outcome based, but you might just be starting out and can't figure out that outcome. So like let's start with 25 calls a day. It's easy, all of us can do it. We can track it. Ultimately the goal is that our schedule is always full and we're putting enough outbound calls to make sure that when patients are canceling, which is gonna happen, they're gonna move their appointments.

that we're always able to get our schedule up to what we want it to be and we're not stressed, we're not going chaotic. So if you feel like you listen to this, you're like, you're I don't even know where to start, or like we're kind of doing this, we're halfway doing it, or I'm looking at this, but I don't know how to get my team bought into it. This is what we do. This is how we're able to help you. We're able to help you put it all together. Let's build your vision, let's build that mission, let's figure out where we're headed with no guilt, no judgment, just your life. Like, hey, grab the crayons, grab the confetti, like let's make what you want this life to be.

Then let's figure out which KPIs are going to lead us to that. Let's figure out which leading measures we need to help your team get on board with and why. Get them bought into the vision and the mission. And then we're able to help maintain and contain that consistency for you. So this is the zone. You usually don't need like a lot more reports. We just need clarity to cut through and to look at the things that really matter and put them together so we're not doing them in isolation. So you're not getting hit with those surprises, but actually being able to be proactive on that. So this is where I'm obsessed with helping offices have their dream life, look at the numbers.

use the numbers, not be used by the numbers and to get a team bought into it at whatever level you want. There is no set path. There is no set, every team has to do this. It's what's your vision, what's your life? How do we make sure that you're profitable and successful? And then how do we build the systems, the structure for scalability for you of whatever that looks like for you. So reach out. I'd love to help you out. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.

Category: Ethics, Jurisprudence and Malpractice, Financial Planning and Investments, Office Design, Practice Management, HR and Accounting

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Dental A Team with Kiera Dent
Dentists, this is your playbook for building a practice that THRIVES rather than just survives! If you're ready to scale, streamline, or simply want to lead like a CEO, we're here to support you with our strategies.
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Dental A Team

Are Your KPIs Lying To You?

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Dental A Team with Kiera Dent Dentists, this is your playbook for building a practice that THRIVES rather than just survives! If you're ready to scale, streamline, or simply want to lead like a CEO, we're here to support you with our strategies. Blog By:Dental A Team

Are Your KPIs Lying To You?

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Dental A Team with Kiera Dent
Dentists, this is your playbook for building a practice that THRIVES rather than just survives! If you're ready to scale, streamline, or simply want to lead like a CEO, we're here to support you with our strategies.
Blog By:
Dental A Team