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Howard Speaks Howard Farran, DDS, MBA, MAGD

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What is Your Dental Office’s New Year’s Resolution?

Howard Farran, DDS
MBA, MAGD
Publisher,
Dentaltown Magazine
 What is your New Year's resolution? I'm sure you already have one for your personal life; maybe you've decided you're going to quit smoking or exercise more or lose weight. That is all fine and dandy, but more importantly, what is your New Year's resolution for your dental office? Have you written it down? Have you posted it in your office? Are you serious about it? Do you even have one? Let's get real. The most successful people on the planet make it a religion to have personal and financial goals of massive self-improvement!

Do you have a daily morning huddle? If not, you should. Could you imagine a football team not having a pre-game huddle? It simply doesn't happen. If you don't have morning huddles, do you know which patients are behind on their five-year full-mouth radiographs in your current schedule? Do you know which patients have a balance? Do you know which patients are treatment planned for more dental procedures? Do you know who is late on their six-month cleanings so that if you get a cancellation you can move them over to hygiene, or simply keep doing more dental work? If you do not have morning huddles, can you at least look at yourself in the mirror and say, "I have made a decision to run a mediocre practice?"

Make it a New Year's resolution to be the first in the office and the last to leave. With this goal you can dive head first into the morning huddle and even have a wrap-up meeting at the end of the day!
After the morning huddle does your staff plug into their Motorola walkie talkies? If they don't, aren't you tired of getting up and running around your office all day? Aren't you tired of looking for your hygienist? Is your assistant on break? Is she even in the building? Where did the front office receptionist go? If you're exhausted from running around the office in circles all day long, you are so ready for Motorola walkie talkies! Communication is the foundation of easy, effortless, and efficient operations and logistics. Being able to run smoothly requires far more than our light box, "The Director" from Novaplex, which I still use and love. Communicating fast and exact is critical in any operation. Questions come up regularly that are beyond a light box. How many times does your front office staff walk back to find out exactly how many more minutes until the next patient can be seated?

We chose the Motorola Talkabout, Model #5720 with headsets. It has a five-mile range. Each staff member is "wired up" and can easily communicate throughout the office. The walkie talkie is attached with a belt clip and has a wire that connects to the headset. These walkie talkies fit even better and sound even greater if you take a vinyl polysiloxane impression of your ear and send it to Custom Earpieces at www.customearpiece.com.

If you can't commit to walkie talkies then just reason with yourself that you are not going for maximum efficiency.

Are you completely paperless? Do you have a goal written down as to when you will be totally paperless? For awesome cash flow, do you send your claims electronically each day? Do you send each patient out the door with a copy of their digital X-rays, charts and notes so they can be reminded of their treatment plan? With your own X-rays, charting, and treatment plan patients become educated to thoroughly understand their own oral health concerns. Do you know how much this will increase your treatment plan acceptance rate if you implement this?

All of our insurance claims at Today's Dental are sent electronically at the end of the day. We are able to send digital X-rays and perio charting by utilizing software from National Electronic Attachment (NEA) called FastAttach (www.fast-attach.com, or 800-782-5150). NEA charges a monthly fee, which includes training and technical support if needed.

Turnaround time on insurance payments will greatly increase by sending claims electronically. This technology greatly increases your cost productivity. Cost productivity is the key to lower overhead. If you pay Jane Doe $1, and she produces and collects $1, you have 100 percent overhead. If you purchase technology to augment Jane Doe, you still pay Jane Doe $1, and now she produces and collects $2, you now have 50 percent overhead. Factor in postage, paper, wear and tear on your printer, the labor involved to manually send claims, and you will get digital religion.

Another remarkable benefit of electronic claim service is the ability to receive insurance denials, and requests for additional information from the insurance company at the time the claims are transmitted. You will receive information before your patient does, which, if you have dealt with insurance companies, you know it never happens!

Howard Live

Howard Farran, DDS, MBA, MAGD, is an international speaker who has written dozens of published articles. To schedule Howard to speak to your next national, state or local dental meeting, call 480-445-9706.

Dr. Farran's next speaking engagement is January 23, 2009 at the Lambeau Field Titletown Atrium in Green Bay, Wisconsin. For more information, please email lords@lordsdental.com.

Seminars 2009
Jan. 23 • Green Bay, WI
Lord's Dental Studio

Feb. 11-15 • Cancun, Mexico
Millennium Annual Clinicians' Meeting

Feb. 20 • Tarzana, CA
So. California Oral-Facial
Study Club

Mar. 20 • Harrisburg, PA
Harrisburg Area Dental Society

April 1-4 • Las Vegas, NV
Townie Meeting

April 24 • Tulsa, OK
Oklahoma Dental Association

May 8 • St. Louis, MO
Greater St. Louis Dental Society

Oct. 1-4 • Honolulu, HI
ADA Annual Session

Oct. 31 • Fort Wayne, IN
Mid-West Oral Surgery
Is your New Year's resolution to work smarter and not harder? Do you plan to take a more active role in office affairs? Will you go paperless even if it kills you (perhaps you think there is something about holding that paper chart in your hands)? Will you use your dental practice management software to its fullest; letters, reports, etc.? Will you evaluate your staff and see if it is time to keep the best and let one go? Sorry.

In a recession you need to freeze payroll or reduce it, slash your prices, double or quadruple your marketing to replace the patients not coming in, and, most of all, increase the items and procedures you have to sell. Have you committed to taking more continuing education courses? You can take more than 90 courses for free on Dentaltown.com. What possible reason could you have that you would not take online continuing education for free?

Can you learn to place a single, simple, implant? Check out Carl Misch at www.misch.com. Can you add a CAD-CAM like Cerec from Patterson Dental Company or E4D from Henry Schein into your practice? Why not?

Do you know how much more periodontal services you could add with the new PerioLase laser? Do you know how much endodontics you can learn on Dentaltown.com? There is a four-part course by Drs. Dennis Brave and Kenneth Koch, which has been taken by more than 20,000 dentists! 20,000 dentists have found the value and have taken this course and you haven't! The four courses are 1) Locating the Elusive Root Canal, 2) Precision-based Endodontics, 3) Synchronicity in Obturation, and 4) The Endo – Restorative Continuum. Take these courses today!

Have you taken all three courses from Jay Reznick, DMD, MD – the most famous oral and maxillofacial oral surgeon of our time? We are honored to have three courses by Jay; 1) Practical Oral Surgery for the General Dentist: Medical Evaluation of the Oral Surgery Patient, 2) Practical Oral Surgery for the General Dentist: Surgical Extractions, and 3) Practical Oral Surgery for the General Dentist: Impacted Third Molars. You can see more than 100 hours of Jay doing oral surgery like Mozart playing the piano at www.onlineoralsurgery.com.

In fact you could turn your entire dental office around in this New Year just by signing up for the Scottsdale Center for Dentistry at www.scottsdalecenter.com.

I will be continuing the resolution I made three years ago – to focus on patient health, not numbers; get the technology to deliver healthy options and make those options affordable; to get all of my employees to share this goal with me; and finally – to have more fun with the profession. We have a pretty good gig.
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