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Where are the Olives in Your Practice? Joe Steven Jr., DDS

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by Joe Steven Jr., DDS

For years all my team ever heard from me was "Production! Production! Production!" Twenty-some years ago I had a goal for a million dollar practice so we were always striving to efficiently provide the best dental care to as many patients as we could in order to reach that goal. After attaining that goal, I told them that I was not really interested in shooting for higher production numbers because I had another goal in mind.

My new primary goal was to be as efficient as possible in all our systems for better "peace of mind." By that, I meant I wanted to know that we were doing everything as efficiently as possible to keep our costs down while providing excellent patient care. I expressed to them that I didn't want our production and collection figures to drop by any means, and that our numbers would gradually increase anyway because of our new endeavor. It's ridiculous to keep going year after year knowing you're losing profit dollars because of inefficiency. Since we had attained higher goals consistently, I wanted to concentrate on the icing on the cake. I wanted us to fine tune every system. I've been a fanatic all my career on watching the bottom line and being as organized and efficient as possible, but there's always room for improvement.

At one of our regular staff meetings, I read the following story which was the main emphasis of my new found goal. I would strongly suggest that you read this to your staff at your next meeting. It's not only interesting, but it will help you and your staff look at the business side of your practice in a whole new light.

A Little Goes a Long Way
For more than a decade United Airlines has been saving more than $40,000 a year by simply removing one olive from each salad they serve in First Class. This point is brought out to demonstrate how something as small as an olive, something that easily could be overlooked, could have such an impact on the bottom line. What little olive does your practice have that could be costing you thousands of dollars every year? You might be surprised if you and your staff were to sit down and brainstorm just how many different little olives your practice has. Olives that if put to a better use could dramatically change things with your business and maybe even allow for some little perks that before were not available.

The staff was just as intrigued with that story as I was. I explained to them that I realized no one is going to receive immediate gratification by not wasting cotton rolls, or not using too much topical anesthetic, or not leaving the nitrous units on accidentally. But it all adds up, and that's money that can be used for a staff trip or for their pension plans. Or, it could be used for office improvements that everyone enjoys. It's simply ridiculous to keep wasting money when we all work so hard to produce and collect it.

Following that meeting it seemed like just about every other day or so someone pointed out another "olive." My hygienists got together right away and found a different brand of fluoride that saved us about 50 cents per bottle.

Obviously, supply purchases are the best examples of big "olives," but, there are many others. During one of our meetings, we reviewed our Staff Policy Manual and went over time clock policies. I pointed out that mistakes with time recordings usually fall at the expense of the practice. I asked our payroll person if this was true, and she admitted that sometimes it can be a pretty big "olive."

We found another "olive" while reviewing our uniform policy. Over the years, we drifted away from our daily matching scrubs policy. As a result, the practice was paying out too much for individual preferences of uniform colors which resulted in more scrubs than needed. Our policy has a 50 percent uniform allowance that the practice reimburses to the staff members. We reorganized and saved another "olive" there.

We reviewed and revised a few of our checklists which are easily overlooked or forgotten in a busy office. Simple things like turning off the treatment room lights and televisions during lunch might seem insignificant, but really do add up in the end. My pet peeve has always been finding a running nitrous unit with no patient at the other end. Worse yet is leaving a unit on and someone forgetting to turn the main tanks off when leaving the office. We reviewed our policy as to when to remove nitrous from a patient for specific procedures. If a patient receives a mandibular block, it's a waste to leave the nitrous on until they are numb. With many local infiltrations, we'll leave the unit on since we won't have to wait as long for the anesthetic to work. I pointed out to my staff to use their own discretion with each individual patient but to be aware of this little "olive."

"Olives" can also take the form as mistakes within a practice such as laboratory case inefficiencies on our part. Even though many of us all experience those busy, chaotic days, we have to take the time to be explicit and thorough on our lab directions for every case. Having to reschedule a patient because a case wasn't back on time, or worse yet, wasn't completed properly is an easily avoidable "olive" that costs us valuable chair time and needless negative patient goodwill. Likewise, lab cases sitting in the bins for over a month need to be reviewed so that these cases can be completed. In our practice, that's a specific duty assigned to a particular assistant.

Another seemingly trivial "olive" that really adds up is the office thermostat. If you don't have one of those programmable thermostats, you're probably over-spending $100 each month in wasted energy. There is no reason to have the AC running during the evening or on weekends at the same setting as you do during work hours. During our afternoons off, we manually raise the temperature about six or eight degrees before we leave the office just to save a few bucks.

Of course it's always great to find some large "olives" to really reduce your overhead. For years I have been receiving a 10 percent discount at the dental lab I use because I prepay my account with a credit card. Now that's a big "olive"! Check with your lab today and ask if they provide that courtesy; many labs do.

Here's another big one – get a quote on credit card processing fees. There are so many hidden bank fees that we tend to overlook month after month. Between my practice and KISCO, I am saving several hundred dollars per month after evaluating these fees. Nice "olive"!

Want another big olive? About 80 percent of the doctors ask their labs for high noble or semi-precious metal. The lab I use saves many doctors money by suggesting they use non-precious metal as long as it doesn't contain nickel or beryllium. I've been using non-precious metal for most of my PFMs for years and cannot see one negative thing from using this material.

Many "olives" can be eliminated by a team management approach by which each employee is assigned specific duties and responsibilities. Respective checklists should be used for these assigned duties to guarantee that everything is being done properly. Go ahead and schedule an "olive" meeting with your staff and get your team's input and suggestions for finding "olives" in your practice. Many times your team will come up with more ideas than the doctor for finding "olives" and improving your bottom line. So, where are the olives in your practice?
Author’s Bio
Dr. Joe Steven graduated from Creighton Dental School in 1978 and has been in solo practice in Wichita, Kansas, up until June, 2007 at which time his daughter, Dr. Jasmin Rupp joined him. He is president of KISCO, a dental products marketing company, providing "new ideas for dentistry," and is the editor of the KISCO Perspective Newsletter. Dr. Steven, along with Dr. Mark Troilo, presents the "Team Dynamics" seminar. Dr. Steven also presents three other seminars: "Efficient-dentistry," "Efficient-prosthetics," and "Efficient-endo." Dr. Steven also provides the KISCO Select Consulting Program to dentists in the form of a monthly audio CD recording. He also offers a coaching consulting program called the KISCO's 21 Club. Contact info: jsteven@kiscodental.com; 800-325-8649; www.kiscodental.com.
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September 2025
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