My blog article last week titled “What Are Some People Thinking?” attracted a lot of comments and interest from business owners and also from people within the dental profession.
To me it just seems ludicrous that young dentists who are still wet behind the ears can turn up at an established dental practice and demand to be provided with [or be gifted] an endless supply of patients that these inexperienced dentists then believe they can do whatever they want to, because they now have a degree.
Without any considerations of the protocols and culture of the practice they are going to work in….
As if it is their birth right to be able to do as they please?
Well, the story get’s worse…
Just when you think that there’s no way there can be a worse story than this in dentistry, well let me tell you there is.
There are dental practices out there that are owned by experienced and educated dentists that are being held to ransom by belligerent office staff and dental assistants.
Purely because these staff can.
I’ve seen dental offices where front office staff have thrown tantrums because the dentist who owns the practice wants to implement coaching and training for the staff, and the staff don’t want it.
The staff don’t want the coaching so badly that they assume SABOTAGE MODE in an effort to have the dentist terminate the coaching and the practice return to its sub-par below average performances.
Again, how can that sort of staff attitude exist or be tolerated in a logical methodical world?
“I don’t know why we’re having coaching, we’re already doing all that…”
“I don’t want my phone conversations recorded. Sometimes I share personal information with the callers in an effort to gain their trust…”
Well welcome to the twenty-first century…
Could you imagine if the police force or the army just recruited people, but didn’t train them?
Initially?
And continually?
What about our hospitals? What if our hospitals just relied on the previous educations of its medical staff of doctors. And nurses, and never kept them up to date with the latest procedures and innovations?
And what about your favourite sporting team? What if they simply bought well, but never trained together?
After all, they’re elite athletes. They can simply do what they always do, can’t they?
The sad thing is….
The sad thing is there are mini-dictators out there throwing their weight around without justification purely to protect a status quo that they’ve decided is GOOD ENOUGH for their employers’ businesses, with flagrant regard for the reality that they really have no right to be doing so.
When in fact their employer needs to TAKE CONTROL and let the team know exactly who is in charge and exactly who makes the decisions.
I’ve seen some practices…
I remember 24 years ago when I met a dental coach who said to me:
“I can go into a dental practice and show you an employee costing that practice over $200K per year….”
And I thought immediately:
“That’s MY PRACTICE!!”
It was a light-bulb moment.
Indeed, it was truly a defining moment in my life as a dental practice owner.
I had had a long term employee who had been choking my practice and preventing it from growing.
And so after eight years we were able to move this employee on to a new position at someone else’s practice.
And things got better.
Immediately.
But I’ve seen worse…
I saw a practice where the dental receptionist was so despised by the dentist and also the dentist’s spouse, but had been in the practice for some fifteen or sixteen years!
And when this recalcitrant employee was finally shown the door, the visible relief that that dentist displayed, was dramatic.
But you’ve got to ask, why did that dentist wait so long to act, especially when he’d received the advice to take action from several people, for many years?
No one person….
No one person in your employ has the right to determine the financial destiny of your business without being invited and without having skin in the game.
But yet, time and time again I see practice after practice being dictated to by a so-called “trusted” long-term employee who has drawn a line in their sand for their employer’s practice.
There is no way that an under-educated employee with zero skin in the game should have any input or impact on any business decision of your practice that impacts upon the financial success of your business and the decisions that your business needs to make about growth and future growth.
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday November 25, 2021 in Sydney, NSW.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Sometimes I just cannot believe the things that go on in a dental business… so help me Nellie!!
I mean, the things I hear, you just wouldn’t ever think that those things would go on in any business ANYWHERE!!
I just don’t understand why people think that the behaviours they believe are OK in a dental practice are even acceptable.
Because the behaviours they are “putting on” and wanting to be accepted are totally unconscionable in any logical or methodical environment.
For heaven’s sake….
Where Else In The World Would This Sort Of Fairy-tale Ever Exist?
Let me paint a picture…
There’s a dentist, who owns a dental practice that’s worth [let’s say] $1.5M.
If it were sold tomorrow, someone would pay this dentist $1.5M to purchase this practice.
What that means, is that this dentist has $1.5M of his balance sheet, of his hard-earned, of his assets, TIED UP in that business.
It’s his baby.
It’s his name on the door.
He’s the organ grinder.
If that’s the case…
If that’s the case… what gives anyone who comes to work for this dentist the right to want to do things in his practice any other way than what the owner says he wants done?
Really!
Yet any other dentist, with limited if any [sometimes] experience can rock up at the door of the practice and apply for a job drilling teeth there, and perform under their own set of [often non-existent] standards and do pretty well as little or as much work [of their own choice] as they choose to, without a care in the world of the flow on effects to the practice as result of their ability [or lack thereof] to be able to perform.
And yet it happens. And it happens. And it happens.
And is allowed to happen.
Dentists turn up to be employed to work in an established practice, and because for some reason these dentists are called “contractors” or “independent contractors” they feel [or are given] free range of entitlement to do as little or as much as they feel like….
And yet these employed dentists [NOTE: no parentheses] have ZERO skin in the game.
[And sometimes these employed dentists have come straight out of dental school and bring zero years of experience with them]
And these dentists demand a percentage of what they produce. [And sometimes they produce four fifths of not much!]
And when they are producing “not much”, these employed dentists demand that the owner dentist provides them with more new patients.
And guess what, when they receive more new patients, these employed dentists still produce “not much”.
And so you end up with practices with very little consistency because of this failure to set [and keep] a minimal standard of performance from its practitioners.
You end up with inconsistencies.
Inconsistencies in diagnosis. Inconsistencies in case presentation and treatment planning. And inconsistencies in treatment completed.
And inconsistencies in levels of service to the patients.
And these inconsistencies spread through other employees of the practice….
Inconsistencies:
What we find is there are inconsistencies in behaviours and performances of other non-clinical employees.
Usually, when we see inconsistencies amongst practitioners, we also see inconsistencies in the levels of delivery of hygiene, and of dental assisting, and of dental reception services.
There are inconsistencies and variances in the ways that different team members speak to each other, and to patients.
There are inconsistencies in the ways that different front office team members answer their phones, greet arriving patients, and farewell departing patients.
There are inconsistencies in the handovers of patients from one team member to another while the VALUED patient journeys through the practice.
The whole practice ends up being nothing more than simply a collection of individuals doing what they want, when they want, without any thought at all to the parent company and its goals and KPIs and its systems.
It wouldn’t happen at McDonalds…
This sort of inconsistent delivery process would never happen in a McDonalds restaurant.
You couldn’t turn up to work at McDonalds and cook your own burgers and deliver your own scripts….
McDonalds have a system that is tried and proven and must be followed to the letter by all who are employed there.
And all who turn up to work at McDonalds learn how to do and say things the McDonalds way…. It’s just what has to be done to get things done.
It’s the same at Disney.
It’s the same at Ritz Carlton.
It’s the same in the Police Force. And in the Army, and in the Navy.
You simply cannot turn up at any other successfully run businesses and organisations and start suggesting another way.
The McDonalds model became the GOLD STANDARD for fast food franchise operations.
At McDonalds the policy is to follow the manual, or follow the footpath from the front of the store to the bus stop.
In running a dental business we need to ensure we have consistencies.
Our valued customers deserve it, yet they aren’t seeing it.
And our dental practice owners deserve it. They’re the ones with the skin in the game.
It’s about time that these owners received some respect for the money and training and education time that they have invested into their dental practices.
It’s time to show our dental practices and their owners that respect….
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday November 25, 2021 in Sydney, NSW.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
I wrote last week about the inconsistencies in messages that dental practices are sending to their valued patients about the NECESSITY or not of their dental treatment.
Mandatory state and territory regulations in Australia relating to STAY AT HOME regulations and the restriction of movement of the community in general [in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19 in the community] are the paramount determining factors as to whether dental practices are open for business or not.
On top of these regulations, State and Territory Dental Councils then set levels of Operation for their dental practices to follow.
So while one state may have the community in Lockdown, they may still only have dental practices operating quite freely on Level 1 Restrictions.
Other States may be harsher on their dental practices, applying Level 3 and Level 4 Restrictions on dental practices, affecting which dental procedures can be carried out and those that are not permitted during these times.
Of primary importance is the consideration that through all of this, the provision of dental services is considered a medical treatment, and as such, is one of the five reasons that people are permitted to travel from their homes during lockdown times.
The Primary Question?
The question arises during these times as to why some industries and activities are allowed to operate in some states and countries in lockdown but not others.
Golf is a prime example.
In the Australian State of Victoria, golf is not permitted as an activity during times of lockdown. In neighbouring New South Wales, golf is permitted as exercise and recreation, though there are significant social distancing adjustments applied to the way golf is played.
The Flow On Implication Is This:
If an industry or an activity can be shown to be acting responsibly within the guidelines for restricting the social spread of the Virus by following safe practices, then that industry should feel fortunate to be allowed to continue to do business.
Rather than be closed down as a result of some “beaurocratic preconception or misconception”
One must wonder why the Victorians have not been allowed to play golf during lockdowns for past eighteen months while their northern neighbours from New South Wales are playing golf, and are demonstrating to the rest of the country that golf is a fairly safe pastime.
As a result of this, golf courses in New South Wales have seen a resurgence of activity and have been able to provide an avenue for physical and mental exercise for members of the community, as well as providing employment and business-to-business opportunities for the golf clubs and their suppliers.
Mandatory across the board closures of businesses has a flow on effect to other smaller businesses in the community that deal with each other on a B2B basis.
Dental practices should feel very fortunate that they can still perform most dental procedures on their patients during Lockdown and level One restrictions, while following the Dental Council edict that they “evaluate whether delaying treatment may lead to an unfavourable result” for their patients.
Many dental patients believe that the treatment they are having at their dentist, including regular examinations and preventive treatments, are indeed NECESSARY in the maintenance of their overall health and well-being.
It is important that the profession upholds the fact that these necessary visits to the dentist do need to proceed for the patient whenever possible, and that with appropriate screening procedures and protocols, there is no valid reason or excuse for the delay of these necessary appointments.
Especially while the continued provision of medical treatments is considered valid and justified during these times.
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday November 25, 2021 in Sydney, NSW.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
In these uncertain times it must be emphasised that what we say must have a singular clear meaning, with no implications.
With no innuendo.
With no uncertainty.
I’ve heard about some real clangers being used when discussing dental services and shutdowns and lockdowns….
According to the NSW State Government a person is permitted to leave home for medical reasons.
Dentistry is a medical reason.
The Dental Council of NSW says this:
“the provision of care should always be aimed at achieving an optimum outcome. In this assessment, you should also evaluate whether delaying treatment may lead to an unfavourable result”
And this:
“you must always exercise professional judgement when determining the clinical care/treatment that is being proposed/delivered to each of your patients and consider whether it is appropriate to undertake the care/treatment at this time”
And this:
“While adhering to infection control standards, keeping abreast of the latest government developments, and undertaking a risk assessment for each and every patient.”
I believe the key wording is the use of the term “essential care” and determining whether “delaying treatment may lead to an unfavourable result”.
What is an unfavourable result?
Is the spread of decay unfavourable?
Is having a larger deeper cavity unfavourable?
Is having chronic infection in the oral cavity unfavourable?
Is having the blood that pumps through a patient’s infected gums travelling throughout the rest of the patient’s body unfavourable?
Is halitosis due to plaque and tartar build up unfavourable?
Is leaving an unprotected crack on a molar that could fracture vertically unfavourable?
What is essential?
More importantly, what is “necessary” dental treatment?
You would think that any dental treatment that reduces or eliminated the chance of an unfavourable result would be considered ESSENTIAL and NECESSARY.
But are teeth necessary?
After all, a dentist friend of mine believes that teeth are not really necessary… he says that’s what blenders are for.
And he’s correct. You could always blend your food to a puree to avoid having to chew it.
What if you said this?
What if you started telling your patients that you were cancelling or rescheduling their appointment because their treatment was not urgent?
Or was not essential?
What would the patient think?
Would the patient then start to wonder how much of their previous treatment was “not urgent” or “not essential”?
What is the use of these terms with relation to restorative dentistry, periodontal health, endodontic treatment, preventive dentistry, orthodontic treatment going to do to restore confidence in our profession and its professional judgement?
I heard of one dental office where they told their patient that because that patient attended regularly for check-ups and hygiene visits, it was going to be ok for that patient to defer their upcoming visit.
Really?
Because they were a regular attender?
Which implies that really this patient’s regular visits are unimportant in the scheme of things…
And it infers that maybe in the future this patient need not attend as regularly as the dentist is insisting…. After all, if they can delay their hygiene visit this one time, why can’t they delay it more often and for longer every time?
But it’s not just dentists…
Last year my local hospital told me that they weren’t booking colonoscopies during lockdown because the hospital wasn’t doing any elective surgeries…
Really?
Who decided that having a colonoscopy was elective surgery?
Who in their right mind wakes up in the morning and elects to have a colonoscopy because they have nothing better to do that day?
In the USA…
In the USA any [medical] procedure that through its delay is considered to cause permanent damage or loss of body tissue is considered to be an essential treatment that the government cannot legislate against it happening.
A new interim policy issued by the American Dental Association (ADA) in Chicago on August 10, 2020 stated that dentistry is an “essential health care service,” reaffirming that oral health has long been recognized as an integral part of overall health.
“Whether it’s the current pandemic, a future epidemic or a natural disaster in a particular area, this policy recognizes the need for people to be able to continue to access the full range of dental services,” said ADA President Chad P. Gehani, D.D.S. “Oral health is integral to overall health — staying well depends on having access to health care, which includes dental treatment.”
Dr. Gehani added that regular dental visits are important because treatment, as well as prevention of dental disease, helps keep people healthy. “Beyond teeth and gums, the mouth also serves as a window to the rest of the body and can show signs of infection, nutritional deficiencies and systemic diseases,” he said.
The policy includes the following:
Oral health is an integral component of systemic health.
Dentistry is an essential health care service because of its role in evaluating, diagnosing, preventing or treating oral diseases, which can affect systemic health.
The term “Essential Dental Care” be defined as any care that prevents and eliminates infection, preserves the structure and function of teeth as well as orofacial hard and soft tissues. Orofacial generally refers to the mouth, jaws and face.
Essential dental care should continue to be delivered during global pandemics or other disaster situations.
Government agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have acknowledged dentistry as an essential service needed to maintain the health of Americans so they can sustain their health and livelihoods and live resiliently during the COVID-19 pandemic response.
I agree whole heartedly with the US ADA in believing that dentistry IS AN ESSENTIAL SERVICE needed to maintain the health of the population so they can sustain their health and livelihoods and live resiliently during the COVID-19 pandemic response.
As such, it is each dentist’s responsibility, as emphasised by the Dental Council of NSW, to “evaluate whether delaying treatment may lead to an unfavourable result.”
Remember, what goes on inside the oral cavity is not like cleaning up the garage. You just can’t close the garage door and come back in a month, and everything is still the same.
It’s a hostile environment inside the oral cavity. Things do get worse in there with time.
In most cases delaying dental treatment leads to a result that is less favourable than if we had begun that treatment sooner.
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday November 25, 2021 in Sydney, NSW.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
The winds are especially noticeable when you live on the land; out in the country, on acreage, high on a hill and away from your neighbours.
Sometimes the winds can be ferocious.
You wonder how the trees can withstand these strong winds.
But they do….
When a wind blows a tree flexes with the wind. If the tree can’t flex, it will snap, and break, and die.
A tree cannot stay rigid in ferocious winds.
It’s the same in business.
Your business needs to flex and adapt to adverse conditions if it is to survive.
A business needs to adapt and change to suit the conditions.
For example, when a special event occurs that attracts large crowds, the public transport network does not run on weekend timetables?
When there are concerts, test matches, grand finals, Royal Easter Shows, and the City2Surf…. … the government run transport network puts on extra trains and buses, to help the patrons get to the venue efficiently and also to get home from the event without undue delay.
In dentistry down under we are seeing similar situations, with regards to demand and supply.
Snap lockdowns due to COVID-19 in the community are causing dental practices to have to close and cancel appointments. Dental patients are not being permitted to travel far from their home during lockdown periods and stay-at-home orders.
And their dental appointments need to be rescheduled.
I had one dentist tell me this week that the hygiene appointments at his practice that they are unable to perform at the moment are not being able to be rescheduled for three to four months.
And these patients aren’t particularly happy about this.
And why wouldn’t they be unhappy?
Through no fault of their own, these patients who have made these appointments some three or six months prior, are now having “to go to the end of the line” because of a government imposed lockdown that is out of their control.
And these patients are concerned about the effect of this delay on their dental health.
And rightly so.
And so this dentist asked me what should he do?
And my answer was simple:
This dentist needed to work more hours and more days immediately post-lockdown to accommodate those valuable patients who had had their appointments cancelled as a result of the lockdown.
Simple.
It’s not rocket science.
He just can’t tell these patients to go to the back of the line.
This dentist needed to be able to show some FLEXIBILITY and needed to BE SEEN TO BE SHOWING flexibility in this time of need for his patients.
Because if he is not seen to be being flexible, and if he is seen to be not “bending over” to help these patients, then one thing is for certain:
Some of these patients will leave this practice and go elsewhere for their dentistry.
Because they value their dental health and they are feeling that their dentist does not.
I saw on social media that a dentist friend of mine was starting work earlier [like at 6:00am in the morning] to catch up on the backlog of patients caused by the COVID lockdown in his area.
He gets it.
Whereas the other dentist did not.
And I know it is not that dentist’s fault that COVID lockdowns have caused these restrictions.
But it is not your patients’ fault either that they have been restricted from coming to the dentist by these COVID shutdowns and lockdowns.
Imagine if there was a pilot strike and your flight was cancelled, and you couldn’t book another flight for three months because your original airline wasn’t going to put on any extra flights to clear the backlogs?
We all know that just wouldn’t happen.
Sometimes in business you just need to flex to adapt to the difficult conditions… and ride through the storms.
It will be worth it.
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday November 25, 2021 in Sydney, NSW.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
