SCHEDULING & Tx Quality Control Pearls
If you want a Smoother, more Productive Schedule,
the “Scheduling Design & Tx Quality Control Kit” may be of value.
Do you find it difficult to stay on schedule daily when dealing with early, late and emergency patients? If so, the 3-Step Decision Process can help you. * It helps to have more chairs than assistants to be able to do the 2nd step above. ** You will need 1-3 Unit (typically ½ hour) “Hold” appointments in your daily schedule that are not given out until the day before or the day of the appointment. This allows you to do the 3rd step above and reschedule the patient the next day. It also allows you to schedule emergencies that day that call in that morning.
Do you have a well-designed daily schedule? Whether you do or do not, you can still create a better patient flow. This pearl can show you how. Using a Clinic Traffic Cop: Whether you have a lighting system or not, a clinic traffic cop is very handy to have, especially when directing the doctor coming out of an exam or during high-volume time. This person is typically the Clinical Coordinator. An On-Deck area saves a lot of staff time bringing the patients to the chair and giving them a place to brush before being seated. You need at least one on-deck chair per clinic chair; if you have enough clinic chairs. Have 2 clinic Chairs/DA or at…
Does your treatment seem to fall behind on non-cooperative patients? Are your patients and families upset because they are in treatment too long? Are your referring dentists upset with not knowing how treatment is progressing? If so, maybe this pearl can help. With the advancements in braces and archwire technology there is a trend to have appointments as many weeks apart as possible. This is good because the patient comes in less and there is a slight decrease in the number of patients seen per day. But this trend toward long appointment intervals (over 8 weeks) is getting out of hand and run-on cases have increased dramatically. Lets face it, if you have an appointment interval of…
Do too many of your patients find it difficult to cooperate during treatment? Do you have a specific program in place to deal with this? Do you have at least one clinical team member properly trained to make that program a success? If not, maybe this pearl can help. In general, there are three types of patients: 1) the many who naturally cooperate 2) the few who are naturally uncooperative 3) those who would cooperate if they knew WHY, HOW and WHEN. You will have limited success with the uncooperative patients, typically ending up with a compromised or terminated treatment. You can have much greater success with those who would cooperate if they knew how. These are the…
Do your SOS & Emergencies Failures seem high (more than 5/day)? Do your Missed and Cancelled appointments seem high (more than 8/day)? Are you, or are your patients the cause of this? Maybe this pearl can help you figure it out. SOS patients (who show up to their appointment with a problem) and Emergency patients (who have a problem, but no appointment) not only wastes time and resources, it messes up a smooth, productive treatment day. There is no way to eliminate these occurrences—neither your patients nor your team are perfect—but there is a way to reduce the daily number of SOS and Emergency appointments. Refer to the attached PDF. Failure patients (who miss their appointments that…
Is your office availability discriminating against certain patients? Are your treatment days clashing with your time away from the office? Do you reschedule your patients more than they appreciate? Maybe this pearl can help resolve that. Most of my clients use a Vertical Calendar and Rotational Schedule to get the best office utilization (in a multi-office practice) and availability (in a single- or multi-office practice). If you are always closed on certain days of the week in certain offices, you will not be starting those patients who can only come in on those days. Incidently, a lot of patients want to come in on Saturday, but when offered, few show up. The same holds true for evening days after…
Is your Tx mechanotherapy giving you the ideal Tx results you desire? Are your cases being completed in the least amount of chairtime? Are your cases are being completed by their ECD (Estimated Completion Date)? If you need to get your cases under better control, maybe this pearl can help. Lets face it, making system changes in your practice isn’t typically met with great staff zeal. But if your team is a part of the entire process, your success is more probable. Sooo...Analyze the attachments below to see how the A~D~D~I~C~T straightforward approach works, Decide how you want to improve your case control, Decide on and Design the Tx mechanotherapy that will best fit your needs, Implement…
Have you tried using Indirect Bonding? Do you think that it might be a good Idea? Do you think that it saves DR-Tx-Time in your schedule? If not sure, maybe this pearl can help. Indirect bonding isn’t for everybody—some do very well with it and some can't seem to make it work. So let's look into what might make it work or not. Most people get into indirect bonding because they feel it will save them chairtime and Dr-Tx-Time in their daily schedule—you may be surprised at what actually is the case. The average doctor can direct bond one arch in 8 to 15 minutes. I can take up to 15 minutes if the doctor does every…
Do your Emergencies just show up, or do they call first? Do you have a means of determining what kind of appointment to bring them in for? Do you have problems finding an appointment for them? Maybe this pearl can help you reduce the frustration of emergencies. There are numerous types of emergencies requiring more or less chairtime and doctor time. It is foolish to waste chairtime and doctor time if not necessary. It is also important to plan for inevitable emergencies. Typical emergencies and the types of appointments they need are: 10-15-minute Emergencies: Poking Archwire, Poking Ligature wire, Ligature Chain off, Separator out, Loose Archwire, Elastics concerns 20-30-minute Emergencies: a Loose Bracket, a Loose Band,…
Do you have many run-on patients? Are some of your appointment intervals greater than 10 weeks? Do you like to try new Tx Mechanotherapies? If so, dental monitoring might help…maybe not. Dental Monitoring is a new way to keep track of your patient’s treatment. In general, keeping track of most patients is part of your service, but sometimes that can get out of control. If your appointment intervals are 10 or more weeks, patients can get lost or their treatment may go off course due to non-cooperation, misdiagnosis, or damaged braces. If a patient reschedules many times or misses many appointments, they can easily become run-on patients, with or without long appointment intervals. Dental Monitoring can be…
Have your patient visit communications suffered because of the pandemic? Do the family want more information at their visits than they are getting? Maybe this pearl can help improve your communications. Pandemic social distancing and crowd cluster restrictions is taking its toll on practicing orthodontics today. In the "good old days" patients would walk in, brush their teetha and wait on-deck to be treated as their families waited in the reception area. Today, the patients and family wait in their cars until called by cell phone. Once called, the masked patient is met at the door, has their temperature taken, is asked questions, is then escorted to the tooth-brushing area and finally to the chair. Refer to the…
Have you considered doing Teledentistry (virtual dentistry)? Are you aware of how much your patients might appreciate it? Do you think that it would be too difficult to set up in your practice? Well maybe this pearl will help you to decide. Schools are not the only hybrid social entity today, much of the world’s services are now hybrid (both electronic & in-person). Most orthodontic services need to be done in person, but many don’t. All of those “look-see” patient visits can be done virtually saving the patient/family the inconvenience of a trip to the office for the few minutes it takes to tell them what they need to know. The patient/families that can benefit from virtual orthodontics…
Have you designed your Ideal Schedule yet? Is it great or just adequate? Maybe the 4th part of this series will help. Dream Practice Odyssey - Part 4 View more of Your Practice Odyssey Videos Your Practice Odyssey - Part-1: The Perils of Staffing Your Practice Odyssey - Part-2: The Perils of Hiring & Training Your Practice Odyssey - Part-3: The Perils of Marketing (TC) Program Your Practice Odyssey - Part-4: The Perils of Scheduling Design Your Practice Odyssey - Part-5: The Perils of a New Office Your Practice Odyssey - Part-6: The Perils of a New Associate Your Practice Odyssey - Part-7: The Perils of Growing Your Practice…
Do you appreciate how much orthodontics has evolved over the past 50 years? You should! Are you aware of the latest trend of self-manufacturing your brackets and aligners in your own office? Maybe this pearl can help you put the pros and cons of the changing face of orthodontics into prospective. Over the 50 years that I’ve been organizing orthodontic practices there has been many changes, some pros and some cons; nothing comes without a price tag. In Part-I of this three-part series we will discuss the pros and cons of the changing face of orthodontic appliances. In Part-II we will discuss the cons of the changing face of your competition. In Part-III we will discuss the pros…
Do you know that patients are doing their own orthodontics using aligners? Do you see this as a threat to your practice? Would your practice’s bottom line improve if you could purchase your aligners individually? Well, maybe this pearl can help you put this changing face of orthodontic aligners into prospective. Over the 50 years that I’ve been organizing orthodontic practices there has been many changes; some pros and some cons—nothing comes without a price tag. In Part-II of this three-part series we will discus the changing face of your competition. I’m not talking about local orthodontists or about pediatric or general dentists; I’m talking about patients doing their own aligner treatment. We will also discuss in this…
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Dr. Bellavia will help you with an orthodontic office design that makes it a pleasure to go to work.
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Your Management Pearls
- SCHEDULING & Tx Quality Control Pearls
