GOAL ATTAINING & Reporting Pearls
If you want to Set, Monitor and Attain your goals,
you might find the “Goal-Attaining & Reporting Kit” of value.
Do you have any 2026 new year's resolutions for your practice? Are they realistic enough to be attained? Do you have a practical way to attain them? Maybe this pearl can help. If you’re the type that gets inspired at the start of a new year, bursting with hope and energy that it will be better than the previous year, then this pearl is for you. There isn’t anything that you can’t realistically attain if you truly want it and are willing to put forth the effort. That effort can be complicated (improving any of your 9 major management systems) or uncomplicated (improving any of their dozens of sub-systems). It all depends on what you want out of your…
What are Realistic monthly any yearly goals based on? New Pt. Exam Goal: Last Year’s total exams + 2% to 10% increase. Full/Ph-II Starts Goal: Last Year’s starts + estimated % growth. Production Goal: Last Year’s Production + 2% to 10% increase + % increase in Full Fees. Collections Goal: Last Year’s Production + 30% of growth increase (e.g., if 10% growth, than 3%). Expenses Goal: Last Year’s Expenses + new expenses this year – non-repeated expenses from last year. What should your goals be? Base them on last year as above, but consider your past years growth and what percentage is realistic for you. If last year was a down year,…
How much can Invisible Aligners increase your net? Is it worth it? You may find the answers here. Note: since Invisalign is the most popular plastic aligner, it will be used in the examples below. Typical practices do about 5-15 simple cases/year and never develop the skills to use it for more difficult cases or to spend less chairtime/case. Practices that do over 80/year learn the skills required for more difficult cases and fall into three distinct categories. These categories are based on the difficulty of the case, the use of attachments/adjustments, and the number of treatment phases used. I call them the 35%, 45% and 55% practices. The percent refers to the amount of time it takes to treat a…
Do you use bonus programs to motivate your team to improve or grow your practice? If yes, maybe you shouldn't... if no, maybe you should! Bonuses can help and hinder your practice—find out why. Many doctors are under the impression that bonuses can help the practice grow or motivate individual team members to do a better job. There are two things you should learn from this pearl: (1) You should never bribe your team with bonuses to do their tasks—if they won’t perform ALL of their tasks, replace them. (2) A bonus system must be fair to both the practice and team members. Some doctors pay their TC to get a better exam conversion rate; some doctors…
Do your patients look forward to or resent visits to your office? Are you doing all you can to make their visits as pleasant as possible? Maybe this checklist for exceptional patient visits will help. With longer times between treatment visits it is important that every visit be exceptional. That means that everything is done that is needed to assure a successful treatment. It also means that it is important that the patient shows up for their necessary treatment. If you provide the kind of visits that makes the patient happy to be there they will show up on time. It also means that they will sing your praises to others who will seek treatment in your practice.…
Are you sure your cases are being completed on time? Do you have a program in place to resolve your run-on cases? This pearl may help. Run-on cases are costly; every wasted 10-minute appointment costs the practice at least $50. If you average one run-on patient/day wasting a 30 min appt., it costs you about $150. If you treat patients 160 days/year, it costs you about $24,000 per year in wasted production. Imagine how much you are losing in lost production if you averaged more than one run-on per day. Another way of looking at it is. If you have an average of 50 run-on cases/year, seen every 6-7 weeks, that’s 10 visits/year times $150/visit = $1,500/patient times 50…
Do you know the basics of marketing? Is your current marketing fruitful? Maybe this pearl can help. The world doesn't owe you patients just because you have spent 22 years and $500,000 on your education and untold amounts to establish your practice—you have to earn your patients! There are also no simple marketing gimmicks, for example, sending a rose to referring mothers, that will assure you a sound position in the orthodontic marketplace—marketing is hard work! There are two types of marketing: internal and external. Internal marketing is based on having the best staff, systems and attitude to make your patients feel that they are receiving more than what they're paying for. Internal marketing relies on the…
Is your website doing its job? Does it turn on prospective patients—or turn them off? This pearl can help you decide and make the simple changes that get the job done. Your website must never be about you, it must only be about them. Always use the second person singular (you, your) and limitedly the first person plural (we, us) and speak to them as if they are actually in front of you. Always speak as if they are already in treatment, which is called a “pre-close” and helps sell the patient on your services, contact you, and make an appointment. Your website must fulfill three criteria to be successful: (1) You must make the patient aware…
Are your Goal-Attaining systems all that they could be? Are your monthly practice goals Realistic? Have you accounted for the programs required to attain your goals? If not, maybe this pearl will 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; the A~D~D~I~C~T approach is designed to do just that. 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 Goal-Attaining Systems to fit your needs, Design your Goal-Attaining System, Implement that Goal-Attaining System's design, Critique the effectiveness of your implementation, and Tweak what needs…
Do you know whether your website has ever been hacked? Are you aware of what hackers can do to your expensive website and its data? If not, maybe this pearl can help. Websites are becoming an integral part of the management of your practice through marketing, making appointments, and the like. The more sophisticated your website, the more destruction a hacker can cause, especially if your website contains private patient or practice data. See the attached PDF to learn more about hackers and what you can do about them to protect your site and patients. In 2014 my DeanBellavia.com website was hacked and literally destroyed. Since then I have had my Webmaster create anti-hacking software to…
Do you have difficulty resolving conflict with your team? Do you have difficulty resolving conflict with your patients? Do you have difficulty resolving conflict in general? Maybe this pearl can help. In every situation you have a goal for being involved; otherwise, why are you involved? Sometimes problems—that must be resolved—get in the way of attaining that goal. The best way to resolve a problem is to look at the various solutions, consider the pros & cons of each solution and then choose the best (although not perfect) one to best attain that goal. For example, a patient is supposed to pay for the treatment they receive—if they don’t pay there’s a problem. The solution may be to…
Are you getting enough referrals from all of your local dentists? Do you maintain a close connection with your referring dentists? Does you team maintain a close connection with your referring dentist's teams? Do you notify your referring dentists when you send them a referral? If not, maybe this pearl can help you get more referrals. Just because you exist in an area it doesn’t mean that you will automatically get new patient referrals—unless of course you are the only orthodontist in the area. If not, then you need to make sure that those possible referring dentists know that you will provide their patients with the best possible treatment and service (i.e., how you treat them personally). And a…
Are you noticing a recent disturbing drop in your Production/Collections/Net? Are you in a conundrum about accepting patient insurance in general? Do you feel a need to accept other types of insurance to maintain your practice? Are you perplexed about how that may affect your practice? If so, maybe this pearl can help you make the best decisions. The orthodontic economy, trying to recover form the 2008 depression, has shown much improvement over the last five years. Unfortunately, this past year (2018 election year) patients have been hesitant about starting treatment, as usual. Starts usually drop in the last 4-6 months of a major election year, but then go back to the usual the next year. Because of…
Are you noticing a downturn in exams/starts? Is it because your referring dentists are retiring? Is it because you are not putting on an impressive exam? Are local dentists doing a lot of orthodontics (braces or aligners) at a much lower fee? If so, maybe this pearl can help you maintain/build your practice. If you have a mature practice (>30 years) you may be seeing a drop in referrals as your referring dentists retire. The best way to deal with this is to hire or partner with a younger orthodontist to stimulate younger DDS referrals. If not realistic, you need to better control your OBS recall patients (a major source of starts in mature practices). If not realistic, using…
Do you use plastic aligners to treat some or many of your cases? Are the results you attain with plastic aligners satisfactory? Do you feel that the lab cost of aligners is a bit too high? Have you ever considered making your own plastic aligners? Well maybe this pearl can help you decide. Not every orthodontist feels comfortable using plastic aligners. Many feel comfortable only treating easy cases and some are comfortable treating most cases. Whether you are an expert using plastic aligners or not, there is one problem everybody has…the lab costs. Invisalign lab costs range from $400 to $1,900. There are other aligner companies with similar quality such as Ormco’s SPARK, 3M Clarity, etc. They all have…
Is your present office adequate for your needs? Are you considering a new office now or in the future? Have you considered all of the perils of establishing a new office? Maybe the 5th part of this series will help. Dream Practice Odyssey - Part 5 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:…
Is your Internal Marketing in place making your current patients love to visit your practice? Is your External Marketing in place, making NEW patient/families want to have their treatment with you? Are there services that you don't currently provide a possible new market for patients? Maybe the 7th part of this series will help you get all of that in prospective. Dream Practice Odyssey Part 7 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…
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Your Management Pearls
- GOAL ATTAINING & Reporting Pearls
