Owning a dental office is no easy feat. Patient retention rates are dependant on how you manage your practice. The path to dental practice success is to choose which elements you’ll give your attention. A number of day-to-day tasks can quickly take over your big-picture priorities if you don’t have the right systems in place. How you manage your office speaks to your practice values, customer appreciation, and ability to build revenue. If you want to improve your patient experience, hone in one of these five components to dental practice success.
Specialized Services
What makes your dental practice different from the other offices in your community? Focus in on what your office excels at. Whether it’s one-stop family dentistry or high-quality cosmetic procedures, promote what you do well. Build your brand and team values around that specialty service. Your office will soon become associated with that service and your dental office success will grow.
Dental Office Culture
Once you’ve established the specialized service of your practice, build a team culture around that care. The dental office culture isn’t just a belief. It should be felt in every detail, from the waiting room décor to how the front office handles dental billing. Your culture is how you run the practice. Consider these culture-focused questions to help build your dental office success:
- How does the practice handle failure? And success?
- What keeps team members motivated?
- What’s the first impression patients have of the waiting room?
- How is dental billing handled?
- How does the practice give back to its local community?
Develop practices and an environment that encourages your team to buy into the culture.
Next Step For Growth
Have an overarching picture for your dental practice. Understand what your move will be when it’s time for growth. Perhaps your next move will be to hire an Endodontist or move to a larger building. Knowing how to recognize the next step for growth means developing a plan for the practice in its current state. Consider systemization for contacting patients, dental billing, appointment reminders, and follow-up patient care. When the team is on the same page for how to handle each task within the practice, there’s less room for error or misunderstanding.
Dental Billing
How much time does your front office staff spend on the phone with dental insurance companies? One of the most time-consuming portions of the day can be processing dental billing information. By outsourcing dental insurance billing, your team has more time to engage with patients. Prospective patients aren’t immediately placed on hold and those with appointments aren’t greeted by a team member on the phone. By hiring a dental insurance billing company, you benefit from:
- Paying for revenue collected, not an employee salary
- More engaged front office staff
- Collect money faster
Check out our other top reasons to outsource your dental billing.
Ask For & Promote Referrals
As you develop a strong culture for dental practice success, your patients will take notice. By taking dental billing off the checklist for your front office staff, they can get to know your patients. A personalized approach creates a memorable, positive experience for your patients. As your patients become loyalists, ask for an online review or referral. When you promote that your customers are happy and continuously return to the office, you use the power of social influence to drive more patients to the practice.
Better Practice Solutions is a dental insurance claims and collections firm dedicated to helping grow your practice. Request a FREE Consultation online.