So, you’ve successfully made the jump into the digital age by implementing software to help manage your practice. Maybe your contract is coming up for renewal, or you’re starting to wonder what else can be streamlined in your business by implementing more technology. We’ve scoured the latest tech features from practice management software providers to give you a list of problems in your dental office that the latest code can resolve.
Digital Ledgers
A well-designed digital ledger means fast and easy access to patient financial information, completed treatments, insurance and claims submissions, billing, and even printed statements. By digitizing billing, you remove lots of human error risk and the time it takes to complete, ensuring a faster response from insurance companies and payment.
Explanation of Benefits (EOB) and Coordination of Benefits (COB)
When invoicing, speed and accuracy are everything. Having a system that automatically updates the insurance co-payment amount in the transaction based on EOB provides instant and correct calculations of a patient’s portion of the invoice. This facilitates accurate, real-time patient collections. If your patient has dual insurance companies, a software system capable of handling COB electronically will do the job of forwarding the portion unpaid by their primary insurance to the secondary insurance to determine the eligible portion to be paid, and then forward any remaining to the patient, enabling real-time patient collection even in the trickiest case. These tech featuresensure seamless handling of complex billing scenarios, enhancing efficiency and patient satisfaction.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
Submitting electronic claims is only one of the many things in a software system approved by CDAnet and ITRANS for EDI in Canada. You can learn more about EDI integrations through the Canadian Dental Association and their own CDAnet website. Some software systems can support all the EDI functions, such as the ability to transmit documents and dental images electronically, which speeds up insurance benefit adjudication, to future-proof your investment.
Ortho Contract Billing
Many software providers offer contract billing for ortho treatment to keep you on track for both treatment and billing. For ongoing treatments, you can automatically submit claims, send invoices, and update ledgers.
Dental Patient Scheduling
A staple of any dental practice software, the ability to integrate scheduling directly into calendars with easy viewing and updating is one of the biggest time savers you can find. Simplifying to the level of drag-and-drop, maximizing your schedule takes a second or two, instead of minutes or hours. A clear and easy boost to the art of schedule making.
Automatic Patient Reminders
An extension of expanded patient communication, automatic reminders remove the burden of early morning check-ins. Select a message for people a week before their appointment, starting their treatment, or who haven’t been in for a check-up for 6 months, and let the software take care of the rest.
Patient Communication
Increasingly, patients prefer to communicate over a silent text, rather than a call they might have to step outside to take. Comprehensive software will allow you to shoot out an SMS or email to confirm appointments, reminders, and everything in between. Automating reminders and confirmations takes even more strain off your front desk. Consider the increased value of group messages as well. Software that can message a single cohort means your staff can send one quick group message when trying to fill a hole in your schedule instead of calling or messaging each person individually. These tech features streamline patient communication, making it more efficient and effective.
Complete Patient Clinical Record
With built-in charting and imaging, x-rays can be fine-tuned to be seen in greater detail. Save even more time by automatically rotating, mounting, and labelling the image with the correct tooth number before attaching it to the odontogram. And, with periodontal charting built in, and click-to-include clinical notes, everything you need is just a click away.
Production Growth Reporting
Well designed, and easy-to-understand reporting is key to analyzing the metrics of your business. By visualizing the important day-to-day information, you can get comprehensive, at-a-glance insights into things like cancellations, comparative productivity, and average earnings.
Practice Communication
Sharing pertinent information from the operatory to the front desk means that reception can pre-verify completed procedure codes, submit an electronic claim right after treatment is complete, and prepare an accurate patient invoice if required before the patient arrives for checkout
Staffing + Hours
Ensure there is coverage for all your patients and appointments with a system that allows you to see your schedule while also tracking staff hours from sign-in, to sign-out. Removing the manual counting of hours and the required comparison to the shift schedule will also translate to a smoother run of payroll.
Inventory Management
Don’t get caught with low stock. An inventory management tool keeps track of quantities and can notify you when supplies are close to depleted. Top-of-the-line inventory services will also provide vendor price comparisons, so you know when you’re getting the best deal.
Mobile Applications
If you’ve become accustomed to late hours in the office pouring over your schedule and checking in on patients, it’s time to consider support for mobile apps. Many software solutions now offer a way to securely access records and even connect with multiple practices or locations with much more convenience. A few companies will even offer tablet or iPad apps to speed up patient check-in and record reviews!
Want to learn more about tech features and what practice management software can do for your office? Download the free guide today!
Knowing the right moment to adopt new technology in dentistry and understanding the role that technology plays in your clinic is how you can use innovation to grow your dental business.
Let’s cover how technology changes already help, what these changes can look like for a business, and how to keep an eye out for opportunities in the future.
Taking the Paper Out of Paperwork
We spent a lot of time writing things down on paper before computers became as ubiquitous as they have. With the paper format, we had a system that worked easily and felt easy, even when an error required a whiteout or a new sheet to correct. What wasn’t easy was finding something misplaced or lost. As more and more of our records and bills digitize, software that focuses on your workflow as you move between sensitive oral care and insurance provider billing continues to speed up.
Patient management software, especially digital records, has taken much of the stress out of record-keeping, largely speeding up the busy work of dental practices everywhere. By creating a reliable digital system that saves on investment and even square footage costs, but is focused on ease of use, you can grow your productivity while costs continue to decrease.
Technology as a Service
The classic approach in business is to appraise market demand for a product, and then make a call on whether that business can profit over a period of time.
Services can be different. They often require additional training or specialty staff. While not especially new, take sedation dentistry as an example: simple training, yes, but to offer a full range of services that meet the many demands of those suffering from deep anxiety, you need IVs, access to general anesthesia, and even another medical degree. While that investment in a specific niche can pay off, full sedation is unlikely to work for a dental office without an oral surgeon.
Making The Case For New Technology
When you see an opportunity to provide additional services, the cost to the bottom line can be complex depending on how you intend to offer those services. Judging whether or not a new technology in dentistry is the right fit requires looking at the influences and conditions that could impact success outside of your office.
However, sometimes vendors back out of a specific space and force entire markets to reassess their needs. In the case of practice management software, when vendors back out of offering on-premises software, dental clinics are forced to judge whether it is time to switch to a new software vendor.
Chase Solutions, Not Products
People are more passionate about the brands they choose than ever. When the ones that innovate in a particular field get the word out, they can better create a passionate following. When patients inquire about invisible braces, are they asking about getting a beautiful smile without ugly braces, or about Invisalign? The invention of invisible braces cracked the market wide open for self-conscious adults actively chasing the opportunity to straighten their teeth.
Listening To Your Patients
In an age where product marketing can achieve cult status, you don’t want to end up simply buying into the most viral video. If your patients are routinely mentioning a product or service, dig deeper to find the reason that stands out for so many, and then find a way to tackle the issue they present. Even if many companies will narrow your choices by way of patent or expensive training, knowing that you’re paying for a technology in dentistry solution your patients will love, and not the marketing that sold them is what makes a difference to your bottom line.
You may have noticed we’ve made some adjustments to our brand. These were made in tune with how we see the future of ClearDent and the improved solutions, refreshed look, and services we aim to provide dentists across Canada and align with our three core values: Community, Creativity, and Courage.
When it comes to our Community, we are always listening and looking to improve the way we communicate. This includes the release of a new ClearDent News feature that will be accessible within your ClearDent software, to ensure important messages don’t go unnoticed.In our Support team, we’veincreased our capacity to answer your calls, resulting in lower average call wait times. We’ve also introduced new methods to route your request to those who can help you best including a new Cloud support team (cloudsupport@cleardent.com) available to help you via e-mail.To strengthen our lines of communication, we also intend to re-introduce an improved Account Management team (myaccount@cleardent.com).
During a time when everyone is doing their part to limit in-person interactions, we’ve looked to Creativity in both the software and services that we provide. We’ve launched a Patient Portal as part of ClearConnect that helps you provide a safe, contactless experience for both your team and patients. While we normally invest in your continuing education through in-person seminars, we’ve pivoted to holding monthly webinars for our customers on best practices in dentistry and using ClearDent.
Working toward the future, we are also setting bold goals that will hold us to our final core value – Courage. We’re excited to be working on a Cloud solution that will offer a full suite of administrative, clinical, and patient engagement features. Our all-in-one Cloud solution will enable us to broaden our community by working with partners on third-party integrations and more. The future of dentistry is always changing and we strive to be at the forefront of emerging technology, teaching our community how to use these tools to improve efficiency and productivity across your dental practice.
As we continue, we will continue leaning on you, our customers, to create solutions made for Canadian dentists.
Let’s take a moment to talk about how busy life gets inside your dental office. Between sealants and whitenings, there’s managing schedules, sterilizing tools, and serving patients as just a taste of the tasks that fill every day. Finding the right people to assist in your practice when it comes to performing these procedures is often the difference between peace of mind, and feeling like you were better off having done it yourself, but that is only half of it. Implementing effective hiring tips can ensure you select candidates who not only meet the skill requirements but also fit well with your practice’s culture and values.
Finding the right hire will feel like the best money ever spent, but a hire that quickly turns over can come with great costs, usually into the tens of thousands of dollars. We’ve got important details on making sure that your hiring process reduces your employee’s flight risk.
The Art of Detailed Explanations
In an ideal world, a job posting goes out, the dream hire is the first to apply, and the entire process is wrapped in under a week. In reality, you can expect up to 200 resumes, depending on your office location. Creating a job description that isn’t just accurate to the role, but paints a picture of expectations in your office helps you to quickly weed out many of the applications you’ll receive. Branch out beyond the minimum experience for a dental assistant to outline the values, culture, and expectations of your business by speaking to the type of person who will not simply do a good job, but will be a great fit.
The top talent that will help grow your practice is looking for purpose and asking big questions about the priorities of where they work. Providing big answers about what it means to hold a valued role in your office is a signal that you’re looking for the best. With most workers preferring a shared sense of responsibility over higher pay, you’ll be able to quickly weed out those copy-and-pasted CVs that ignore your values and are just looking for a paycheque.
Questioning Interview Questions
Just about every job on Earth starts with an interview. We’re all familiar with the operational standards: What interests you about this job? Where do you see yourself in five years? What is your biggest strength? These are relevant pieces of information but are so commonplace that many applicants can answer without thinking about the question. Implementing effective hiring tips, such as drawing on unique experiences when crafting questions like “How would you handle a rude patient?” or “What is the most valuable thing you learned in school?” can help gauge an applicant’s strategic thinking.
Giving your interviewee a chance to ask any question about the everyday work they’ll encounter, and more importantly, the types of expectations or values that are in place, ensures that employment excitement is mutual. Remember that the interview works both ways. Just as you are evaluating the candidates to see if they are a good fit for your office, they are evaluating you to see if your office will be a good fit for them.
Meeting the Family Before Joining
If you’re setting up your office for the first time, hiring a receptionist or assistant is a one-to-one relationship that relies on dozens of hours every week for collaboration. That means you need someone who can complete the job capably as well as be a good fit with your personality. If you’re on the other side of the coin, filling a role in a second or third office, that great personality may seem less important because you’re less likely to interact with them frequently. In that case, look to the office managers, doctors, and technicians that will rely on their work, and get their feedback.
By including coworkers and colleagues in the interview process, you can gain valuable insight that picks up on questions or experiences that may not be your top priority. Furthermore, by getting first impressions from those who will spend their weeks working with a new hire, you don’t run the risk of a new hire making your current team unhappy, or worse, convincing them it’s time to look elsewhere.
Implementing effective hiring tips can make the process smoother and more successful. Hiring is a daunting and time-consuming task, but it generally speaks to your practice being in a position of growth or being ready to take on challenges new and old. The hiring process is a tedious task that can be tempting to rush through, but taking the time to prep, ask the right questions, and check in with your people can save you thousands while finding a great fit, maybe for life.
There’s much to be said for going digital and ditching the burden of paperwork, but not all benefits of a paper-free office are instantly obvious. To address the most compelling arguments for digitizing the dentist’s office, here are three big benefits you can expect. When you incorporate practice management software into your business, you’ll start seeing game changers in your work that go beyond throwing out your filing cabinets and collapsible bookcases.
1. A Helping Hand for Your Business
Even if your day-to-day is spent focused on your patients, it’s likely that the business side of running a practice occupies most of your thoughts. DIAC’s 2018 Future of Dentistry Survey Report says that 78% of dentists are focused on billing and overhead more than anything else, with patient growth and retention a close second for 75% of doctors. These two topics clearly represent key indicators for an independent dentist.
Billing before the Internet was typically an in/out tray of inventory management, insurance numbers scribbled on a patient’s file, and a constant set of reminders left for the end of the day or week. Software can not only replace the hand-written submissions for payment, but in many cases, automate them. Rather than manually keying in insurance claims, practice management software can turn a completed treatment into a claim and submit it to the insurance in just a few clicks. Inventory that watches its own capacity can automatically generate its own reports, bills, and even offer vendor price comparisons when stock is detected as being low.
For those that are concerned about cancelled appointments and unexpected openings in their schedule, there are currently many studies that show calling them directly won’t get the response you expect. As people move away from their phone and closer towards email and text as their preferred communication channel, the ability to send out SMS or email updates is the perfect means to communicating with your patients where they are.
2. Streamlining Everyone’s Workflow
If you’ve yet to consider how much time you spend retrieving information, imagine instantly opening up records, x-rays, or reference material without leaving your patient’s side. While about one-third of dentists today still rely on paper in their approach to health care, many are starting to see the time-savers involved in reliably accessing the information right when they need it.
This benefit doesn’t start and stop with patient profile review. Reception benefits from an integrated system by receiving changes to a patient’s treatment as they’re entered into a file. Changes to their follow-up appointments are made by clicking and dragging schedules that also send out those helpful SMS updates for appointments. The reality is that a single system that’s integrated into all of your necessary services increases your office’s ability to respond and multi-task while cutting down on the risk of error or miscommunication.
3. Cost Savings and Planning
IT infrastructure can be perceived as an arduous upfront cost and a reason to stick with print, but maintenance and often forgotten charges are where you’ll find immediate results. If you suppose that a patient record is about $5 in materials alone, a healthy office is spending $6000 just to keep patient records on their books. Without including the cost of staff searching for records, updates or error correction in paperwork, you’ve got a massive amount of overhead that you might think insignificant at face value. Of course, this doesn’t even include printer ink or physical security mechanisms to protect the documents that are so important.
Savings don’t exclusively come from consolidation or electronic record keeping, but also monitoring costs. Being able to generate cost reports or statements on a daily or weekly basis lets you track your costs moment-to-moment. Complete integrations that incorporate expected income from scheduling, inventory costs, and payroll hours paint an exact portrait of your business’s performance, right down to the last cent.
Cancellations, no-shows, and missed appointments are a constant frustration with anyone running their own dental practice. Making sure patients arrive on time can feel like a gamble with busy schedules, but it’s not necessarily life that’s getting in the way of some patients making their appointments. Quite often, reasons to cancel appointments stem from anxieties with dentists in general.
Engaging with patients can sometimes be a difficult process if they’ve had poor experiences with a previous dentist. Some studies through Statistics Canada suggest up to 40% of Canadians have some level of anxiety towards their dental visits. Deep anxiety was reported as a substantial driver for early and last-minute cancellations and no-shows alike. If you’re ready and willing, providing a caring experience will reward you with a patient that’s calmer and more at ease, but also indebted to you. The patient that you go the extra mile for will deeply appreciate your hard work. So what can you do to calm the nerves of someone with post-traumatic dental stress?
Offer Up an Ear
If a patient is brand new to your practice, it may be worthwhile to expand on their medical history. Taking time to establish their previous experiences with dentists gives you an idea about how much care or attention they may need. Asking about their previous dental experiences to learn about possible sore spots is a great way to actively listen, but there’s no need to simply dwell on the negatives.
If there were positive memories, beyond the toy reward during a childhood visit, bringing them to the surface can help to identify paths forward and even persuade them that their dental experience can turn into a good memory. Some dentists also find success by adding certain questions to their intake forms so that the information can be kept as part of the patient’s file.
A Calming Welcome
Sensory input is a big cause of anxiety. Smells, colours, and surroundings are the first things that set off our nervousness, and all those things are staples of dental offices. Depending on the size of your office, you might be able to curb that sterile chemical smell with a hypoallergenic air freshener, so when a nervous nelly enters for the first time, they don’t immediately feel as though they’re on the defensive.
While we’re on the topic of your reception area, are your walls a clinical off-eggshell, or have you added a splash of paint or an accent wall to spice things up?
A soft blue or green are both shades that naturally put people at ease. If you prefer neutral colours, then consider filling your walls with unique art centred on nature or historical sites, both of which can calm our brains. Other options include adding a TV that can distract, or cover up a particularly loud drill. Creating a welcoming and calming environment can help reduce patient anxiety and minimize no-shows, ensuring a more efficient and pleasant experience for everyone.
Focus on Distractions
When it comes time to take a seat in the dentist’s chair, that same sensory input we talked about before is now in full swing, and there’s not much you can do to limit the sounds, smell, or feel of the room. Presenting distractions for your patient to focus on can relieve a lot of their tension.
Start by reserving any spaces with natural light, windows, or a more spacious layout to allay any feels of claustrophobia. If you’re lucky with the layout of your office, you may have a secure enough ceiling to position a TV or screen that’s aimed at any reclining individual. The combination of sound, images, and stories is a surefire way to distract from discomfort and pain. If you’re concerned that the sound may distract from conversations between you and your assistant, let your patient know they’re free to wear headphones while they get lost in a podcast, audiobook, or music.
The stresses that compile into a bad dental experience may not always be under your control, but how that anxiety and nervousness is handled in patients of all ages is yours to command. When a patient goes from fearful to optimistic about their impending cleaning or cavity filling, they know exactly who to thank, and they thank that dentist or practice with a loyalty that can last for a lifetime. Reducing patient anxiety can also help minimize no-shows and cancellations, ensuring a smoother schedule for your practice.
Dental practices frequently hold special places in the community. Recommendations from friends and family may be the top decider when searching for a new doctor, but just about every other patient will choose their oral health provider based on proximity. Being able to show that you’re engaged with the neighbourhood elevates you past just being another dentist in the eyes of possible patients.
If you want a strong presence in your community, you could use pricey flyers and bus stop ads, but charity can be just as effective, and much more rewarding. Engaging directly with local groups and organizations yields benefits for both your business and those in need.
The Math Behind the Money
There are many ways that businesses can be encouraged to engage with non-profits and other support-providing services. If you’re in search of a silver lining for your office, then look no further than useful charitable deductions. When thinking about where your donation goes, it always pays to be mindful of how they’re spent. Many high-profile national or international charities frequently distribute your gift across a wider region, or in specialized places such as research hubs or urban centres.
While high overhead is becoming less of a concern about efficacy, you may be interested in organizations that see a larger portion of proceeds directly go to those who need them. When a charity has a narrow focus, dollars typically go much further. Consider local sports teams or clubs for kids, where even smaller donations can make a big splash.
Charity Without the Cheque
Running a business can be exhausting, and charity may be the last thing on your mind during a tight fiscal month or an overloaded schedule. Consider researching charitable organizations that you can instead partner with, so the work can be shared. Just by soliciting food donations in the office, or putting up advertisements in the waiting room, you can generate engagement with any cause near and dear to your heart. Of course, finding an organization that shares your approach to business is paramount.
If you’re the type of practice that puts out promotional material or has an active presence online, don’t forget to advertise, re-tweet, mention, and share your advocacy for more awareness.
Being Proud and Public to the Dental Community
The satisfaction of making a difference in someone’s life is just one of the many rewards that come with a philanthropic purpose. Local newspapers and media are often eager to celebrate businesses that make a difference in their neighbourhood. Proudly associating your name with charity contributions, or work in a not-for-profit practice, is a great way to let prospective patients know that you value their community as much as you value them. If you’re examining how to best spend a marketing budget, take a look at how far that money could go towards sponsoring a local event, public cause, or even parade float.
As a business owner and practicing dentist within the dental community, making time for, or contributing to, charities can be daunting. Smaller offices may feel like this can be a distraction from your patients, but raising the profile of your practice solidifies your role in the community, and helps to bring in new patients.
There’s no secret that the latest tech is bringing lots of change to just about every industry. Smartphones are making work possible from anywhere, and with the latest digital security, even medical documents are safe on your server. If you’ve been wondering about the benefits or risks of transitioning to a paperless practice, we’ve got answers to your top questions.
The Cost of Change
Dollars and cents are also not the only cost worth considering when looking into something new. Maintenance for dental software may feel like you’re shifting the burden from a strict filing regime to figuring out how to download updates, but many software providers offer their updates as automatic installations, provided free of charge.
Ability to Integrate
Each and every practice is its own unique business. Dentists and Office Manages alike have their own preferences and may build out solutions that range in purpose. Bringing your documents and records into the digital age doesn’t mean they need to sit alone. Any software worth the investment will provide you with built-in options or open integrations that will allow you to carry out all the functions and processes your practice needs. Many software solutions will work comprehensively, solving multiple needs in an office using a single product suite.
Even if you only need to move your documents to a server, make sure that your ultimate choice is compatible with the products that have kept your business operating up until now. Slowing your workflow by jumping between programs, and manually re-entering sensitive information is tedious experience and a waste of your time and money.
Keeping Secrets Safe
Providing health care is one of the most rewarding services that dentists can offer, but the care that is provided is intensely private. Laws like the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) are in place to protect not just the information of patients, but their rights to privacy. Privacy breaches against massive firms and organizations routinely make the news for their staggering volume, but you might be surprised to learn that the most common target for hackers is smaller businesses that are perceived to be easier targets due to their size, and lack of investment into cybersecurity.
When examining your options for software to transition to a paperless practice, secure providers will be more than happy to talk about their certifications and compliance. Completing certifications, like the ones set by Health Canada, means that your provider is paying close attention to security. Don’t be afraid to inquire about encryption, remote storage, and even access roles, to prevent any single compromised user from accessing every piece of info about your patients.
The landscape for dental software that replaces the paper in your practice is rich and can be overwhelming. Focusing on the cost, integration, and security of the software will help weed out the option that won’t quite fit and help to refine the search for your office’s ideal solution.
Want to learn more about what practice management software can do for your office?
The real art of dentistry comes from putting your patients first. If you’re bogged down by the tasks in your office, you likely find yourself distracted by how your practice is operating. Improving the way work is done during business hours has a massive impact on your bottom line. Keeping office productivity at its peak means a better use of your time, a steadier stream of revenue, and even happier patients.
Keeping with the themes of office productivity, let’s jump right into our tips for speeding up the processes of your practice!
1. Mind Your Schedule
Conventional wisdom says that a full schedule is good for the bottom line, but an overflowing schedule can also be hurting your office’s productivity. The average dental appointment takes just under an hour to wrap up, typically representing cleanings, fillings, and check-ups. Understanding how accurate your schedule is can lead you to discover unknowns for how you spend your day.
Over the span of a few weeks, track your appointments for how long you expect, and how long they actually take. You might find that you’re able to fit in extra appointments, or that removing one from an overbooked schedule gives you the time to review your notes that keep you well past closing time.
2. Declutter Your Space
When you consider what clutter is, a desk buried under paper might be the first thing to come to mind. In reality, clutter is everywhere, and it’s slowing down your office productivity. Take your waiting room, for example.
When your patients enter the office, is the reception desk near the front door? Is there enough open space to keep people moving? Making sure that it’s easy to get around means people are less likely to loiter while waiting, and your office can keep moving.
3. Invest in Administration
Word of mouth is one of the best ways to drum up new business without spending your time on marketing to new patients. Positive word of mouth happens when you’re focused on your patients, and they’re getting 100% of your attention. When someone feels like they’re the most important person during their appointment, they let their friends and family know.
A one-man army might save on overhead, but being distracted by phone calls or scheduling appointments means a patient is not getting your full attention. Make sure that your office is properly staffed with people who can take the mundane work off your hands and make your minutes count.
4. Patient Questionnaires
Checking in with your patients directly after a visit while their experience is fresh in their minds can give you insight into how they interpret your process. If you haven’t taken the plunge into text messages yet, check in to see if your patients would prefer follow-up as a text. Texts are much faster and easier for reception, and more likely to get a response and appointment booking.
You can also take the time to learn if they’d be interested in online scheduling, or alternative ways of tackling treatment plans.
5. Go Paperless
If you’re leasing or renting the space for your business, think about how much real estate your papers and records are eating up. On top of that, maintenance always becomes a huge imperative, where extra effort must be paid to ensure that nothing is misfiled. By utilizing a digital library, you remove the risk of delaying appointments to search for something that wasn’t put away correctly.
With cloud or remote access, you’ll find yourself making every moment count by instantly accessing X-rays and patient records on a mobile device instead of getting up to run to your little library.
When a dentist makes a go of their practice, they face a lot of challenges that reflect the complexities of running a business. One of the biggest challenges in any business, regardless of industry, is personnel management. The lifeblood of day-to-day operations is the people you hire to help you focus on patients and the business—thinking about the HR strategies that will eventually lead to your practices’ long-term success.
Larger companies typically hire people or teams to resolve issues through human resources. Of course, creating more headcount is not the right fit for independent practices, but implementing HR doesn’t mean adding another person to the payroll, it’s an opportunity to show leadership.
Office headaches can be frequently misdiagnosed, but by taking a proactive approach that is thoughtful of common human resource issues, you’ll find a more positive atmosphere, happier colleagues, and even a better bottom line. Here are our top 3 HR strategies:
Always be knowing
When your employees start their first day, they have clearly defined expectations for their job. Those expectations should be as clear and accessible on the anniversary of their first year. While roles may be universal across practices, the demands and day-to-day work in your office should be well-documented and always available.
By creating an employee handbook, you contextualize a new hire’s expectations with your outlook. Incorporating HR strategies, such as outlining rules around the atmosphere, can remove confusion or awkward conversations about clothing, language, and smartphone use. Like a patient’s treatment plan, your employee handbook is a guide to maintaining stability and getting the outcome you expect.
Taking the time to produce a comprehensive guide means you’ve also clearly defined what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour. In the unlikely event that a termination results in a legal threat, you have a document that explicitly says how being late, rude, or negligent, would lead to a loss of employment.
Privacy in the practice
We all have high hopes when a new person is brought into practice. Over time, you might discover a clash of personalities, they struggle with certain work, or they no longer meet expectations.
Frustration and anger may make you want to point out every infraction when they occur, but rather than raising your voice, consider taking them aside for a quieter conversation. Getting in the habit of regular private conversations about performance opens up a chance to talk about your working relationship. Meeting at least once a month provides a chance to dig into deeper issues or causes, without anyone feeling like they’re being attacked.
Of course, the other side can be equally true. A new hire – or an old one – might be seeing real success or progress. Taking them aside to let them know you see their hard work signals that you appreciate them, and you’re not afraid to let it be known.
Always be including
Inclusion is a powerful and important tool that you have as either owner or manager of an office – and we’re not just talking about diversity. People don’t exclusively think about their jobs in a bubble. They have opinions on where they work, who they work for, and how that work is done. Sticking people on the sidelines while decisions big and small are made is a recipe for alienation and a lack of interest in maintaining your thriving office.
Regardless of which role an employee has, they will have ideas based on their background about the way things are run. Not to say receptionists should be consulted during extraction, but gathering opinions or hearing people’s experiences before a decision says that you value them and their knowledge—which could also strengthen your overarching HR strategies.
To set yourself out as a leader in the office, consider taking the time to seek coworker’s thoughts even before there’s a decision to make. Friction can occur in your practice without you knowing — maybe patients aren’t in love with the music, or your hygienist has an idea about recording patient care. Giving people a chance to speak their minds can make for some quick and easy wins that help build a better business and save a few dollars.
