What is Your Template for Success with Appointments?

How many times have you peered into a mouth in your career? How many times have patients walked in and out the door to your practice?

In the daily rhythm of practice life it can feel like an endless stream, but let's try to break it down in simple terms.

Let's say you see six patients in a day and you have another 16 come in for hygiene care, for a total of 22 appointments. That means patients are coming and going at the rate of 88 appointments in a four-day week. That's 4,224 appointments a year. Over the course of twenty years, that comes out to 84,840 times your team greets and seats a patient.

I mention this because, once you see it laid out like that, you can really see the logic behind the next question, which is: "Doesn't it make sense to have a system for doing this the best way possible?"

Of course, every practice does have its systems, but I still see a lot of cases of open-ended ambiguity where the right habits have not taken hold. Some patients are on time, some are chronically late or no-shows. Some patients you present to fully, some you don't because you know their insurance won't cover it and you think they would never go for it. Some patients pay promptly and fully after their appointments, some you have to chase.

Appointments Done the Right Way

Considering these appointments are the central focus of your professional life, something that you and your team do every hour of every day, week after week, year after year, there should be a template for a successful visit—one that everyone is trained to follow and held accountable to. For instance, every patient should leave complete for payment and appointed ahead, every time. That should be the standard every time.

It has been said many times that a definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. To that I would add that doing something more than 84 thousand times without a template for success is the height of craziness.

Having said that, as a team you don't want to get locked into a way of thinking that restricts your ability to recognize opportunities and adapt on the fly.

For example, a patient who has untreated issues lets you know that she is going to be moving out of state within the next few months. That's when it is time to break the usual pattern of appointments. Explain to her that you want her to be complete with any outstanding issues before she goes and then you will help her find a great practice in her new hometown. Then get her back in as soon as possible.

Or maybe you have an emergency patient who is in for urgent care because he avoids dental appointments whenever possible, but you can see he is responding to your suggestions and mind-ready to begin. Don't let him lose that feeling. Make the necessary schedule adjustments right there and get started on something—anything—right away so he goes away feeling that his treatment journey has begun.

In other words, you have to be firm and flexible at the same time. Firm with the non-negotiables that contribute to a successful visit, but flexible enough to recognize and act on possibilities that present themselves. It's a combination of accountability and creativity that is the hallmark of every great team.


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