If you are still scheduling on a strictly "first come, first served" basis, doing whatever procedures come in, whenever they come in. You are being driven by your schedule.

Naturally you want to accommodate the needs of your patients as much as possible, but the best practices strike a balance between patient-centered scheduling and practice-centered scheduling. If you want to take control of priorities – for yourself and your patients – you need to take a strategic approach to how you organize your time in the practice.

Your ideal schedule should be designed to create and sustain a rhythm and workflow that leaves you and your team energized.

What type of schedule would make it possible for you to love coming to work in the morning and feel great when you leave at the end of the day? It's really about preferences.

Take this quiz to start thinking about what is ideal for you:

  1. When do you prefer to do large cases? Do you like to do your most involved work when you are fresh in the morning, or toward the end of the day when you have taken care of all the more routine stuff?
  2. When would you like the practice to see new patients? Maybe before lunch or for the last appointment of the day, so you can go longer if necessary without disrupting the day's schedule.
  3. How much time would you like for each of the major case types you do?
  4. How would you like your hygiene exams organized? Not all hygiene checks are created equal – some patients are going to require more time based on their profile and outstanding treatment requirements.
  5. When would you like to see emergency cases?
  6. How would you like to optimize assistant time?

By extension, the same criteria you use to craft your ideal day can be used to craft your ideal week. Are there specific days of the week on which you'd like to see new patients so you can focus on them and showcasing your practice? Is your practice going to devote Friday mornings to a major case?

Once you've answered these questions, sit down with your team to create alignment and gather their input. Developing a shared mindset with your team around the schedule is critical, as they are the ones who actually fill the appointment book. If everyone in the practice knows what is ideal for you and the practice, you're more likely to craft a well-engineered schedule that supports your ability to deliver ideal care.


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Commenter's Profile Image TED DENGLER
November 19th, 2013
This is an exception to the normal quality practice you encounter, but requires I find an answer: there is a dental office in a hospital in a third world country (Rwanda) that would like to become efficient at seeing patients. Most patients walk to the clinic and wait all day if they have to, to be seen for exam, filling or extraction (or trauma occasionally). The dental nurses are excellent at diagnosing and extractions, fair at doing fillings and would like to do more removable prosthodontics. Extractions are quite efficiently treated but the systems of infection control and use of xrays fall by the wayside in order to get the treatment done quickly. We would like to help them establish an efficient system of seeing these people, knowing appointments are difficult to schedule, so exam, diagnosis and treatment must be done quickly and treatment rendered. (A 2006 digital pan has been donated and we need to send someone over there with it, checking it as baggage on the airplane. Volunteer dentists and hygienists are welcome. ) Would you have suggestions for handling the daily schedule in this situation?