How Much Are You Leaving on the Table?

It’s hard to fail as an independent dentist.

If you take a look at a cross section of owner-dentists in the profession, you will find that there are always going to be those who excel and outperform others in their cohort and a few who are struggling to find their footing, with a large group in the middle who are at varying degrees of “okay.” But outright failure is quite rare. In fact, operating a dental practice is about as close as you can get to a failure-proof business.

And that’s the problem. As Jim Collins wrote in the book “Good to Great”: “Good is the enemy of great.” As long as it is possible to get a dental degree, get into practice, and make a good sustainable income, there is going to be a large proportion of practicing dentists for whom being “good” is good enough, even if they have a nagging voice in the back of their head that tells them they could be doing better. But they question how to move beyond “good enough,” not realizing how close they are to doing great.

I’m not saying these dentists lack the desire or ability. On the contrary, they usually have the best intentions to perform at the highest level for their patients and for the good of the practice.

The reality is, though, busy dentists tend to establish routines around providing clinical care and keeping up with the daily operations of the practice, and things like developing and implementing strategies for real growth become afterthoughts, or appear to require more time and energy than they think they have.

And that’s a shame, because without the right systems in place, a practice will ultimately fall short of its possibilities. Leaving these support systems on autopilot means leaving lots of value on the table.

Practice growth in action: patient retention

Let me give you one example. Let’s say you have a practice with a patient base of about 1,500 and you are seeing about 15 to 20 new patients a month. That should translate into steady, impressive growth, right? Except in many practices, it doesn’t, because that rate of new patient acquisition is matched by an almost identical rate of attrition: about 14.4 percent at either end. It can feel like you’re doing well when you are seeing new faces every month, even when you are in fact getting little or no traction.

But just bring that attrition rate down to 10 percent (something that is well within reach with a few simple but focused tweaks to your retention system), and within a year, you will have a net gain of 66 patients. Over 10 years, your patient base of 1,500 would increase by well over 50 percent.

And that’s just by tweaking retention. If you then refine your systems around new patient acquisition and bump that new patient rate from 14.4 percent to 16 percent (about 2 patients a month at the start) your patient base improvement over 10 years is now in the neighborhood of 80 percent!

That’s how much you are leaving on the table when you don’t give the right attention to crucial systems that support practice growth.

The true value of investing in growth systems

So that brings us back to the question of “how?” How does a busy dentist create and oversee the execution of these systems and follow up on results while maintaining the right focus on clinical excellence? What about the dentists who feel they simply don’t have the time to be that kind of leader?

First of all, I would say that any investment in leadership is never a bad investment. The time it takes to make a real impact is usually less than many dentists expect, and the results more than pay for themselves.

Beyond that, once you have effective systems in place, it actually saves you time and effort as a leader. The best-run practices I know, in fact, are ones where the owner-dentist actually has limited involvement in the day-to-day details of the processes patients go through.  The dentist sleeps well at night, knowing that the right people are paying attention to the right things. The team is clear on expectations, and they only present the doctor with items requiring authoritative decisions.

For that to happen, though, requires that the right framework is in place to give the team the tools and inspiration to take ownership of the crucial systems that drive practice success. If you want the freedom to focus on the being the best dentist you can be, you have to create the conditions for the team to support you in building the kind of practice that drives great results.

The Spear solution

This is really what was behind the development of Spear Practice Solutions. It is the most ambitious project we have ever tackled, one that is designed to make it easier for every dentist-owner to get the professional support they need to build those systems, create that framework, and develop that sense of team ownership. You get real-time tracking of key results, targeted online learning for you and the team, and most importantly, customized coaching from a consultant who is assigned to bring out the best in you, your team, and your practice.

We created this system because in the competitive world of today’s dentistry, we want to make sure the ideal of the independent dentist-entrepreneur stays alive. We want to give you the tools to compete with even the biggest corporate competitors, who have whole departments dedicated to developing, refining, and overseeing their practice systems.

Most of all, we don’t want to see you leaving anything on the table as you create a life in dentistry that feels complete.

(Click this link to read more dental practice management articles by Imtiaz Manji.)

Click here to learn more about Spear Practice Solutions and schedule your demo today.