THE SECRETS OF A SUCCESSFUL PRACTICE
Submitted by Isabelle Lavallée on
By Isabelle Lavallée - Director of consulting services at IDI
A close look at your organizational ratios is the only way to assess the health of your dental practice and make the necessary
changes for better performance.
Do you know which organizational ratios should be measured within your practice? Do you have the right tools to monitor your
efforts?
These ratios are used to assess and improve the performance of your dental practice. They allow you to make informed decisions
as an entrepreneur and set realistic and challenging goals for your team members.
Having the right strategy in place will guide you towards growth, avoid a flattening of returns, or worse, a decrease in business
volume. For optimized management and continuous growth, it is essential to have the right tools to monitor the organizational ratios
of your practice. They reveal fundamental clues, such as the number of active charts.
Knowing the number of active charts allows you to calculate the number of hours of “hygiene” to offer in the clinic and enables you
to follow all your patients according to the recommended frequency of preventive follow-ups (hygiene recall visits). For example, for
2,000 active charts in your practice, first separate children from adults using a benchmark ratio of 20% children and 80% adults, and
do the following calculation:
Children
400 1 .75h
(# children active charts) X (# annual visit(s) X (average appointment length) / 46 (# of weeks worked) = # of hygiene hours to offer
per week.
In our example, to monitor of the children, you should offer 7 hours of hygiene per week.
Adults
1600 2 1h
(# adult active charts) X (# annual visit(s) X (average appointment length) / 46 (# of weeks worked) = # of hygiene hours to offer per
week.
To monitor adults, you should offer 70 hours of hygiene per week for a total of 77 hours for your patient base. This does not account
for the time reserved for new patients, emergency exams and any other expertise you may offer (examples: orthodontics, occlusal
plate, teeth whitening, adjustment, etc.). If the number of hours of hygiene is insufficient to follow up on all your active patients, the
sad result will be to compromise the retention of patients within your practice.
Knowing your organizational ratios also enables you to create a personalized schedule with predetermined treatment slots. Based
on the number of active charts and your appointment history (PPF, endo, surgery, etc.), it is possible to establish treatment slots to
define achievable financial objectives. Well-planned treatment slots will also allow you to optimize your time and eliminate many
delays caused by not considering your trips from one room to another. By improving your operational efficiency, you will inevitably
increase your hourly rate!
Knowing your practice well and understanding where you are coming from, will help you implement the right strategy to pursue
favorable growth for your business. A good knowledge of your dental practice and the right tools to monitor your efforts and your
results will allow you to consistently make organizational decisions based on facts. Intuition is not enough. This is the secret to a
successful practice, peace of mind and an aligned team.
To enrich your knowledge and acquire tools and strategies that will allow you to achieve your desired results, we invite you to
participate in the following training: "Do you really know your dental practice?”.