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40 DENTAL TRIBUNE Middle East & Africa Edition | January-February 2015practice management “With passion for dental practice management” The quest for excellence – business as usual? By Dental Tribune MEA Dental Tribune MEA: Ms. Eniko, you recently arrived in Dubai with a lot of passion and plans in Dental Practice Managnegement. Ms. Eniko Simon: The passion for Dental Practice Management began in 2008 when I started to work with dental practices in the UK. After working with many practices, I was able to extend my knowledge and continue to study dental business manage- ment with UMD Professional in London which helped me to grow and evolve in the profes- sion. I have been fortunate enough to implement my knowledge and passion in the Middle East by working with Dental Practice in Dubai since June 2014. What is the Role of Dental Practice Management? In today’s dental practices and industry, I find that dentists who have invested in their own businesses are becoming more aware of the importance of gain- ing management knowledge and of employing an experi- enced Practice Manager to help them run and grow a success- ful, efficient dental business that meets and exceeds the needs of their patients. How a dental business is man- aged and led is a vital differen- tiator. These activities can cre- ate sustainable uniqueness for a dental practice. Practice Managers are essential members of the modern day clinic team - in order to help dental professionals create a highly efficient, successful prac- tice by making sure the business operates at its best capacity. With an effective Practice Manager in place, dental clinics have the proper ingredient to become a high performing dental busi- ness. Why Middle East? With the growing number of Practice Managers in the region, the aim of this Dental Practice Management Supplement is to provide interesting, relevant and thought-provoking articles and ideas on the various ways dental businesses are operated, man- aged and grown over time. What topics do you wish to share with our readers? A successful Dental business re- quires 5 different management activities as seen below. An ef- fective Practice Manager looks after 4 essential management activities such as Operations, People Management, Business and Finance Management to aid the clinic in achieving its objec- tives. The Clinical Management activity should be carried out by the principal dentist / practice owner. We have to focus on: • Leading your practice to excel- lence • The role of the Treatment Coordinator: Enhanced patient journey - Increased treatment ac- ceptance • The risky business of dentistry • Art of persuasion - How to get to a YES • Managing Performance in your Clinic • Giving your Practice a Com- petitive Edge Enjoy reading. Eniko Simon Dental Business Manager eniko@dradubai.com Contact Information Fiona Stuart-Wilson is a dental business consultant, trainer and author who has extensively worked with practices in the UK and internationally. UMD Professional Ltd About the Author By Fiona Stuart-Wilson M ost people owning or running a practice like to think that they are providing excellence in their clinical care and justifiably proud of what they do. However in today’s increasingly competi- tive environment in which we deliver dentistry to an increas- ingly discerning and critical public which is happy to exer- cise its right of choice, clinical excellence and efficiency are not enough. A commitment to excellence has to be a thread through all of the management and operational activities of the practice. It also has to involve the embracing of change. Ex- cellence is not about maintain- ing the status quo and carrying on with business as usual. In today’s increasingly competitive environment, doing that could mean that you are running your practice slowly into the ground. Any quest for excellence needs a leader and as the owner or manager of the practice you are in the position to make changes and lead your team on that jour- ney towards excellence. In theo- ry this sounds great but putting this into practice can be more difficult. There are several prac- tical steps you need to take, do, but it’s not just what you do that is important but also the way that you do it. First you need to think about exactly what you are trying to achieve and develop a very clear image as to what the success- ful practice you are striving for actually looks like and feels like to work in. A surprisingly large number of practice owners do not give this great consideration. You could start by thinking about what ideally you would like pa- tients to say about your practice if they were talking to other peo- ple about it. That done, you must then crystallise this picture into meaningful, measurable and re- alistic goals across the key busi- ness areas of your dental busi- ness. Next you need to tell your staff and others who work with you what these goals are. You also need to be enthusiastic about them if you are expecting them to follow your lead and work at explaining your goals in a moti- vating and compelling way. It is important for your team to be re- ally clear about what successful looks like for you. They will be delivering your ideas. Now you can start to examine the systems and procedures you have in place in your practice and consider what contribution these actually make towards achieving your goals – or not as the case may be. You may have had these systems for some time. They were designed to get you where you are now, and not necessarily to where you want to be, so they may need to be changed or updated. It does not mean they are wrong or inher- ently bad. It simply means that the world has moved on and we and our systems need to move with it. Take each aspect in turn. Ask yourself the following ques- tions for example: • The experience of your pa- tients from the moment they contact the practice compared to your idea of what should be happening? • Does the staff have the right skills? • How effective is your market- ing strategy at attracting the right patients for the practice you want to have? • Are you investing in the right equipment and technology to at- tract those patients? • Are you charging the right fees to allow you to reinvest in hav- ing examined systems you need to prepare and get on with your plan to make changes. This is about demonstrating that you are leading the change. You have to demonstrate integrity, enthusiasm and commitment in order for your staff to trust you enough to help you achieve your aims. Things may of course go wrong but we need to learn from the mistakes we make. However, your commitment, en- thusiasm and determination will communicate itself to your team and encourage them to achieve goals and objectives, overcome obstacles that arise and bring your vision to life. This does not of course mean you should be doing everything yourself. You should encourage others, help them be creative in their thinking as a team and individually about how things can be done. Above all as a good leader you will be a role model, and demonstrate in yourself the characteristics that you want your staff to display. So if you want your team to be commit- ted, motivated and passionate about what they do, you need to be just as committed, motivated and passionate. Good leaders also notice contributions, and make time to ensure everyone feels appreciated and included in the quest for excellence. All of this involves hard work. It almost certainly involves step- ping out of our comfort zone. Real excellence means that we ourselves must also be willing to change and see and to do things differently. Thinking of new, better, different, more efficient, more effective ways of doing things that are already working is part of that commitment to excellence just as much as rec- tifying things that are going less well. For many years people in the profession talked about the management ‘side’ of dentistry. Some still do. Yet the truth is that there is no management ‘side’. Good management is the plat- form underpinning the delivery of great clinical dentistry and those practices that subscribe to that view are at the forefront of the quest for excellence. > Page 41 Appoint- ments & no shows By Dr. Ehab Heikal H ow many of your female patients would miss their hair appointments? The answer is, “not many”. DoyouknowthatwomeninUSA generally spend about $100 to $150 on their hair appointments and they do this about every 4 to 6 weeks? That’s at least $1200 per year on their hair! And it’s all out of pocket, without the ne- cessity of being confirmed or re- confirmed. They arrive on their own free will, without needing to check with their husbands to see if it’s okay. (I do not have sol- id evidence on the amount spent in our area). Perhaps you’ve even had a pa- tient or two cancel their appoint- ment with you so they could make their hair appointment! So why is it that hairdressers have a much easier time than dentists? The reason is they have a desire and want for the salon service. This is what you need to cre- ate with the patients in your practice. You need to educate the patient on hygiene care, on preventive dentistry; and create desire, want and value for the service. Getting tough is not enough. You’ve got to discover—and try to eliminate—the reasons why patients skip appointments. For many practices, missed ap- pointments are like a perpetual flu--always keeping them under the weather. Sure, some no-shows are in- evitable, and if only 4% of your appointments are broken (an accepted average) you’re not suffering much. But it’s not unusual for practices to experi- ence skip rates of 10, 20, or 30%. That’s on top of cancelled ap- pointments. You can fill some empty slots with walk-in and same-day ap- pointments, but probably not all of them, and such substitutes usually won’t generate as much revenue as regular visits. One study took these factors into account and estimated that no- shows deprived clinics of 14% of anticipated revenue. No-show- isn’t just a money sap- per. It wastes the time of staffers who prepare for appointments, deprives patients of needed care, and exposes you to a mal- practice risk if an untreated con- dition worsens. Some doctors have taken the draconian step of charging for missed appoint-