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For many practices, the September Slump has arrived. Patients seem to be canceling and no-showing more, and those holes in the schedule appear to grow like cavities. September can be a slow month for various reasons, like school being back in session and less treatment getting diagnosed during the summer vacation months, amongst others. But even if September isn’t slow for you, most practices experience slow moments at some point during the year.
So instead of letting these moments go to waste, how can you take advantage of this downtime?
Matt Mulcock is the Director of Financial Services at Dentist Advisors, a fee-only fiduciary financial planning and investment firm that exclusively serves dentists. He finds that downtime provides a lot of opportunity and potential for dentists. Throughout his years advising dentists, Mulcock has discovered three ways dentists can take advantage of downtime.
“Whenever you have downtime at your practice, you have a choice in how you look at this, either as an opportunity or an obstacle,” Mulcock said.
Mulcock encourages dentists to take the positive route and focus on the uncapped potential downtime provides.
- Reevaluate your goals and values
“Any time you can take a step back to reevaluate and make a fresh start, you should,” Mulcock said. “That could be daily, mid-week, or mid-month. It doesn’t matter when it is. I think you should be constantly thinking about whether you are living your life according to your values.”
Mulcock believes all goals and values, both professional and personal, are important to review and evaluate.
“Am I living the life that I want professionally? Am I running the practice that I want?” Mulcock asks. “Am I living my best life on the personal side? I always think these are chances to be thinking about the answers to these questions.”
Mulcock suggests facilitating this thought process by finding a values exercise online and spending about 10 minutes going through it. He often does these exercises with clients and finds that it helps people discover where they can improve.
When it comes to your practice goals, review them often and adjust them as needed. Dental Intelligence Analytics allows you to track your overall goals as a practice easily. It also gives each team member visibility into the individual goals that matter most to them, whether it be the amount of hygiene visits for your hygienists or the number of patients rescheduled for your front office staff.
By reevaluating your goals and values, you can plan and prepare for where you want to be.
- Execute a new project
“When you find yourself with some extra time, it's a perfect opportunity to execute on a project you've been thinking about for a while,” Mulcock said.
Maybe you’ve wanted to spruce up your office. With Dental Intelligence Kiosks, you can modernize the patient check-in process by allowing them to fill out forms on an iPad or tablet.
Perhaps you’ve considered revamping your website. With features from Dental Intelligence like Online Scheduling and Patient Portal, you can keep your website fresh by allowing patients to schedule their appointments and fill out their forms on your website.
Just because the clinical work in your office might be slow, it doesn’t mean your practice’s profitability can’t grow. For example, maybe you’ve noticed your AR balances increasing. Downtime makes for a great opportunity for you and your team to focus on patients with outstanding balances. With Dental Intelligence Payments, you can easily send messages to patients that allow them to view their statements and pay through a link.
Whatever your project may be, now is a good time to check it off your to-do list.
- Get organized
“Downtime provides a great opportunity to dial in your practice and your personal life as well,” Mulcock said. “I think this is a great chance to take a step back and reevaluate the numbers, the business, and processes to see if they are working well.”
To get organized, Mulcock suggests reviewing your finances and budget.
“Profit margin is something you should look at when it comes to the health of your practice,” Mulcock said. “If you are in year two of a startup and you are in straight growth mode, your profit margin isn’t going to be close to a practice that is 10 years in, dialed in and mature. Ask yourself, ‘Is my profit margin where I want it to be in this stage of my practice and career?’ If it is lower, then it gives you a direction to go.”
With Dental Intelligence’s Profitability Formula, you can quickly see an overview of your production and overhead. By using the Profitability Formula, you can see what factors are positively or negatively affecting your practice. For example, if your visits are down, consider ways you can increase production per visit.
Mulcock finds that this is also a great time to reassess systems and processes in your office, whether it be how you handle patient handoffs or how you follow up with patients.
If your team spends too much time handling forms and entering patient information, upgrade your practice using Dental Intelligence Digital Forms. Maybe your team could improve on rescheduling patients but doesn’t have a system to know who to call or track those outreach attempts. With features like Patient Finder and Follow Ups, you can easily find specific types of patients you want to reschedule and then leave notes on each attempt.
By using this downtime to organize your practice, you can better prepare for days when you see patients back to back, so they run smoothly.
Time is Money
If time is money, as Benjamin Franklin once said, how you use your time is crucial to the profitability of your practice. When downtime arises, look at the opportunity it creates and make the best of it. There’s an opportunity for improvement in every thumb-twiddling moment.
If you want even more ways to capitalize on those slow months and make the most of downtime, check out our free eBook, “3 Things Every Practice Must Do in a Slow Month.” And if you want to learn how people at Dentist Advisors like Matt Mulcock can help you, you can check them out here.
