659: 5 Data Secrets to a Thriving Practice – Dr. Barrett Straub & Miranda Beeson

If you want your practice to grow, you need data. But how do you know which numbers to look at? To demystify the data you need, Kirk Behrendt brings in Dr. Barrett Straub, ACT’s CEO, and Miranda Beeson, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, to share five data secrets for a thriving practice. Make informed decisions with data, not feelings! To learn which numbers to start tracking and why they matter to your practice, listen to Episode 659 of The Best Practices Show!

Episode Resources:

• Send Dr. Straub an email: barrett@actdental.com 
• Join Dr. Straub on Facebook 
• Send Miranda an email: miranda@actdental.com 
• Follow Miranda on ACT’s Instagram
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Links Mentioned in This Episode:

Get your Golden Ticket to ACT’s To The Top Study Club: https://info.actdental.com/golden-ticket

Main Takeaways:

Numbers don't lie!

You can improve anything with data.

Without data, the story you tell yourself is fiction.

Learn about the main KPIs you should be tracking.

Tracking data requires transparency with your team.

Quotes:

“So many of us base decisions and planning off of our feelings when the data itself doesn't lie. And we can't argue with it. If you tell me your feelings about something — if I'm an admin team member, I [can] say, ‘Yeah, but I feel like this about it.’ But if we're both looking at the same piece of data, there's really no discussion to be had. It's right there. It's the truth on paper, and you really can't argue with that.” (6:14—6:36) -Miranda

“You know how this works if you're a dentist. You have a lot of feelings. ‘I feel like we're way too busy. I feel like we have too many holes in our schedule. I don't feel like we're productive enough. I don't feel like my hygienist diagnosed enough perio. I feel like most of my AR is family and friends and is uncollectible.’ Feelings. Feelings are dangerous places to go. You start to tell yourself a story. Feelings, when it comes to me, can be happy feelings. But they can also be irritation feelings. Data calms us. If you're feeling any of these things, it's really good to transition away from feeling to, ‘What are we seeing? What's the data telling us?’ It's powerful in this whole thing.” (7:10—7:57) -Kirk

“Leading a dental practice without knowing your data and understanding it is like placing an implant with no diagnostics. Now, you could do it. Some people do. But, long term, will it be successful? Is that really the right thing to do?” (7:58—8:14) -Kirk

“From personal experience, this is how it happens in most dental practices. We're busy doing dentistry because we are the CEO of our dental practices and the assembly line. It's hard to do both well. We focus on the dentistry and we don't make data collection a habit. If it's not a habit, we don't have the energy or time at the end of the day, end of the week, end of the month to collect it. And so, we go by feelings, and we tell ourselves a story in our head about the reality of our practice. Without data, that story is fiction. Unfortunately, we make major, long-lasting decisions based on fiction, on how we feel. Many times, and we see this a lot, we get deep in our careers, and look back and say, ‘Darn. I should have . . . I would have . . .  I could have . . . had I set up a system to collect data.’ With that data, I can make educated, data-driven, nonfiction decisions based on my practice. But we have to take a deep breath and say, ‘Okay. Yes, I have to do dentistry. I don't have a lot of time.’ Therefore, back to Kirk's first comment about having your team help with data, we've got to set up a system so that the data is a habit, not an intentional action by us. That will fail because we're too busy doing dentistry.” (8:30—9:53) -Dr. Straub

“When you have data, you can improve everything. You can improve efficiency, you can improve the care patients get, you can improve the efficacy of things that you do. It helps you understand trends. You're thinking, ‘Gosh, I saw this patient. Where did she go? I don't know where she went, if she's an active patient, or not. I haven't seen her for two years,’ type of a thing. You can take a look at their treatment history and needs. When you know this data, you can provide a more customized approach to care and maximize the opportunities and treatment planning.” (10:39—11:11) -Kirk

“There are some team members who get turned off by talking about the numbers or looking at the numbers. So, if we can always equate that to those team members to how we are affecting people in a more positive way through these numbers, that really does help to speak to the team. Because the bottom line is, we need to know the data. The numbers are really important. It's important for you to be responsible for yours and what you can have an impact on. But as, say, a hygienist, if you're looking at your periodontal numbers, you may say like, ‘Well, I don't want to base what I'm doing every day on if I'm raising this percentage over here.’ But if you're raising that percentage, you're also helping more people achieve health and reach their goals of oral health. So, sometimes we can blend that for the team to make sure the team realizes these numbers do have a true impact on how we affect people.” (11:23—12:10) -Miranda

“Consistently tracking and reporting on the data fosters collaboration and communication. We talk about accountability a lot. Accountability requires some type of accounting. It's not, ‘I'm doing my best.’ It allows us to talk about the same things. So, when we can agree on a number, we now can work together on the motions that support that number.” (14:02—14:26) -Kirk

“What gets measured gets improved. But what gets measured and reported on significantly or exponentially improves. If I'm bringing you a number that we have both agreed is an important number and it's going up a little bit every week, we are as happy as can be, and everyone can see and understand what's driving the decisions. It's not about money. It's not about getting another boat or those types of things. We're trying to make a number healthy, and it creates a common effort towards a common goal.” (14:30—15:00) -Kirk

“Tracking data requires transparency with your team. I love having some type of data anywhere. I mean, go to a baseball game. If you guys are watching the playoffs right now, you can't watch more than three minutes without a ton of data falling all over the screen. They're making decisions on pitchers, left-handed versus right-handed, spray charts, all of this stuff. You can't run a baseball team — even if it's a kid’s baseball team — without some type of data. That's why we have GameChanger as parents to keep the crazy parents from yelling too much, because all you have to do is show them the batting average and they quiet down. I was one of those. I'm like, ‘I think my son is better. Oh . . . He's not that good. He should bat eighth or ninth.’ It allows for objective performance evaluation and encourages team members to own their role. So, you’ve got to have some accountability.” (15:06—15:54) -Kirk

“[An important key performance indicator is] new patient acquisition and retention. New patients are the number of patients that had their first completed visit in the practice and they're counted as a new patient by the ADA code.” (16:33—16:44) -Kirk

“There's another number that's associated with new patients because, remember, everybody is putting all this in and going, ‘Oh, I get 400 new patients.’ Well, that's great. But you don't see half of them. Half of them cancel, whatever. That's a lot of money to attract those types of patients. I think every practice should have new patients. They should be the right type of patients for your practice. You have to know the number for your practice.” (16:57—17:18) -Kirk

“There's another [important] number that's called recaptured. This is the number of patients who have not completed a visit within the past 18 months but now have completed a visit and are brought back into the practice. We lost them. They had become inactive. Somebody on the team has worked hard to get them back in the practice. You need to know that number.” (17:18—17:39) -Kirk

“There's another number that's important with this. It's called loss. It's the number of patients who have fallen into the category of not having a completed visit. Now, your software can collect this information automatically. Usually, it's 18 months. Some people are going out to 24 because of COVID-19. That's legit. But as a practice, you’ve got to decide what's the threshold. In most practices, it's about 18 months. As you can see in this example, we had 22 new, 22 recaptured, but we lost 82. The net growth was negative 38.” (17:39—18:12) -Kirk

“What I often will hear from teams, and we go back to feelings of, ‘I feel like we're doing really well. We crush it with new patients. We have at least 20 new patients every month.’ I'll say, ‘Let's take a look at what our true patient growth is though, because that is a little bit different. You are crushing it with new patients. Good job!’ Because, like you said, lots of money goes into acquiring those new patients. We're wowing those patients. We're winning them over with that experience, hopefully. But if we're not looking at those pieces in the middle, especially the lost, then all of that effort, in the end, is for nought because we're not actually growing the practice over time. So, I think this equation and this section here of reporting is really important. If we're seeing a really high number in the lost [category, we need to set] up some type of plan with our administrative team to capture those and hopefully add them back into your recaptured number. It comes back to feelings versus what's the real data. So, this is a good one to start off with, with teams.” (18:43—19:38) -Miranda

“It is a lot of energy and effort to on-board a new patient. We want new patients. It's easier to not lose a patient and keep them in their dental home that they already know, as well as recapture. So, we're not ever going to say don't get new patients. But if you give equal intentionality to not losing and recapturing those patients that have gone over that 18^th month, then if you do have a down month in new patients, it's not as big of a deal.” (19:52—20:21) -Dr. Straub

“[Knowing the percentage of new patients who reappointed for hygiene] is really important because of what we just said: how much effort, time, and energy it takes to bring new patients in. How many of those patients are leaving without a next scheduled visit? Or they're just scheduled for a restorative appointment. What we know about our hygiene department is that's where we build our patient loyalty over time. They're going to be coming back again, and again, and again. We're going to be serving them, building relationships. And then, also, that drives more treatment options down the line as long as they stay with us. So, this is a really, really important thing to look at. ‘We crushed it! Twenty-two new patients last month.’ But if only seven of those new patients are actually rescheduled within your practice, how much effort did you put out for that return?” (20:58—21:42) -Miranda

“A lot of times, you work so hard to get this patient referred, and you're fee-for-service. You get this patient to come in, and they need $17,500 worth of restorative work. So, you do an awesome new patient exam. Then, your treatment coordinator stalks them over, and over, and over, and over. They're not returning your phone call, and you're pummeling them with this $17,500 thing that they have to decide on. Now, think about this. That's a great new patient. They're not tethered to your practice because they don't have a hygiene appointment. And ultimately, they're not going to return your call. That patient may not be ready to hear the $17,500 thing because the previous dentist they went to said nothing was wrong. You might refer the patient out. You might think, ‘Okay, this is a great patient. They’ve got to go to the oral surgeon.’ What a lost opportunity that is.” (22:05—22:57) -Kirk

“I want you to think about this. Every new patient — and I do mean every, if they're the right [patient for your practice] — has to have a hygiene appointment. However you decide to have patients come through your practice, have the mindset as a team that we're going to get them scheduled. If I was working at the front desk, this is what I'd say. ‘Okay, we do a lot of different cool things here, Mrs. Jones. Let's do this. I am going to refer you out to our oral surgeon. But before that, I'm going to schedule two appointments. I'm going to get you scheduled with our oral surgeon, but I'm also going to get you scheduled with Sally. She's one of our amazing hygienists. I might even schedule a third appointment with Dr. Straub here.’ So, I'm going to have you locked in, tethered somehow to the practice, before we hang up the phone. It's one of the biggest lost opportunities in dentistry.” (22:58—23:43) -Kirk

“Another thing you could do is break down your new patients. Again, it's back to new patients. It's great to get the right new patients, but we need to understand where they are coming from. And so, by referral source is critical in your practice. It allows you to better understand how successful your marketing is. If you don't have this, you're just guessing and throwing money everywhere.” (24:30—24:52) -Kirk

“Teach someone to fish. Create accountability. It's not my responsibility to make sure that [the patient referral source data is] being accounted for. And maybe they don't know. Maybe I haven't, as a leader, set an expectation for them that this is something that I need. Maybe this is new data that we're tracking that we've never really tracked in the practice before, but now we're starting to see a trend towards wanting to make sure our marketing dollars are working for us, so this is new. So, it's my responsibility, as a leader, to set my team up for success with clear expectations. And so, for me, explaining this report and what's expected month after month and watching them watch that data grow puts that accountability back into that role.” (26:14—26:51) -Miranda

“There is a capacity issue in dentistry. We're going to talk about maximum or optimal capacity. It could mean that every chair in your operatory is full every day that you decide to work, whether it be four days or whatever. But it doesn't necessarily mean that. In almost every dental practice, optimal or maximum capacity is an issue of willingness, not ability. Every practice can have their chairs full at 95%. You just have to know what to do, and you have to want to do it. So, please don't watch this and go, ‘Well, you don't understand our area.’ No, that's not true. With some great training, with willingness, with some understanding, with some great coaching, every single practice in the United States can have a 95% capacity. Now, the question becomes, what do you want it full with?” (27:29—28:16) -Kirk

“Capacity is pretty simple. It's retroactive. You have to look historically and say, of all the hours available in a chair in operatory number two, how many of those patient hours was there a butt in the chair? It's as simple as that. It's seven of eight, eight of eight, six of eight hours, whatever your hourly offerings are. That's super important to know. Let me tie a few things together here because many dentists look at the morning schedule and say, ‘We are so darn busy,’ only to find out they're actually only at 85%. That same dentist often says, ‘We are so darn busy. I need to build out two operatories. I need to buy a new office. I need to hire another hygienist.’ If you have two hygienists and they're only at 80% capacity, then wouldn't you first fill their chair before a capital expenditure of more ops, another office, another hygienist?” (28:46—29:47) -Dr. Straub

“We see dentists that have 2,100 active patients per dentist, and we see practices with 1,000 active patients per dentist. Those are two different models. I'm not going to say either is right or wrong, but one practice needs 44 new patients a month, and the other needs like eight. New patients by themselves mean very little unless you know your annual patient value. So, when I get a new patient, how much do I bill, or how much dentistry do all my new patients do annually?” (30:16—30:51) -Dr. Straub

“Eventually, you want to say, ‘I'm attracting 44 new patients, but my annual patient value is $200.’ Well, great. What if you had eight new patients at $1,000 annual patient value? So, now, then the next level is to say, ‘Not only am I going to attract new patients, I'm going to attract the good kind of new patients that show up, that accept my treatment, that give me more of a return on my investment in them. I'm going to make sure my chairs are filled with more of these right patients.’ When you start to connect all the dots like that, your revenue goes up, your happiness goes up, your predictability goes up. But we have to first, as you're doing this data analysis, say, ‘What kind of business am I in? How do I want it to feel?’ It's not about production, and it's not about new patient values. It's so much more than those two numbers.” (31:08—32:05) -Dr. Straub

“As a team, what do we all show up to work for? Yes, to take care of people, but to get a paycheck. That's how the office pays us, is by having butts in the chair. As a hygienist — I've told this story before and I'm going to loop it in. I know Chris, who works with us, has said the same thing — I used to get so excited when someone canceled first thing in the morning, before or after lunch, and at the end of the day. It was the best time to have someone not show up. It was a relief. I was celebrating it until I realized the importance of capacity and what that actually meant for the practice and, in the end, what that meant for me and my ability to grow economically within the practice . . . Your profitability of the practice, but also for you as a team member, is directly impacted by optimizing capacity.” (33:18—34:11) -Miranda

“Another data point you should be tracking is treatment acceptance rate. Now, let me just say this. Welcome to the single most understood metric in all of dentistry. You ask any dentist, ‘How’s your treatment acceptance?’ ‘Yeah, 99%.’ . . . You get enough people in a room, you're going to get 13 different opinions on treatment acceptance. I'll tell you, they're all useless. Let me explain. We've got to start somewhere. Let me break this down. Our friends at Dental Intel characterize it as patient treatment diagnosis, PTD percentage. It's the total number of patients diagnosed. It's the number of patients diagnosed with a procedure divided by the number of exams. So, let's take a look at a practice. It's a great practice that we coach. What's the percentage of patients seen for exams that were diagnosed with treatment? As you can see, this is a three-doctor practice. They had 670 exams and they diagnosed, of those, 392, which puts their percentage at 59%. This is how it's defined in the software. So, if you want to know that, there are literal definitions for that on the procedure codes that happen. That percentage is really important. I think it's an important percentage for doctors to pay attention to.” (34:14—35:37) -Kirk

“[Treatment acceptance rate] is a really great one for a clinical auxiliary team member. This can work for hygienists too because there are exams, obviously, being conducted within hygiene. But when we go back to new patient exams, or an emergency exam, or a limited exam, there is less for the assistants to track. And by way that they're not providers, individually, within the practice, this is a great one to loop them in to be able to help support keeping their restorative schedule full by holding the doctor accountable and the team accountable to building value and treatment and patient opportunities.” (36:04—36:38) -Miranda

“If your diagnostic percentage is at 19% month over month, I have a feeling that you're going to start seeing your next month and the next month’s schedule not hitting capacity. If we're at 59%, which you can see in this example here is over their goal, then we know that more than half of the patients that we saw this last month were diagnosed with some form of treatment. Now, when we compare that to our acceptance rate, those two together are really going to tell the story for what we can predict our schedule will have for us moving forward, and what financial success we are walking into, or what we need to improve upon because we might not be walking into financial success next month.” (36:53—37:34) -Miranda

“What I see when I see someone go from 30% diagnostic percentage to 59% is that many more patients that are reaching health and having an opportunity for a greater level of health. Or if we're talking about elective, we're meeting more and more of their dental goals. Maybe the treatment is veneers, but that's something they've wanted for themselves for a really long time. We brought it up, and we had a good conversation about value, and now they're moving forward. So, when we look at that number, we can see the dollars and the profitability that it brings to the practice, which is incredibly important. But we can also see a handful, or 29%, of patients from our practice that now are in a place where they have a greater opportunity to engage in health because we've put these systems in place and we're monitoring for that.” (38:01—38:47) -Miranda

“We're going to talk about acceptance. I like how Dental Intel characterizes this: PTA percentage, patient treatment acceptance. Trying to compare your PTA percentage to anyone else's is difficult unless you guys have the same exact skill set, equipment, systems, patient demographic, staffing. So, don't try to compare. Your only comparison is with yourself. That's an important piece.” (38:52—39:16) -Kirk

“Let's talk about PTA, patient treatment acceptance percentage. It's the percentage of patients that actually said yes — not the dollar amount. As you can see, presented in the same scenario, 546. Accepted, 492. Now, you're going to see that number is different. The reason it's different is because in the software these are procedures in which the ADA, the exam procedure code, wasn't on the appointment. So, don't get all wrapped up in the numbers. But I think one of the most important things is to pay attention to this percentage over time, and it becomes very powerful.” (39:17—39:55) -Kirk

“This is one that confuses teams often. Patient acceptance is what percentage of patients move forward with something. They've scheduled something within the same day that that treatment was entered into the treatment plan. The difference with the treatment dollar amount acceptance, which we're going to get into a little bit more is, of the dollar amount presented, what percentage of that was scheduled? So, a great, easy explanation that I share with teams is, if you presented and treatment planned four crowns for a patient today and that patient scheduled one crown, their patient acceptance number would be 100% because you had one patient who was recommended treatment, and that one patient moved forward. That's 100%. But if we take that into the treatment dollar amount acceptance, it's going to be 25% because only 25% of the dollar amount of that treatment plan was actually scheduled.” (40:15—41:07) -Miranda

“Let's talk about the dollar amount. Dollar treatment presented. This is an important KPI. It can be defined as all the dollars of treatment that I presented to my patients. Dental Intel tracks that.” (42:10—42:24) -Kirk

“[The DTA percentage] can get a little wonky if you present multiple treatment plans — if you give more than one option, a consolation option and an ideal option — if that isn't rejected within your practice management software right away. So, I do find that some teams find it a little harder to predict the accuracy of this if they are a practice that maybe functions comprehensively and they're giving like a full-mouth approach, or a quadrant option, or something to that effect. So, that can skew it a bit. If you see that number doesn't feel quite right, the eye test is a little off, you can dig a little deeper and you might need to look at, ‘Are we rejecting the treatment plans that the patients aren't moving forward with?’ so that we're getting an accurate representation of that actual statistic.” (42:50—43:34) -Miranda

“Looking at industry standards isn't super valuable for you. You want to start somewhere, and then you want to get better against yourself.” (43:37—43:45) -Kirk

“I think gross production is the least valuable metric that we track. We've shown our To The Top members all the time two different $2 million practices, and both have greatly varying amounts of profit going back home with the doctor. So, while gross production is simply an output, your business has the ability to output X amount of dentistry. Now, obviously, the higher the output, the more opportunity there is to return a profit. But whether you are able to or not depends on all the details and the gaps below production. Our financial gaps are where money is leaving the practice via write-offs, via lack of collections, via overhead expenses, and then via cash flow or cash financing activities. All of us dentists have been at a lunch table at an institute with a bunch of guys and gals bragging about production. Now, knowing what I know, I wish I would have said, ‘Yeah, but what's your write-offs? What's your lack of collections? What's your overhead?’ because that's the true meat of it. So, if you can produce a lot, awesome. It's a great starting point. But if you stop there and don't look at the gaps, that's why most of us, at one point in our career, said, ‘I am producing a lot of dentistry. Why don't I have more money in the bank?’ That's where the gaps come in.” (47:32—49:05) -Dr. Straub

“Our gross production is our output. We hire, we staff, we buy supplies, we buy technology based on being able to provide that output, which is your gross production. The national average of dentists that participate in PPOs is a 42%, 43% write-off. I was just looking at gaps yesterday with a 42% write-off. That's 42% out the door before we even take revenue. So, your collections is your revenue. Obviously, if you have 42%, that's a big gap between your output and your revenue. Now, when we go and talk to our CPAs and we get advice, they don't talk about production. They don't talk about how good you are at collections. They talk about revenue. So, the top of the P&L starts at your revenue, but there are two gaps above that. One, how much are you writing off? And then, your net production is your collectible amount. Your net production is the maximum amount of revenue you're going to have in a time period. So, if you're not collecting 100% of that, let's say you're only collecting 95% of net production. We see that all the time. That is literally five percent of whatever that dollar value that's right out of your wallet. You might as well have pulled that money out, written a check, and given it back because that's what lack of collections is. So, production, write-offs, and net production. And then, of that net production, how big of a gap or what percentage less than 100 are you collecting? If you pay attention to those two numbers alone, even before overhead, your profitability is going to go up.” (49:16—50:57) -Dr. Straub

“It's amazing to me how many dentists have no idea how much they're writing off — how much they're working for free. Forty-two percent write-offs makes no sense in any business, anywhere in the world. Yet, dentists just say, ‘Let's go. Let's keep rolling.’” (51:20—51:37) -Kirk

“[In the practice example,] their net production is $3 million. That means they could collect that. They just have to collect what is due. They collected 96%. What's four percent of $3 million? What should be in the bank? That's $120,000. So, 96% is like — that's almost 100%. That's really good. But there's $120,000 that should have been collected. So, when you put it in numerical value, it's like, ‘Wow! That's a lot of money. We're going to pay attention to collections now.’” (51:43—52:13) -Dr. Straub

“You would be shocked by how many dentists produce more than $1.2 million and have no money. That's where a big opportunity exists, is that cash is just flying out of the cash flow gap. So, it's important to know those performance gaps and tighten them up. It reduces the stress. It makes you feel better. You actually feel, at the end of the day, ‘Wow, I could do this long term. This does work.’ It's so cool when you know the data. You think to yourself, ‘I could do this long term,’ instead of thinking, ‘I’ve got to sell soon.’ Don't think like that.” (53:53—54:24) -Kirk

“To anyone who is listening who is like, ‘That's me. I don't know my P&L. I don't know my numbers. I don't know what's going to the bank,’ that's okay. You're not alone. We have people in our room at To The Top who have been practicing 20 years who are learning to analyze this for the first time, and we have doctors that are just coming out of school in the room who are learning how to do this for the first time. There is no shame in your game. You just start where you are.” (54:34—54:58) -Miranda

“When you have data that's not good, you have to teach your team and yourself, ‘We've got to apply a countermeasure.’ Now, a countermeasure is done in almost every part of the world. My son is a type one diabetic. We go in and find out what his A1C is. When it's not good, they do countermeasures. They adjust insulin levels. We change diet. You go to a cardiologist. Your cholesterol is not good. We're going to apply countermeasures. Kids on a baseball diamond can go, ‘Wow. We're three runs down. We should probably do something.’ We're going to start applying some countermeasures. So, in a business, you can start to apply countermeasures. You can start to think of systems that we can improve. A lot of times, it goes back to a system. By analyzing this data, we can see where there's a gap in a system. We see this all the time as coaches.” (55:58—56:44) -Kirk

“You have to do [countermeasures]. You track data, and then you can feel bad about the data, or you can say, ‘Okay. I know where I'm at now, and I'm going to put some countermeasures in.’ So, when you're not sleeping at night and you're looking at the ceiling fan that Kirk talked about — when I don't sleep at night and I'm looking at the ceiling fan, it's because I don't feel I have control over what's giving me anxiety. As soon as you put countermeasures in, even before you fix any financial metric, all of a sudden, you sleep better because you're like, ‘I have a plan, I'm taking action, and I'm controlling my destiny.’ So, don't beat yourself up to data. Just find a solution. Start small and incremental. Incremental progress over a handful of years makes incredible, incredible improvement.” (57:51—58:39) -Dr. Straub

“A big part of you taking a greater responsibility or bigger compensation is how valuable you become. I would say that even to a team member who is like, ‘Well, this doesn't really apply to me.’ No — wealth is a function of contribution, and most of it comes to value. When you get good at anything or understand it, people want you. They look at you as a valued team member. So, don't ever look at this as a passive experiment. No — I would, in every instance, go, ‘How can I become more valuable to the world, to the practice, to other people, to my family?’ You'll be amazed by what happens.” (1:00:13—1:00:49) -Kirk

“If an associate can take knowledge to the practice and the senior doctor and improve the business, the value goes up. A second part of that, let's say there are two hypothetical associates, both paid on a percent of collections, and both produce $500,000 of dentistry a year. One has a 42% write-off over that production. The other has an eight percent write-off. Which one has more collections in which to make a percentage on? Likewise, one team is collecting 92%. One is collecting 100%. Which has a higher percentage of take-home pay based on the same $500,000? So, these gaps really matter to senior doctors, associate doctors, any team member that's paid on some sort of profitability bonus. They matter to everyone because when the practice does better, cumulatively, everyone benefits.” (1:00:52—1:01:53) -Dr. Straub

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction.

2:39 About ACT’s To The Top Study Club.

5:20 Why data is critical for your practice.

8:14 Make data collection a habit.

9:55 Improve efficiency with data.

13:51 Have transparency and accountability.

15:54 Important KPIs: New patient acquisition and retention.

16:56 Important KPIs: Recaptured patients.

17:39 Important KPIs: Lost patients.

20:44 Important KIPs: New patients reappointed for hygiene.

21:50 Have a system to tether patients to your practice.

24:30 Break down your patient referral sources.

27:19 The importance of optimizing capacity.

34:13 Important KPIs: Treatment acceptance rate.

39:16 Important KPIs: Patient treatment acceptance.

42:10 Important KPIs: Dollar treatment accepted.

44:27 Important KPIs: Perio data.

47:04 Least important KPI: Gross production.

49:06 Important KPIs: Net production and collections.

51:37 Identify your gaps with data.

55:39 Countermeasures.

58:41 Q&A: How are these numbers impactful for associates?

Dr. Barrett Straub Bio:

Dr. Barrett Straub practices general and sedation dentistry in Port Washington, Wisconsin. He has worked hard to develop his practice into a top-performing, fee-for-service practice that focuses on improving the lives of patients through dentistry.

A graduate of Marquette Dental School, Dr. Straub’s advanced training and CE includes work at the Spear Institute, LVI, DOCS, and as a member of the Milwaukee Study Club. He is a past member of the Wisconsin Dental Association Board of Trustees and was awarded the Marquette Dental School 2017 Young Alumnus of the Year. As a former ACT coaching client that experienced first-hand the transformation that coaching can provide, he is passionate about helping other dentists create the practice they’ve always wanted.

Dr. Straub loves to hunt, golf, and spend winter on the ice, curling. He is married to Katie, with two daughters, Abby and Elizabeth.

Miranda Beeson, MS, BSDH Bio:

Miranda Beeson, MS, BSDH, has over 25 years of clinical dental hygiene, front office, practice administration, and speaking experience. She is enthusiastic about communication and loves helping others find the power that words can bring to their patient interactions and practice dynamics. As a Lead Practice Coach, she is driven to create opportunities to find value in experiences and cultivate new approaches.

Miranda graduated from Old Dominion University, and enjoys spending time with her husband, Chuck, and her children, Trent, Mallory, and Cassidy. Family time is the best time, and is often spent on a golf course, a volleyball court, or spending the day boating at the beach.