Skip to content
Back to Blog

891: The 5 Numbers Hygienists Must Track – Ariel Juday

Your hygienists are vital for the success of your practice — and you can help them measure their impact! In this episode of Clinical Edge Fridays, Kirk Behrendt brings back Ariel Juday, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, to share five KPIs that will help improve efficiency, patient care, and even increase job satisfaction. To learn which metrics your hygienists should track for the health of your patients and practice, listen to Episode 891 of The Best Practices Show!

Learn More About Ariel:

Learn More About ACT Dental:

More Helpful Links for a Better Practice & a Better Life:

Episode Resources:

Main Takeaways:

  • By tracking these numbers, hygienists can be accountable for their role in patient care.
  • Track periodontal diagnostic percentage to increase your case acceptance rate.
  • Track treatment acceptance percentage to prevent disease progression.
  • Track periodontal visit percentage to prevent underdiagnosing.
  • Track production per visit so patients receive adjunctive care.
  • Track hygiene reappointment to ensure patient retention.

Quotes:

“The first [number to track] is our periodontal diagnostic percentage. This is telling us before we can help patients get healthy, are we seeing it? Are we diagnosing it? So, we want to know what percentage of patients that we're seeing for hygiene are diagnosed with new periodontal treatment. We want to make sure that as those new patients are coming through, or maybe even existing patients who have slowly been decreasing in their health, are we diagnosing, are we seeing that with our new patients? It's really important that we're consistently diagnosing — not over-diagnosing but consistently diagnosing — periodontal disease so that we can ensure that our practice is identifying necessary treatment for our patients. This is ultimately going to lead to higher case acceptance and higher revenue. But also, we want to get there, as we're healthcare providers. If we fail to diagnose perio disease, it could result in legal risks and patient complaints if the conditions get worse, and we never told them, and we didn't give them a plan of action. So, I really feel like it's our obligation to be able to diagnose it, see it, and have those conversations.” (3:55—5:06) -Ariel

“As a hygienist, you went into the field to take care of and to help patients get healthier. Early diagnosis allows us to have that timely intervention. We can reduce the risk of things getting worse — of the tooth loss — and systemic health factors. So, it really helps us to take care of our patients sooner if we're diagnosing it before it becomes serious.” (5:22—5:47) -Ariel

“Once we diagnose it, the goal is for our patients to accept it. So, we want the periodontal treatment acceptance, and we want to do it based off of a percentage so that we know, compared to what we're diagnosing, are we able to communicate in a way to speak to patients' values that they're able to receive the care that they need and deserve? So, we're going to look at the patients that we've seen and diagnosed and how many are accepting. Now, acceptance is going to be, did they complete it, or did they schedule it? Acceptance doesn't mean, ‘Yes, yes, I'll go ahead and do it.’ It means, is it actually on the schedule? So, I know the caveats that are already coming is, ‘Well, they said they were going to do it,’ or they scheduled one of them, but not both of them. Then, only one of them — 50% — is accepted. That's the only true way to know, is if it's on our schedule.” (8:59—9:50) -Ariel

“We want to keep our patients getting healthier. So, a higher acceptance means that we're having a higher patient base who are receiving treatment. This is going to increase our production and it's going to increase our perio maintenance visits. So, if we're trying to keep our hygiene schedule full, we need to continue getting the patients circulating through our hygiene program. It also tells us how we're speaking to patient values. How are we overcoming barriers? Because if patients are not accepting treatment, that tells us that they're probably not following through with other treatment, which can then lead to patient dissatisfaction, legal exposure, and definitely higher disease progression.” (9:59—10:44) -Ariel

“Hygienists, as we said, are the educators. They're the caregivers. They're the ones helping to get our patients healthy. So, educating patients on the importance of treatment reduces the progression of disease — because by the time we diagnose it, they already have it. It's only going to get worse unless we're able to step in and help take care of that. We also know, with periodontal disease, it's going to progress into other oral health complications, potentially even other overall body health complications. So, if we can help a patient get healthier by talking to their values, explaining the treatment, and letting them know that it is a disease and we want to help them get healthy, that's going to give us better job satisfaction. Then, as you said, hygienists want to make more — and don't we all. So, one way that we can do that is, let's continue to talk about these benefits. And the higher percentage we have, as we said, it's going to help the practice become more profitable.” (11:28—12:28) -Ariel

“One of the biggest complaints is, ‘I'm tired of doing so many hygiene exams.’ I say, ‘Well, I can't eliminate hygiene exams. But what we can do is schedule it strategically so that you don't have to have four hygiene exams every hour, add in those perio maintenance blocks, add in the scaling and root planing blocks.’ That gives yourself time, like you said, of, ‘Hey, I can't get up with this procedure.’ Perfect. We don't need you to. We have designed our schedule to flow that works for the entire practice. And your hygienists like it too because they're not waiting on you to come and do their hygiene exam.” (13:38—14:15) -Ariel

“Number three, we're going to pull it all together and it's going to be our periodontal visit percentage. So, now we've diagnosed it. We've accepted it. Now, overall, what does our entire hygiene program look like, and how much of that is with perio? So, not just active perio, but in that maintenance phase. So, any appointment that goes into it, we want to track that as a percentage for it. And I'll go ahead and say 35% to 45% of your hygiene visits should be perio-related.” (15:14—15:46) -Ariel

“The data shows that over half of the population who are 30 years and older have some sort of periodontal disease. Then, we know that as we get older, it rises and continues. The population of 65 and older, up to 65% to 70% of them have some sort of periodontal disease that we should be treating.” (20:29—20:50) -Ariel

“We definitely should be tracking their production per visit. This is going to let us know, when a patient is in the chair, how well we are taking care of this patient per each appointment. So, it's going to matter how efficient we are to help with the financial success, and are we providing those additional services that patients can benefit from?” (21:41—22:05) -Ariel

“The higher [production per visit] is, that means the healthier your patients are. That means the more valuable you are to the practice. And like you said, financially, there's definitely more opportunity. Your patients are probably happier because they are healthier. They're receiving the additional treatments such as fluoride, laser, and sealants because they're being very preventative.” (22:15—22:39) -Ariel

“We are taking care of our patients when we're in the office. We're diagnosing it, we're accepting it, and we're treating it. Then, are we continuing to get the patients back in the chair? So, you would want to track your hygiene reappointment percentage. So, if they're in today for a hygiene appointment, are they scheduling for another hygiene appointment? We don't want them to be one-and-done. We want them to continue to stay in our hygiene program so that they can continue to get healthier or maintain any progress that they've made. So, you're going to want to look at, are they in the office, and did they reschedule to come back and see you?” (25:51—26:28) -Ariel

“Back to your two great patients who leave the office without rescheduling — life happens. They forget. They come back from vacation. Let's be honest. The last thing they're thinking about when they come back from vacation is scheduling their hygiene appointment. And let's say that they do. We also know that many of our teams are scheduled pretty far out in hygiene right now. We know that it’s a struggle. So, if patients are not scheduling when they're in the office, they are going to be off track in their health. That's the fact of it. So, that's one way that you can really help patients, is to say, ‘Hey, to continue to ensure that we stay on track with your health, I want to go ahead and get it rescheduled for you right now before you leave.’ It's going to help with that retention, it's going to help with that revenue, and it's going to prevent those costly gaps.” (29:48—30:40) -Ariel

“For the hygienist, you want to keep your schedule full, because I know that they don't like sitting there without a patient. Reschedule your own patients because that's the only guarantee that they're going to end up back in your schedule. If you let them go and you let them call back, the admin team is going to do the best that they can, but let's be honest — they're taking a phone call. They don't know this patient. They're going to have to look at their chart. They're going to put them in wherever it may be, and it may not be with you. It may be with another hygienist. So, keep your patient base with you. Keep rescheduling them back.” (30:41—31:13) -Ariel

“Tracking these metrics is going to allow for us to see how healthy and how well we are taking care of our patients. They're going to ensure that our standard of care that we've created in our periodontal protocols is being followed and they're being effective. If we're not tracking it, we don't know that. So, this is the only way to hold our team members accountable for their role in patient care. And if we are struggling, like you said, we can course correct. We can do some training. We can come together on alignment and collaboration. If we are doing great — awesome. Celebrate our successes. Tell those patient stories of, ‘Hey, Ms. Smith came in, and this is what it was. Today, she finished up her perio maintenance appointment, and she's come miles of improvement. She's walking out smiling.’ Those are all the fun stories. But you won't know that unless you're tracking and seeing how well our patients are getting healthy.” (34:21—35:16) -Ariel

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction.

1:26 Why this is an important topic.

3:47 1) Periodontal diagnostic percentage.

5:12 Why periodontal diagnostic percentage is important.

8:12 Periodontal diagnostic percentage benchmarks.

8:49 2) Periodontal treatment acceptance.

9:52 Why periodontal treatment acceptance is important.

14:28 Periodontal treatment acceptance benchmarks.

15:02 3) Periodontal visit percentage.

17:27 Why periodontal visit percentage is important.

19:54 Periodontal visit percentage benchmarks.

20:17 Statistics on perio disease.

21:36 4) Production per visit.

22:06 Why production per visit is important.

23:32 Production per visit benchmarks.

25:44 5) Hygiene reappointment percentage.

32:32 Hygiene reappointment percentage benchmarks.

34:07 Final thoughts.

35:17 Ways to track these five numbers.

Ariel Juday Bio:

Ariel has a master’s in healthcare administration and several years of dental experience in all aspects of the administrative roles within the dental office. Her passion is to work with dental teams to empower team members to realize their full potential in order to better serve patients, improve office systems to ensure a well-functioning team/office, and to help everyone have fun in the process! 
ACT Dental Team

ACT Dental Team

    Subscribe to our newsletter