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918: Maximize the Value of Your Dental Assistant – Renae Graeff

You might think you're great at multitasking — but you're really not! In this episode, Kirk Behrendt brings in Renae Graeff, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, to share how to maximize your dental assistants’ skills so you can fully utilize them to better your practice. Don't try to do it all! To learn how to empower your assistants so they become more capable, more fulfilled, and a better partner for patient care, listen to Episode 918 of The Best Practices Show!

Learn More About Renae:

Learn More About ACT Dental:

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

Episode Resources:

Main Takeaways:

  • When you empower dental assistants, the entire practice benefits.
  • Proper delegation will allow dentists to focus on high-value procedures.
  • Eliminate the “I can do it faster myself” mentality to start freeing up your time.
  • Find out the full scope of what your dental assistants can legally do in your state.
  • Your dental assistants are more than just “support staff”. They are key contributors.

Quotes:

“Many dental practices are missing a huge opportunity by underutilizing their dental assistants. When assistants are empowered to work at the full extent of their training and state regulations, the entire practice benefits.” (2:18—2:30) -Renae

“Proper delegation allows the doctor to focus on high-value procedures while the assistants handle essential tasks independently without the doctor's supervision. With a well-utilized team, a practice can see more patients per day without adding hours of stress, limiting bottlenecks where you're spending time doing tasks that your assistants could handle, ultimately slowing down your production and overloading your schedule.” (2:49—3:15) -Renae

“Assistants who may feel unclear on expectations or are overlooked can lead to frustration or even turnover. When you have an amazing assistant, they really are your right hand. We are masters at multitasking, ensuring patients are comfortable and relaxed, helping them to understand the “why” behind any treatment recommendations, pretty much being your clone, in a way, to reiterate necessary goals to getting that patient health.” (3:56—4:21) -Renae

“The “I can do it faster myself” mindset — there is a mentality that taking the time to teach takes too long when, in reality, investing a little time now saves hours each week in the long run.” (5:01—5:12) -Renae

“Some dentists feel more comfortable doing everything themselves. They feel they have more control over the experience or the outcome. But ultimately, holding on to low-value tasks really prevents the doctor from focusing on higher value work. In my experience, the doctor can actually have more control over doing the dentistry they really want by allowing their assistants to handle these lower-value appointments. When you have a great assistant as your right hand, you need to relinquish control and properly train them to your standards so you know these appointments will be handled the same way you would. This will free up your time to do the dentistry you really want to do, and the patient experience can even be better this way. Oftentimes, patients connect more with the assistant than the doctor.” (6:06—6:49) -Renae

“In order to grow, you have to let go.” (7:23—7:26) -Kirk

“Some dentists don't know the full scope of what their assistants can legally do in their state. So, do some research for your state and find out. More times than not, your assistants want to do more than they currently are. As a coach, I've had countless conversations with assistants all over the country opening up to me about the fact that they are not able to perform certain tasks that they know they can legally do.” (7:47—8:09) -Renae

“If assistants aren't properly trained, doctors can't trust them to take on more responsibility. So, having clearly defined systems and onboarding procedures is definitely key.” (9:08—9:18) -Renae

“Let's go into the true value of a dental assistant. They're not just “support staff” or, God forbid, you never use some of the terms that people use around dental assistants, like, ‘They just turn over rooms.’ I've heard dental assistants say . . . [they just] suck spit. I actually had a dental assistant say that. I'm like, ‘You don't do that.’ No — there's way more than that. So, I think you’ve got to be careful about guarding the language. We've got to talk positively and think positively. All roles are important, and the biggest part is the language and the thinking around the role because a great dental assistant can be a key contributor to the practice.” (9:21—10:02) -Kirk

“The true art of somebody who becomes more productive in less time is they don't do more — they actually focus on less in the things that they do well. This is where you can partner with a great dental assistant.” (11:29—11:45) -Kirk

“Learn your legislation. As a leader, you need to know what your state is going to allow so that you can fully maximize the role of your dental assistant.” (12:53—13:01) -Renae

“Develop your dental assistant. We can't stress this enough, to take the time to create specific and impactful onboarding for them and stick with the systems. Remember that systems drive the practice, so you need to develop your team to drive systems.” (13:15—13:29) -Renae

“Number one, review your current onboarding plan. Is it a process or just a hope? Here at ACT, we coach the 3-3-3 Onboarding Plan. This is a helpful way for the team member to learn information they should know after three days, three weeks, and three months. This allows the assistant time to properly layer on the learning without waterboarding them. The second would be to schedule one-on-one check-ins to connect and engage with your dental assistant. The check-in is super important. This allows the team member a safe space and time to ask for your support on duties they feel comfortable with. You want to audit your daily workflow. So, what tasks are you doing that an assistant could own? And lastly, ask your assistant, ‘What is one thing you wish you could do more of in your role?’ I guarantee you there will be some tasks that they come up with.” (14:33—15:25) -Renae

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction.

2:11 Why this is an important topic.

4:45 Why dentists don't fully utilize dental assistants.

7:30 Find out what dental assistants can legally do in your state.

9:19 The true value of a dental assistant.

12:20 How to utilize your dental assistants.

13:30 Dovetail scheduling, explained.

14:19 Final takeaways.

15:48 ACT’s BPA.

Renae Graeff Bio:

Renae Graeff is a lead practice coach who focuses on establishing trust and communication to help practice leaders and teams achieve their personal and professional goals. With over 18 years of combined clinical experience as an EFDA and office management, she understands the necessity for a healthy and aligned team firsthand. Over the years, she has worked with many doctors, specialists, hygienists, assistants, and admin teams with this in mind and has helped to improve communication and understanding in the office.

Renae resides in a suburb of Philadelphia with her long-term boyfriend and blended family of four children, Vivian, Lucy, Alex, and Aubrey. They all love spending time with their beloved family dog, Axel. She enjoys watching the Eagles and Phillies games, reading, and traveling to her summer "home away from home" outside of Cape May, New Jersey.
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