Numbers tell a story, and you can use them to change your practice. In this episode, Kirk Behrendt brings back Robyn Theisen, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, to share a few critical metrics that will make the biggest impact. To learn which data points to focus on to improve your practice, listen to Episode 989 of The Best Practices Show!
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Episode Resources:
Main Takeaways:
Quotes:
“Data is the difference between guessing and growing. There are practices out there in the country that are growing — they're not guessing. They actually have really good data. They know what it means. In a busy dental practice, it's easy to confuse activity with progress. Everywhere we go and everybody I talk to, ‘It's crazy, man! It's busy!’ We get practices that come to us and they're multi-million-dollar producers. They have no money, but they're busy.” (8:50—9:17) -Kirk
“The data tells the truth. You don't have to like it, but the data tells us everything. Now, there are inherent challenges with the data. A lot of times when we do an assessment, doctors will go, ‘I think it's this.’ We put it all together, and we can see errors in the data. When you understand the numbers, you get them right. You can make confident decisions, you can lead your team with clarity, with a lot of confidence, and you can turn information into very meaningful impact. We don't have time or energy — you don't either — to just keep making these heavy motions of more, more, and work harder. When you have the data, it helps with everything, and it really does calm you.” (9:55—10:31) -Kirk
“When you have data, it replaces the emotion. If you've ever been on any of the courses or the podcasts, we always talk about meetings. Meetings, for us, start with data. We don't start with problems. We start with data because data can tell us exactly where we're at. It's the evidence. And here's another thing that we experience as coaches. You feel slow. You're looking at your schedule, and you're like, ‘Man, we're feeling slow.’ So, Dr. Awesome feels the practice is slow, but the data shows steady new patient flow and a drop in hygiene reappointments. When you can see that and you have data, instead of cutting hours — which is what a lot of dentists do because they're worried about wages. We cut hours. Don't do that — she refocuses her team on rebooking patients, maybe hygiene reappointment. Let's improve that across the board, and verbal skills, and our case acceptance instead of making bold moves that don't help the practice.” (10:41—11:39) -Kirk
“We have doctors that have very large practices. They move away from PPOs, and it messes with their minds. They feel like the practice is slowing down. Like, we have an amazing female dentist, and she told me, ‘I had two hours open. I was freaking out because I'm not built to do nothing. Gross production was dropping, but our collections were up 25%.’ I'm like, ‘Well, why don't you work up a case?’ She's like, ‘Okay.’ ‘Why don't you go to hygiene and say hi?’ She's not used to having time. You have to dispel these crazy things because, forever, we've equated like, ‘I’ve got to stay crazy busy in order for it to work.’‘” (11:42—12:27) -Kirk
“When you have really accurate data, it creates alignment. We hear this from doctors all the time: ‘My team doesn't get it. They don't understand.’ There's no better way than to sit down with your team, create a vision, and create alignment around a few data points and create some accountability week over week.” (12:51—13:08) -Kirk
“Data transforms potential into performance. People talk about production. Well, production is potential collections. It's activity. What you want to do is take all of this activity and turn it into performance or profit.” (15:17—15:31) -Kirk
“I say that in most cases, [95%] is an A. When you're talking about collections, that's not an A. A hundred percent is what we're going for. Anything below that, you're leaving things on the table.” (15:59—16:11) -Robyn
“You’ve got to have the data, and then we break it down into actionable, accountable steps. How do we use it on a regular basis? An important piece of this is you have to know your production story. Everybody has numbers. But there's a story behind the numbers . . . There's always a story. So, while you go out to Spear, or Kois, or Pankey, or Dawson and you sit next to your buddy or your friend from dental school and you're like, ‘How are you doing?' ‘Well, I have a $2 million practice.’ ‘Oh, I have a $2 million practice too,’ it's not the same thing.” (18:01—18:37) -Kirk
“I know most people want to know what their net production is. I do think there's value in gross production in that if you don't know what your adjustments are, you also are telling yourself a different story. So, the complete story starts with gross production and really understanding what you're adjusting off.” (21:02—21:19) -Robyn
“You should collect every dollar that's owed to you. For some reason, we tell ourselves a story that we shouldn't. No — you should. It's really important.” (24:24—24:33) -Kirk
“The numbers tell a story. You don't have to look at every number, but look at the critical numbers, and understand your production story and your collection story. There's always a subplot to them. You can start improving your practice today when you have the numbers. The first step in any change process that works is telling the truth.” (35:51—36:15) -Kirk
“There's so much power in knowing exactly where you're at. So, wherever you're at, make sure you have really accurate data. It's going to save time. It's going to reduce the emotions. You can start improving your practice today, and you don't need to make it perfect. You just pick the right data points, and you start to improve them week over week. You can change everything. And you can focus on trends, not snapshots. A lot of times, you'll pull the numbers when you're all stressed, and you'll start telling yourself a big story that's not true. But when you look at these numbers over time, you can start to see the impact of the work that you're doing.” (36:35—37:08) -Kirk
“What you focus on expands. When you start focusing on the numbers, little by little, they do start to improve. So, it's knowing what you're focusing on, what your goals are, and really homing in on those data points to make big impacts.” (40:10—40:24) -Robyn
Snippets:
0:00 Introduction.
6:22 ACT and Smile Source have merged!
7:46 Why this is an important topic.
10:41 Data replaces emotion with evidence.
12:50 Data creates alignment and accountability.
15:17 Data transforms potential into performance.
17:59 What is your production story?
21:30 Production story: Secondary KPIs.
23:25 What is your collection story?
24:33 Collection story: Secondary KPIs.
26:03 Key KPIs to support practice initiatives.
35:40 Final takeaways.
40:44 ACT’s BPA.
41:57 Q&A: When you have a full schedule, do you prioritize patients of record or new patients?
Robyn Theisen Bio:
Robyn Theisen brings an entire life and legacy of dental experience to the team and every team with which she works as the daughter and sister of dentists. With almost 20 years of experience in dentistry, her roles ranged from practice management to operations at Patterson Dental to coaching teams. Robyn’s passion is empowering teams to realize that they can dramatically impact the lives of the people they serve by implementing skills and systems to remove barriers to life-changing dental treatment. She has done it for decades and does it every day with dental teams.
Outside of coaching, she enjoys time with her husband, Rob, and two daughters, Emerson and Ruby. She loves traveling, music, fitness, and cheering on the Michigan State Spartans.