You said it clearly. You know you did—because you knew exactly what you meant. So why did your team do something completely different? Why did that patient leave confused? Why does it feel like you’re constantly repeating yourself and nothing sticks? The problem probably isn’t your team. It’s the gap between what you said and what they heard.
We’ve covered several hygiene metrics in our Data Snapshots lately, and this week we have a simple one: Fluoride Percentage. It measures the percentage of patients who receive a fluoride treatment compared to the total number of patients seen for hygiene visits. It’s simple only in definition, however, because
If your practice feels chaotic, the instinct is usually to look at the people. Who’s dropping the ball? Who’s not pulling their weight? Who needs more training or a harder conversation? But sometimes the problem isn’t the people. It’s the seats they’re in.
If you see constant finger-pointing and blame shifting in your practice, then you know there’s a problem. However, finger-pointing in a dental practice is rarely the real problem. Usually, it’s a symptom of something deeper: lack of clarity around ownership and accountability. What happens is that when
Dental school taught you how to diagnose. How to treatment plan. How to deliver excellent clinical care. What it didn’t teach you is everything else that comes with the keys to your own practice.
As we discussed in the previous Data Snapshot, periodontal disease is on the rise, and in order to best serve our communities, we must pay attention to the breakdown of hygiene visits. Your Perio Visit Percentage is how you accomplish that, because it measures the percentage of total hygiene visits in a given period that are periodontal therapy or maintenance appointments compared to prophylaxis visits.
Your team just finished a great appointment. The patient’s happy, the work went well, and then the bib comes off… and so does everything else. They grab their jacket, check their phone, and suddenly they’re halfway out the door with a vague promise to call back about scheduling.
We work with dentists all over the country, and there’s a common problem we run into over and over: “I know my practice is profitable, but there’s no money in my bank account.” The underlying problem is that there’s a great deal of confusion around cash flow, and in order to have a Better Practice and a Better
Somewhere in your supply closet, there’s a box of something that expires in 2047. Right next to it: nothing. Because you’re completely out of the thing you actually needed this morning. And if your first instinct is to order triple so this doesn’t happen again, you’ve got an even bigger problem. You need a better system.
Between 40% and 50% of adults over 30 have some form of periodontal disease, and that rate increases as patients age, so it’s more important than ever to ensure we’re serving our patients well by providing better hygiene care. To do so, there are two metrics you need to track: Perio Diagnostic Percentage
