Your front office team represents the face of your practice. Because they’re often the first people your patients will interact with, and the communication medium for appointment scheduling and customer service, properly training your front office team is imperative to your office’s success. Read this article to discover how to increase productivity with your front office team.

Improve Your Hiring Techniques

Improving your team’s efficiency starts with the hiring process. When interviewing potential candidates for front office positions, clarify your expectations for short, and long-term development. Outline the specific goals and tasks you’d like to improve, as well as the timeline to illustrate when you hope to achieve them. Before employment, enhancing a prospect’s knowledge-base regarding acceptable insurance plans, training them with company software and phone systems, and bettering their understanding of dental procedures are all ways to...

Dental practices are continually faced with the challenge of attracting and retaining new patients. In today’s competitive market, where providers see substantially less patient traffic than in years past, what makes one practice more desirable than another? How can a provider bring in fresh revenue? While there’s no magic to adding hundreds of patients to your practice instantly, there are multiple strategies you can implement to expand your monthly and annual patient base. What’s better? You don’t have to spend a ton of money to do so — just use these seven tips to get started.

Pick Up The Phone

According to Dr. Christopher Phelps, up to a third of new patient calls are never answered by an office team, and it’s easy to understand why. Universally, the small, collaborative groups running a private dental practice almost always have their plates full. However, data has illustrated that many new patients call during office downtime or busy time,...

A collaborative, efficient team dynamic is critical to the success of a dental practice. However, “how” to build such a team is often an elusive concept. One of the most common questions we hear from clients is, “How do I hire the right people?”

In a previous post, we shared some key takeaways from Kirk Behrendt’s recent discussion with Dr. Ken Allen in episode #1 of our podcast. In that episode, Kirk asked Dr. Allen to share some tips on hiring the best dental team members. Here we’ll delve a little deeper, and review a particular step of the hiring process that is often overlooked – writing a great ad. Read on to learn about the structure of attractive job advertisements, and how their proper assembly can draw top-notch potential to your dental practice.

The Anatomy Of A Great Ad

Creative – Don’t restrict yourself to operating within the box of job ad standards – people naturally gravitate toward original...

In virtually every endeavor or profession, teamwork is critical to success. Dentistry is no exception; the way employees communicate, deliver quality care, and run their practice can all increase businesses earning potential. The common denominator of leading dental providers all comes down to efficient, hardworking, collaborative team synergy.

But great teams do not happen by accident, and hiring, growing and retaining the right people for your dental practice can be a challenging task. The good news: finding the right people and building an all-star team is possible, and we’re here to help.

In episode #1 of ACT’s “The Best Practices Show,” our CEO, Kirk Behrendt, chatted with Dr. Ken Allen of Caring Smiles in Fort Collins, CO, and asked him to share the secrets and strategies to finding top-notch teammates in the dental industry. In this post, we’ll discuss the primary takeaways from their conversation and offer nine tips to help you refine and...

Most dentists would agree that wear patients are the most difficult dental patients to treat. Yet, you probably see such patients on a regular basis, so there’s no avoiding the fact that you need to understand how to help them.

In a recent episode of The Best Practices Show, Dr. Bill Robbins shared some incredible insight on the thought process behind this major challenge in restorative dentistry.  If you want to watch the entire interview, you can view it here.  Fortunately, there are actually nine ways you can treat these patients, which he shares that cover every unique situation you encounter with those patients you care so much about.

9 Ways To Treat The Most Difficult Dental Patients

Although there are nine ways to treat the most difficult dental patients in total, we can break them down into three subgroups. These first five will refer to specific situations. Then, we’ll cover three general approaches that will work for most...

To help your dental practice thrive, you need to start with a good base: a great team. This includes fellow dentists as well as the front office staff. Use these tips to build the best dental team for your practice. 

Hiring a new team member to your dental practice can be a daunting task. It is important to know your job description and stick to those measures when considering potential candidates. Use these 5 tips to achieve the best dental practice team.

Dental experts are sought out for vital information and advice regarding oral care. On top of being knowledge keepers, however, it is essential they act as educators as well. Many hygienists and dentists know there is no “one size fits all approach” to patient education and therefore must develop a unique methodology. To ensure oral health is taken seriously outside of the office, dentists must consider every patient’s individual needs and learning style.

Simultaneously adapting your communication style and technical knowledge to address a variety of personalities with different oral health concerns can be immensely challenging.

That’s why we wrote this article. Instead of telling you “what” to say, we are going to focus on maximizing your communication skills.

On top of a dental expert, you’ll become a top-notch motivator and health care provider.

So let’s get to work!

Know Your Patient’s History

Before meeting with a...

Your patients are the life of your dental practice. Without them, your business couldn’t exist – it’s as simple as that.

But, in spite of their importance, the number of new patients you manage to acquire isn’t the only indicator of success. The total profit they bring in matters just as much. That is why one of the most important metrics you need to track is the lifetime value each of your patients delivers.

In this article, you will find everything you need to understand the importance of this metric and how to calculate and track it.

Let’s jump right in, shall we?

Customer Lifetime Value: A Definition

Before we dive into presenting the steps and strategies for measuring this metric, let’s first consider what this concept entails.

Customer Lifetime Value or CLV is an estimation of the total worth a patient can bring to your dental practice over the entirety of your business collaboration. Simply put, it is a measurement business...