Alan Johnson has spent the last 15 years in the dental industry blending technology with real life application. With a background in business and technology, the former VP of Consulting for Mercer Advisors is currently a part of the marketing and software development team for Patterson Dental. Alan led the development team that created OnTrack and brings real life expertise to the utilization and daily application of OnTrack for growth, alignment, and business development.

Alan Johnson

Establishing profitability is the goal for most businesses, and it’s no different for dental offices. It’s pretty easy to see if a practice is making a profit, but it can be harder to identify the reasons why a practice is profitable in the first place.  

Profitability can be affected by many different variables anything from where a practice is located, to what a practice’s hours are, and even the type of dental work a practice focuses on. With all of these different variables, 

 is becoming an integral part of dental offices due to real time insights about how a practice is performing.

I often like to compare tracking software to a GPS. The first step is to choose your destination, or the areas where your practice can improve. Tracking software can then begin calculating, using your practice’s benchmarks, how to get to your destination. Finally, the software can tell you the best way to travel by giving quick tips along the way for how to modify your behavior. And, if in the middle of your trip, you decide you want to take a different route, you can simply change the destination and it will begin calculating your new route.

If you’re trying to get a handle on areas where you’re profiting and areas that could be improved to increase profitability, I believe there are three over-arching benefits that tracking software can offer to all practices:

Choose the areas your practice can improve:

 Even the most profitable practices in the world have room for improvement. Many tracking software packages allow practitioners to choose the areas they want to focus on improving and track metrics specific to those areas, with options ranging from customer service to case acceptance. By taking advantage of tracking software and using it correctly, practices can improve almost all areas of their business.

It’s great to see how many patients said yes to a treatment or the percentage that paid while still in the office, but numbers don’t really mean anything unless you can compare them to another set of data. Typically, a practice will compare its metrics to industry benchmarks but that doesn’t tell the whole picture, making it difficult to find the real meaning for your practice.

By using tracking software, your practice can create its own set of internal benchmarks, which are the best indicators of individualized improvement. When you can compare your metrics over time and see growth personalized to you, you can begin to see how valuable tracking software can be, even if you’re numbers vary from industry benchmarks.

When you start to see where improvements can be made, the next logical step is to change your behavior to make these improvements. This is where tracking software can have the biggest impact on a practice. Throughout a patient interaction, the software will “prompt” dental staff to do certain actions, like schedule the patient for a hygiene appointment or check if he or she paid at the time of the appointment. With these quick reminders, your practice can begin to improve in specified areas.

Tracking software can be a scary topic for many dental practices because it points out the areas that need improvement. Don’t be scared. When used properly, this software will have you on your way to increased profits and a more efficient dental practice.

Note: This article is sponsored by Patterson Dental as part of the 

 Partner Voice Program, which provides a way for leading dental manufacturers to share quality content with our audience. Patterson Dental offers a wide range of dental products including Eaglesoft Practice Management Software, CAESY Patient Education Systems and the RevenueWell marketing communications suite, which are backed by the renowned support and customer service team at the Patterson Technology Center. With multiple support options and more than 125 years experience in the dental industry, Patterson has the resources and expertise to help customers and practices reach their greatest potential.

Articles

How to increase your dental practice's ROI with the help of tracking software

	When I first introduce the topic of tracking software to dental practices, there are two responses I frequently encounter. Dental team members often think, “Oh no, it’s Big Brother,” while dentists wonder what a product like 

 can do that their existing practice management software cannot. 

Fortunately, when they learn more, both contingents usually agree that tracking software is a great tool to help their team develop and their practice grow. OnTrack 

 that can’t be seen with ordinary practice management software, and actually helps offices discover hidden successes and reward the team members who are driving them. With a series of simple clicks that can be completed in 10-15 seconds after each patient visit, practices can track unique metrics for the individual goals they have identified.

How to succeed with implementation of dental practice management software [VIDEO]

While there are literally hundreds of actions that OnTrack is capable of monitoring, I have a list of five questions that I always suggest practices keep in mind when first getting started. By focusing on active statistics rather than passive ones and by asking, “What behaviors are driving your results?” practices can track the actual behaviors that contribute to more concrete statistics like collections and production. 

It’s simple to track the number of new patients coming into the practice, but dentists shouldn’t just pick an arbitrary number to aim for. A practice in a transient community that is highly insurance-driven might like to see 40 to 50 new patients per month, while a practice that does more comprehensive full-mouth treatment plans might be very healthy with 6 to 8 new patients per month. Tracking software can help practices identify an appropriate individualized goal and work toward steady growth.  The other side of this coin is tracking if people are keeping their appointments and if not, why? (OnTrack indicator: New Patients / Schedule Effectiveness %)

This question goes beyond just case acceptance and should focus on smaller steps, like confirming whether patients are coming back for consultations and hygiene appointments. The key is determining whether patients trust your practice enough to say yes to your team’s recommendations. (OnTrack indicator: Treatment Retention %)

Practices today spend so much time, money and energy going after new patients that they often neglect the steps that will help them keep their existing patients. The truth is that the hygiene team holds the key to this, as the number one thing that drives overall patient retention is hygiene retention. This statistic is typically the biggest indicator of long-term growth for a practice. (OnTrack indicator: Hygiene Retention %)

This is the best kept secret about your dental software [VIDEO]

This question does not mean that you need to track whether patients are paying their entire bill. Instead, OnTrack can help you track whether patients are paying their portion at the time of service. By aiming for this, the practice can keep accounts receivable under control and reduce stress over cash flow. Many dentists will focus simply on accounts receivable, but it is actually more productive to break this down into the smaller step of asking, “Are we collecting at the time of service for each patient interaction?” (OnTrack indicator: Payment $)

Your team members can probably look at the day’s schedule and predict ahead of time who will cancel at the last minute, who will tie up the dentist with lengthy questions, and who the model patients are that show up on time and have a positive demeanor. These patients probably associate with other like-minded people and families. By letting these patients know that they are valued and asking them to refer or “invite” anyone they know who is looking for a dental home, your practice can grow with the types of people that your team loves to treat. In OnTrack, the practice can easily keep tabs on these invitations and your team can work together to build a base of great patients. (OnTrack indicator: Invitation %) 

Check out this video to learn more about OnTrack from Patterson Dental:

Free E-Book: Find out how outdated technology is costing you money

As these examples show, the simple statistics that many dentists focus on can be broken down into more concrete steps and easily tracked. By doing this, and shifting the emphasis from the big picture to small actions, you can empower your team with achievable steps.  Ultimately, dentistry is still a one-on-one, relationship-based profession, and focusing on individual interactions is where you will find action and opportunity that add up to measurable change.

    When I first introduce the topic of tracking software to dental practices, there are two responses I frequently encounter. Dental team members often think, “Oh no, it’s Big Brother,” while dentists wonder what a product like OnTrack can do that their existing practice management software cannot.   