Heather Colicchio is the president and founder of the American Association of Dental Office Managers (AADOM). You can learn more about AADOM and reach Heather through www.dentalmanagers.com.

Heather Colicchio

2014 rolled in and we have heard from our 

American Association of Dental Office Managers (AADOM)

 members that they are busy! The New Year typically comes with new resolutions. Now comes the hard part â¦ keeping them! I’d like to offer some tips on how to see them through.

. Increasing your production goal by 10% may be hard to achieve if you’ve been flat the last few years. Start slow and raise your goal mid-year if you’re achieving success.

 Evaluate where you are in two months with your resolutions, and then again in four months. If you don’t put these in the calendar, the dates will pass and so will the momentum.

Share the goals and let them know that you’ll need support from them. Encourage them to set similar goals in their own areas of the practice â¦ and support them as well!

 Our members have a number of tasks to perform every day. Our most successful managers know that they have to either automate these tasks or burn out doing the “little things.” If you find yourself performing a task more than once, seek to automate it. This will leave you valuable time to concentrate on improving your practice (and keeping your resolutions).

When you are able to tick off a goal or noticed that you are doing well with a continued new habit, take the time to pat yourself on the back. It’s hard to keep New Year’s resolutions so enjoy your success! Be sure to point out other’s accomplishments as well â pay it forward is always a good motto.

I wish you luck with your practice in 2014. 

 is here to help you with your managerial goals. 

’s team members routinely send encouraging emails to each other â it’s part of our culture. It was easy to implement as we set the intention that a cohesive, happy team will always succeed together. I know this is possible for your team as well. We’d like to take this opportunity to wish you luck in the New Year!
 

The American Association of Dental Office Managers (AADOM)

 is an organization of professional office managers, practice administrators, patient coordinators, insurance and financial coordinators, and treatment coordinators of general and specialized dental practices.  AADOM is the nation's largest education and networking association dedicated to serving dental practice management professionals. For more information, please call (732) 842-9977 or email 

Articles

For dental office managers: Top 5 tips for keeping your New Year's Resolutions in your dental practice

We worked with large scheduling books and wielded mighty pencils and a formidable stack of sticky notes. Tear-away pads of routing slips and referral pads were always within reach. Our copy machine was humming and stacks of copy paper were always kept in stock. The outside of charts were full of numbers as that’s where the balances were recorded.

If you think reading account ledgers and estimating copayments with your 

 can be problematic, have I got a scenario for you! The old way of calculating copayments was to pull out the calculator, do the quick button work and then flip the calculator around.

That was how you told the patient how much was due. If you had to work with a PPO plan then you were pulling out fee schedules, and fingers worked at lightning speed to come up with the correct amounts. This was before financial arrangements were routine, and payment promises were recorded on sticky notes that may or may not stay with the chart.  

Fast forward to 2012 and you can see that we’ve come a long way. Paperless technology has freed up so much time for managers to truly manage-not just push data around on various bits of paper. Our job now entails analyzing this data and helping to make strategic decisions with the doctor.

Our computers calculate our copayments and print out necessary truth-in-lending forms. Rather than photocopying periodontal readings with markings that look like hieroglyphics we now hand a color chart and informative treatment plans to the patient. We not only are tech savvy but the patients feel and see it for themselves.


	Stored data is now easily retrievable and sortable, making it possible to see trends that impact our practice. The secret to good management is to anticipate the factors that can cause the most disruption to our practice.

The only way to do this is to pay attention to that data-often. The challenge with paperless technology is the same challenge with loose paper: is the data correct?

Managers should be checking this information on a routine basis. Have referrals been entered correctly so we can track our marketing return on investments? Have our claims left our office with correct data so we don’t have to wait to find out the claim was rejected weeks ago? Is the medical information for each patient current and up-to-date so we aren’t taking chances with sedation?

Data that’s easy to read and easy to access is a manager’s dream-all these checks and balances can happen much easier now with all the various reports that are a click away.


	We often hear from office managers who manage multi-location or group practices. The need for centralized information is so important to this population. Before chartless technology many of these offices would have to be extra vigilant to make sure the right chart was at the right office at the right time.

The team has to be prepared in case Mrs. Smith decides to go to the West Side location but her chart “lives” in the East Side office. The typical solution was to have Rachel the Runner speed through traffic between the offices with chart in hand. However there were times when the mistake wasn’t discovered until the patient was actually in the chair. You could easily visualize the miscommunication and schedule delays that occurred as a result of a patient wishing to visit a different location.


	So much change and so much progress-have we even reached a peak? No-we’re still on the march uphill. The mandate for electronic health records (EHR) is a few years away and the possibility of dental diagnostic codes will renew an interest in technology solutions.

Many offices have taken the step toward not only becoming just chartless but truly paperless. That means no photocopies of ID cards and referral forms sitting in a thinner file. The hum of scanners will replace the old copy machine and rightly so. Let our computer storage work for us instead of making room for physical storage. Take your time, do the research and implement with a plan.

Remember how we should anticipate disruption. At one time transitioning to a paperless office was considered the ultimate disruption. It will be the most positive disruption you could ever manage.

Imagine the administrative area of a dental office of 20 years ago.