by By Laura Thill
An increasingly competitive industry calls for more efficient practice management systems
You wouldn’t recommend that your patients put off treatment until it gets really bad! The same follows for the health of your practice. Indeed, one of the worst things dental providers can do is to delay creating a practice management system that ensures consistency and efficiency throughout the group practice, note experts.
“The dental environment has become more and more competitive,” says Quinn Dufurrena, DDS, JD, president and CEO, Avitus Dental Management Solutions. More dentists are graduating from dental school today, he points out. At the same time, patient spending is – and likely will remain – flat, and reimbursement rates have fallen. In turn, dentists are earning lower incomes.
To remain competitive in such a challenging environment, dental practices – particularly group practices – must focus on their management protocols, notes Dufurrena. “What they need are integrated, standardized, efficient, quality systems that encompass patient scheduling, billing and insurance claims, accounting, recall, branding, IT and more,” he says. “It starts with HR management, including clear job descriptions and expectations, handbooks with clear practice rules and thorough training, as well as an accessible website for patients, scheduling and patient follow-up, and precise treatment plans.”
It is imperative that dental practices “understand their metrics,” says Dufurrena. Not only do they need key data to support their protocols, they must have the capacity to analyze and understand what that data means, he adds. “The more employees and dental offices there are in the group practice, the more important this becomes. You can’t have six different offices with six different management systems, or the practice will lose its efficiency.” Indeed, in a multisite practice, “a problem at one location impacts the whole system. Without the proper integration of all sites and offices, the practice becomes more difficult to manage.”
Addressing the issues
From one practice to the next, providers respond differently to practice management issues. “It often depends on the pain factor, which is interesting, since dentistry is based on preventive care,” says Dufurrena. Whereas larger dental practices have the capacity to incorporate a practice management program, many solo and small group practices are either outsourcing their business functions or joining a dental service organization (DSO), he points out. Dentists are looking to free themselves up to focus on patient care, he says.
The office manager
In today’s increasingly complex dental market, “office managers have more on their plate than ever before,” says Dufurrena. They are expected to be an expert on many of the details associated with running a business, he points out. But, that’s not practical. “No one can be an expert in every area,” he says.
Nevertheless, “dental owners must give their office managers the authority to make decisions, delegate and lead,” says Dufurrena. “Not only must they turn over authority to their office managers to make these types of decisions, they must support them,” he says. “Let’s say you have four locations in a dental practice. A well-trained office manager can run all four offices efficiently, as long as he or she has the authority to make – and act on – decisions. And, [a system with] one office manager is much more efficient than having four different office managers. For example, with regard to patient scheduling, if each office uses a different system, they will run into issues when they need to send a patient from one location to another. Particularly if the practice lacks an integrated analytics system, and runs four different management software programs, there will be no consistency for the patient who is sent to a new office.
Payment systems and regulations continue to make managing a multisite practice more complicated and challenging for dentists and their staff, says Dufurrena. Those dental practices who can retain good, quality staff will have an easier time navigating the transition,” he notes. “This will mean having good, integrated systems in place for recruiting and training, and providing clear job descriptions, expectations and handbooks.”
