Sally McKenzie, CEO McKenzie Management Printer Friendly Version

Experience? What Exactly Does That Mean?

Experience. It’s a word that conveys different meanings to different people. When seeking employment, applicants naturally want to convince their prospective employers that they would bring necessary experience to the position. Meanwhile, dentists often are feeling the pressure to fill vacancies quickly and don’t typically need a lot of convincing that an applicant’s “experience,” whatever it is, will be just fine for the practice.

Just fine until a few months down the road when the hiring dentist realizes that the new employee’s so-called “experience” is not what the job really requires or the practice needs, particularly when it comes to computer experience. Even jobs that would not necessarily be described as “technical” commonly demand computer experience or technical skills that applicants often lack. Dental practice employees in general—both clinical and business—are often expected to understand and use spreadsheet, word-processing and database software that contains a goldmine of practice details.

The wealth of critical information at your fingertips is virtually boundless, provided that your team knows how to access and use it. Practice management reports that can be generated by sophisticated software will tell you almost everything you must know about your practice: if it is growing or declining, what procedures are your “bread and butter,” what other services or products you need to market, how many new patients are coming in and how many patients are leaving, how many children and how many adults you see, what percentage of your practice is insurance and what is private pay, what percentage of the insurance base is this company or that, and so on.

Although an applicant may bring some computer experience it doesn’t mean she/he has the knowledge necessary to access and interpret essential reports or compile spreadsheets. That would be an important detail to learn before your “experienced” applicant metamorphoses into your “not-so-experienced” new hire. Today, when hiring someone to manage the now million-dollar practice, take steps to discover if she/he has more than just basic knowledge of computer software or if computer skills training would be a benefit.

For example, if you’re hiring a new office manager, this applicant’s skills should be evaluated in a number of areas. Consider this approach: First, make up a “dummy” patient on the computer and ask the applicant to put together a treatment plan and then schedule the patient for multiple appointments. Next, ask the candidate to post from the treatment plan. From there, have the applicant gather insurance information on the dummy patient. Finally, ask the applicant to create a treatment proposal and a financial option sheet. These are the basics. You will be able to observe the applicant’s true skill level and how much additional computer training will be necessary.

Certainly current staff, if they are well-trained, can be helpful in familiarizing new employees to computer systems. But professional training is essential, so plan to make the most of that investment. Do not put your practice at the mercy of an inexperienced new hire. I can guarantee the results will be financially disastrous. Train your team.

Bring the software trainer in to teach the employee specific skills, and document each session so that the new employee, as well as others in the practice, can review steps for completing specific tasks and check the level of mastery. Keep the documentation in your Dental Business Training Manual along with a checklist of computer system skills (specific to your practice) that each employee should have mastered.

Each time someone on the team integrates a new technology or makes use of a new computer software tool, add the training steps to the training manual. This will allow staff to review procedures that they don’t use regularly and new staff to master new systems more quickly and efficiently.

In general, it takes three months of supervised training to get a new hire up to speed. Monitor performance during the 90-day training period and have a senior team member check the accuracy of the work with the intention of coaching—not criticizing.

Interested in speaking to Sally about your practice concerns? Email her at sallymck@mckenziemgmt.com.

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