 |
||||
|
Issue #40 - 3.04.08
|
The Eight Telltale Signs of a Saturated Practice
After being in practice ten to fifteen years, some dentists are faced with the decision to recruit an associate since they have more patients than they can properly manage. There are eight telltale signs that will confirm whether your practice needs a full time or part time associate. If you are experiencing many of these symptoms you are on track to consider an associate.
1. Doctor’s schedule is full six to eight weeks in advance.
Our rule of thumb is that if you have 90% of your schedule filled six to eight weeks in advance on a consistent basis, you show one of the cardinal signs of saturation.
2. Hygienists are booked two to three months in advance 90% of the time.
If the doctor is booked out weeks in advance, it goes without saying that Hygiene is completely booked as well. This is particularly true in practices that pre-appoint patients. Scheduling flexibility becomes very difficult with many patients not being seen within their regular recall cycle. This also leads to Hygiene slippage, which means that in addition to potentially adding another doctor, more than likely you will need to add additional Hygiene days.
3. New patient hygiene appointments are not readily available.
Since many practices pre-schedule hygiene appointments, saturated practices seldom have time reserved for a new patient hygiene appointments. High demand for recall appointments makes these valuable time slots unavailable. Therefore, new patients may have to wait four to six weeks before they can see the hygienist thus delaying all treatment and perhaps frustrating a new patient to the extent that they’ll switch to another dentist! We recommend that scheduling templates so this scenario can be prevented. For example, if you average twenty new patients a month, we recommend that you reserve twenty appointment slots for new patients. If there is an opening for the coming week with an open new patient appointment slot, it is usually easy to fill with an overdue patient who has been waiting for their recall appointment.
4. Stop accepting New Patients
If you are winding down your career you may consider this an option but if you are in the middle of your career this may be a strategic error. Patients may start spreading the word that you are too busy and this can harm your practice’s long term vitality. We never advocate this approach so keep the doors open and take action to recruit another doctor.
5. Increased specialty referral
You used to enjoy providing a full range of clinical services but as patient demand is putting increased pressure to see more patients, you now find yourself referring more services to specialists. We typically see endo and perio services the first to be referred out.
6. Clinical production is stagnant
It is difficult to increase production. In fact, saturated practices begin scheduling shorter appointments thus producing less dentistry per hour in order to accommodate those patients demanding to see their dentist! Therefore, saturation not only adds stress, but it also can reduce office efficiency
7. Increasing number of “patient of record emergencies”
Saturated practices often have an increasing number of “emergencies”. These are patients who are not off-the-street emergencies, rather those patients who have fallen out of their normal recall cycle and have clinical problems that normally would have been detected at their recall exam. Left unattended, these problems boil over to the point where a call to see their doctor is in order to fix the problem!
8. Scheduling multiple appointments for complex services
Saturated practices also exhibit difficulty in scheduling multiple appointments. Again, if only 10% of available time is available in saturated practices, it is no small wonder why multiple appointments become problematic and frustrating to both the patient and the doctor.
Determining the number of Associate Days needed.
The good news about saturation is that there is a solution. We find that saturation equates to about 1,700 to 1,800 active patients in a general practice. If the doctor is providing more complex restorative and cosmetic services, that number will drop to about 1,300 to 1,400. For example, if you have a patient base of 3,400, and you have no time to breathe, you are probably on track for a full time associate. This advice is tempered by the fact that your entire patient base had at least one appointment over the last 3 years. If not you may be fooling yourself into a false sense of security.
Conduct a chart audit first to make sure your numbers are reliable before you offer someone a full time position...
On the other hand, if your patient base totals 2,300 patients and you have the symptoms listed above, you probably have an excess of 600 patients. This equates to a part time associate working two to three days per week. A chart audit is in order here as well to make sure you know the correct number of associate days to offer. Our rule of thumb is for every 200 to 250 excess patients you will need one associate day per week to meet that patient demand.
So in the end, excess patients equal an opportunity to implement your first step in the transition planning process.
Interested in having Dr. Snyder speak to your dental society or study club? Click Here
The Snyder Group provides a vast array of transition services. Please visit their website for details.