The Dentist's Network #44


	Business Card Power Practice Purchase Employee Policies

Joel Harris, President
ADA Intelligent Dental
Marketing, Inc.
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The Power of a Business Card

For years I have been given business cards from dentists all over the country. Being in the marketing and graphic design industry, I collect business cards like some sports fans collect baseball cards. I developed that habit because I get design ideas from them; in some cases I use them as examples of “what not to do.” I bet I have collected thousands of cards. Unfortunately, most of the business cards I’ve been given are pretty similar. Plain colors, plain logo, no special message, predictable fonts and pretty much generic in every way. Occasionally, I actually get a card that makes me stop and smile. A card that has that effect on me is different, bright, catchy, impactful and, in a word, “memorable.”

Our business cards for our dental marketing company are so different that almost everyone remarks on how good the cards look. They are printed on great paper and the design is very striking. I have even had people say that our cards are the most professional and great-looking cards they have ever come across. You should make sure that your business card is the same. Spend time with a graphic designer, and spend the extra money to buy good paper stock for printing. Such attention to detail may seem like overkill for a dental practice, but never forget that many of your patients or prospective patients come from walks of life where image is everything—they’ll appreciate excellence when they see it.

Business cards aren’t just a convenient way for consumers to remember your name and phone number. Business cards are tiny billboards that can tell a story and communicate a message just like a magazine ad or an Internet site should. I don’t know a dentist who would run a television ad with no sound and just black text on a white background, but some of those same dentists wouldn’t think twice about printing on a white business card with black ink.

Here are a few tips and tricks that I think are critical to making the most out of your business cards:

1. Never leave home without your cards. If you don’t want people to discredit you as a dental professional and successful businessperson, don’t ever make the mistake of saying, "Oh, sorry! I forgot my cards today." You will not only lose an immediate opportunity to promote your practice, but you will look like an amateur who doesn't deserve the business.

2. Keep information accurate and up-to-date. The reality is that sometimes we change our contact information. If you know that there will be changes in the near future, then limit the number of cards you print. Never scribble out or hand-write information on your card—can you say amateur? I remember a dentist using the excuse that he didn’t have any cards because they were too expensive to reprint until he moved into his new practice. That said two things to me: First, he didn't shop around for a good price and second, he had no idea how important small opportunities can be.

3. Make sure the card says what you want it to say. What message are you trying to communicate? When designing a business card, think about the placement of information on the card. Is the key information in a prominent place on the card? Does the design work with the rest of your company image? Your business card must be an extension of your company just like your stationery, checks, signage, website and other things are. Consistency and simple, clear communication of your most important message is critical to the success of your business card.

4. Make it easy for prospective clients to contact you. Is your website up to date? Do you check your email at least once a day? Is your email address professional (and not mycompany@genericfreeemail.com)? Is your voicemail message clear, concise and professional? There can never be too many ways to contact you or your practice.

5. Market with your business card. Keeping cards in your pocket is a waste of time and money. Don’t be afraid to use them even if you haven’t been asked if you have a card. Don’t be rude and pushy, but do be confident that the person could benefit from your dental services.

6. Use all your cards. Don’t print 1,000 cards and throw away half of them because they were left in your office drawer. Get them out. Carry them everywhere and make it a goal to actually re-order more cards because you gave them all away.

Joel Harris is CEO of ADAIntelligent Dental Marketing, one of the nation’s leading Dental Marketing companies. It is focused exclusively on dental practices. ADAIntelligent Dental Marketing provides powerful marketing tools to help dentists grow their patient base, increase their profit and improve their image. Joel can be reached directly at 877.942.8855.

Interested in speaking to Joel about your marketing concerns? Email him at joel@thedentistsnetwork.net.

Interested in having Joel speak to your dental society or study club? Click here.

Thomas L. Snyder, DMD, MBA
Managing Partner
The Snyder Group, LLC
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Should I Retain the Seller and Staff?

We’re frequently asked by many purchasers whether or not it makes sense to retain the seller for a period of time after purchasing a dental practice. Quite frankly, it depends on two things: first, the size of the patient base and second, the clinical experience of the purchaser.

Patient Base
As we’ve discussed in prior columns, the size of the patient base is a critical predictor of practice success, whether hiring an associate or retaining a doctor whose practice you purchase. If the practice is saturated, meaning there are in excess of 1,700 active patients plus a pool of patients that can be reactivated, it may be prudent to retain the selling doctor for a period of time, perhaps even indefinitely. It’s important to determine the accurate size of your patient base so you can properly plan for retaining the seller. In cases where you are purchasing a practice that has a good mix of complex restorative procedures but your clinical experience is not there yet, consider retaining the seller to learn from him/her for a period of six months to a year. This may be a prudent alternative to referring more complex procedures to area specialists. Take advantage of the seller’s experience for this period of time.

What’s also important is the personal and professional relationship that you have with the seller. If you’ve been an associate with the practice prior to purchase, chances are you have a good rapport and the goodwill transfer can be orchestrated very nicely. However, if you’re in a situation where you moved to an area and purchased a practice outright, that’s another story. You really won’t know how things go until you work with the selling doctor for a period of time.

If the practice can support more than one doctor, the seller’s profit as your associate may help you pay the practice acquisition loan. We’ve had clients who have retained the seller indefinitely and essentially had the seller paying most of the loan!

Insufficient Patient Base
If you are purchasing a smaller practice with a limited patient base, then the selling doctor typically will not remain for more than several months, perhaps a couple of days per week, in order to finish cases, introduce some patients and ensure a smooth transition with the staff. We have also found that well-designed letters of endorsement are a good way to transfer goodwill to a new purchaser in smaller practices. There is also technology available today that uses telephone messaging (Elexity) in the voice of the seller to call all patients to announce retirement and introduce the successor. This can also be a very effective approach in transferring goodwill.

Staff Retention
Staff retention can become an issue, particularly if you are purchasing a practice that has high staff overhead. Often many established practices have long-standing employees who have been loyal and effective and are highly compensated. In cases where you are purchasing a practice where the selling doctor is retiring, it does not make good business sense, in our opinion, to terminate all staff members. If the seller leaves immediately after the sale and you elect not to retain key staff members, who will your newly acquired patients know? Patients may be concerned when a new voice answers the phone, a new hygienist treats them at their recall appointment and a new dental assistant helps the new doctor. The patients are essentially visiting an office that they have no familiarity with—hardly an effective way to retain your newly acquired patients. Even if the overhead for a period of time is more than you planned, imagine the cost of losing patients that may decide to visit another doctor more conveniently located to where they live or work. Therefore, if you want to ensure greater success with patient retention, retain key staff members for at least six months before making any sweeping personnel decisions. Your staff can be key allies in getting patients to accept you as the new doctor.

At the end of the day, retaining the selling doctor is highly dependent upon the amount of patients that you have acquired and the relationship that you have established prior to the sale.

Dr. Thomas L. Snyder, is Managing Partner of the Snyder Group, LLC, a nationwide practice transition and financial management consulting firm. With more than 75 years of experience in the field, The Snyder Group can provide you a full range of services relating to practice transition matters and retirement planning. They can be reached directly at 1-800-988-5674.

If you would like additional help, email Dr. Snyder at drsnyder@thedentistsnetwork.net.

Interested in having Dr. Snyder speak to your dental society or study club? Click here.

Michael Moore, Esq.
Director McKenzie
HR Solutions
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Using Employee Applications for Protection from Future Claims

I’ve consulted with a number of doctors recently who, when asked, told me they have satisfactory employment relations policies in place. However, when I ask if the policy has an integrated corrective action procedure, I learn that it does not. Without such a procedure in place, an employment relations policy is one in name only. It really is just a collection of rules and information.

The need for an integrated policy is more important today than any time in the past. Such policies require the practice to create records that can later be used to defend against meritless claims by former employees.

Statutes of Limitations
In many states, a former employee has years to bring suit. Even in those few states where the time limits—called statutes of limitation—are only a year, if you haven’t documented poor performance or behavior, it will be nearly impossible to reconstruct that evidence by the time you must defend.

Ohio, for example, allows a plaintiff up to six years to bring a case for wrongful termination, discrimination or unlawful harassment. This represents the outside limit, but a number of jurisdictions allow for up to two years to file suit. This means you could be blindsided by a lawsuit from an individual you might not recognize if you passed her/him on the street.

The goal, however, of an effective policy is not to defend claims, but make claims unlikely to happen. Defense costs of a suit now average over $50,000. While you are working to develop that effective policy, here are some steps you can take right now to reduce exposure.

Start with Employee Applications

Recently, a number of large employers have included in their applications the language that the applicant understands and agrees that any claim will be brought against the employer within 180 days of termination—notwithstanding any state or federal law to the contrary. These have been tested in court and they have been upheld. Historically, parties to an agreement are free to contract for provisions that limit the time, the forum and the mechanism of resolution of disputes. The courts have had no difficulty applying those principles to agreements between employers and employees—and such agreements do not destroy the “employment-at-will” character of the relationship.

The plaintiff’s lawyer in me (as you may know, for twenty-five years I’ve represented employees in a whole range of litigation against their former companies) abhors the time limitation of 180 days. Often, employees will have no recollection of the agreement and, even if they seek legal advice before the time is up, the lawyer is unlikely to assume that the clock is ticking. In short, many claims will be foreclosed before the plaintiff and the lawyer even recognize the deadline.

The six-month limit is probably the shortest that courts will approve. Some employers may include a 90-day provision, but the risk of that is that if the court throws it out, the state law statute will be applied. Six months is a good fit for allowing sufficient time for a claim to be made, but short enough so that the doctor can defend.

Implementing Change Now

You might ask, “What do I do about the employees already on staff?” The answer is pretty simple. You can announce in writing a change in the company policy which imposes the 180-day time period for claims, and distribute that to the staff. State that the policy will take effect in 30 days, and any employee who remains employed after that deadline will be considered to have agreed to the change. The courts have held that continued employment after the change is sufficient consideration to bind the staff to the new policy.

There is a strong trend in employment relations to require that all disputes be submitted to binding arbitration rather than court action. It was recently reported that about 25% of all employers now have an arbitration policy in place.

Like the shortened limitations period, arbitration policies are anathema to plaintiff lawyers. There are a whole host of reasons for this—too many to get into here—but suffice it to say that if my colleagues who represent employees do not like something, employers should have it.

Agreeing to Arbitration
Arbitration policies have been much litigated in the last ten years, so the parameters of a policy that will pass muster with the courts are pretty well set out. The major companies that administer such policies, such as the American Arbitration Association and JAMS, have formulated policies specifically for employee-employer disputes based on court decisions.

Binding employees to arbitrate disputes can be accomplished, as well, with the inclusion of appropriate language in the employment application. You will want to follow up on that, when you actually hire, with a document that lays out what the process is. And, like any change, you can bind current staff with the announced policy change and fair description of the process.

Include in applications the applicant’s (1) authorization for former employers to release information to you and (2) release of the former employer’s liability for any information conveyed to you in good faith. The authorization will ease former employers’ concerns about disclosing negative information, and the release of liability may open the doors to information that will be critical in the hiring decision.

A Final Caveat
These changes are not something you should do yourself. There may be specific considerations in your practice, or the state in which you practice, that might impact how you do what you want to do. Please contact me through McKenzie Management for a consultation.

Mike Moore is ranked among the best in employment law and named one of the top 10 lawyers in Ohio. As Director of McKenzie’s HRSolutions, Mike is the creator of the Employment Policy and Handbook, geared to provide dentists who are unsophisticated in the legal arena with a step-by-step policy manual.

Click here to hear Mike present “7 Elements of an Effective Employment Policy.” Email Mike at mike@thedentistsnetwork.net.

Interested in having Mike speak to your dental society or study club? Click here.