Four key areas to focus on during your daily huddle.
How do you start your day in your dental practice? In my opinion, the best way to start every day is with a morning huddle. Many misunderstandings and missed production opportunities can be avoided by taking ten to fifteen minutes in the morning to discuss that day’s patients.
Here are some things that are important to cover during the daily huddle to start your day off for success.
Outstanding Balances
It’s important to be aware if any patients or their family members have an outstanding balance. It’s an opportune time to collect that balance while they’re in the office. If it’s a large balance, it may be a good idea to take them into a private area to answer any questions and discuss payment options. If they commit to a payment agreement, you can enter the payment agreement into the Dentrix Ledger and have them sign the authorization for your office to process payments. With the entire office being aware of outstanding balances during the daily huddle, the team can work together to make sure the financial coordinator has an opportunity to speak to the patient.
Health History
The daily huddle is also a great time to discuss any important patient health conditions with both the clinical and administrative teams. For example, you could discuss which patients have to pre-medicate, and the administrative team can confirm that the patient did pre-medicate upon their arrival at the office. Or, if a patient has an extensive health history, you could bring it to the doctor’s attention to review before seeing the patient. Make sure to record any updated information in the Health History module in Dentrix.
Office Goals
You can discuss office goals during the daily huddle, including both production and collection goals. You can go over what was completed yesterday, what is scheduled for today, and where the office currently stands in relation to your monthly goals. If there is an opportunity to increase the day’s production with patients that have outstanding treatment, you discuss how to work those patients into the schedule.
Patient Reviews
Bring patient reviews to the daily huddle. Telling the team about positive patient reviews can boost morale and start the day off on the right foot.
Daily huddles are an important way to communicate about the upcoming day. By discussing the patients scheduled, you can avoid misunderstandings and missed opportunities to increase production. You can use the Daily Huddle Report in Dentrix to easily find most of the information I mentioned. You could have a team member print a copy to discuss during the morning meeting. The Daily Huddle Report is customizable so you can choose the information that you want to include to communicate to your team.
Learn More
For additional information, read the following :
- Payment Agreements Benefit Your and Your Patients
- Creating a Comprehensive Patient Health History in Dentrix
- What to Do When Production is Down
- Supercharge Your Daily Huddle
By Charlotte Skaggs
Certified Dentrix Trainer and The Dentrix Office Manager columnist
Charlotte Skaggs is the founder of Vector Dental Consulting LLC, a practice management firm focused on taking offices to the next level. Charlotte co-owned and managed a successful dental practice with her husband for 17 years. She has a unique approach to consulting based on the perspective of a practice owner. Charlotte has been using Dentrix for over 20 years and is a certified Dentrix trainer. Contact Charlotte at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.
