A start-of-day discussion ensures your entire team on the same page when it comes to understanding your production and collections goals.
Having a morning meeting or daily huddle for your team can be a great way to get an idea of what the day is going to look like in your office. You can take time to discuss the patients on the schedule for the day, as well discuss your planned production and collections to help your practice run more efficiently and reach your goals.
Schedule your team to arrive about fifteen minutes earlier than they normally would in the morning. You can generate the Dentrix Daily Huddle Report, and either print a copy for your staff or view it on a monitor.
First you can discuss production:
- How much was completed yesterday?
- How much is scheduled today?
- How much as been completed for the month?
- How much is scheduled for the rest of the month?
Compare these totals to your goals to see if you’re on target to meet them. If you find you are under-performing, you can discuss ways to increase production, starting today. For example, if there are patients with additional treatment-planned procedures, you may be able to add some of those procedures to their appointment.
Next, review your collections:
- What percentage of yesterday’s production did you collect?
- What percentage of the month’s production has been collected to date?
Keep in mind, the percentage may vary based on the patients who had appointments the previous day. For example, if many patients were fee-for-service cash paying patients, the collections percentage will be higher, verses if you saw several insured patients for procedures such as crowns, and the patient paid fifty percent of the fee, you’ll have to wait for the insurance to pay the remaining balance, and your collections percentage will be lower.
Another metric you can review in your daily huddle is the number of new patients seen and how they were referred to your office. By reviewing this information, you can determine if referral sources are being entered in Dentrix for all new patients. If you find that referral sources aren’t consistently being entered for new patients, there is an option in the Dentrix Office Manager to require a referral source when entering a new patient.
Take time to assess appointment information, including broken appointments that aren’t rescheduled, and unfilled provider hours. This can help you to address scheduling issues, such as last-minute cancelations and no shows, and then discuss as a team how to create policies and workflows to keep your schedule productive. The ASAP list in the Appointment Book can be a useful tool when you need to fill last-minute cancelations.
The Scheduled Patient Summary within the Daily Huddle Report provides you with important information about the patients who are scheduled that day. You can customize the information that you want displayed on this report. For example, you may want to see which of today’s patients have an outstanding balance over a specific dollar amount, patients who have a health history concern, and/or patients who have an unconfirmed appointment status. You can discuss these patients during your morning meeting. If there are patients who have an outstanding treatment plan, do you have the capacity to provide the treatment today to increase production? Is the patient past due for their prophy? If so, and if the hygienist has a cancelation or open time today, these patients are ideal candidates to offer the appointment to.
Having a morning meeting and using the Daily Huddle Report to provide information about the practice production and collections gives you a chance to review patients coming in that day. It’s a great way to get your entire team on the same page and increase production and efficiency.
Learn More
For additional information, read the following :
- Identifying Which of Today’s Patients Have Unscheduled Treatment
- Requiring Referral Sources for New Patients
- Using the ASAP List
- The Scheduled Patients Summary in the Daily Huddle Report
- The Daily Huddle—Possibly the Most Important Part of Your Day
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.
