As 2014 rapidly approaches, I have several suggestions to help you maximize your productivity and deal with the stress of the holiday season.
Try these and see if they don’t make a tremendous difference in your life:
- End-of-year insurance letters.Run an outstanding treatment report for the last six months. Review the report to make sure that all of the treatment is still relevant.Send out letters to all of the patients with outstanding treatment.Remind them that they have not only outstanding treatment, but also available benefits that they will lose on Dec 31. Offer an incentive for them to schedule ASAP, perhaps 10% off or complimentary whitening for them, a family member, or a friend. Be sure to include a “by when” date.
- Digital communication and social media.Send out an e-mail blast and/or a text message blast, and post some information on your Facebook page about endof-year insurance benefits and flex-spending accounts.Be sure to emphasize that they “use them or lose them.”
- Recare appointments. Invariably patients will wake up in about a month to realize that they have a "free" cleaning left for the year and want to get on your schedule sometime in the next 15 minutes.Be ready for the onslaught by doing a few key things:
- Plan and set your end-of-year calendar. Add hours if need be as you are most likely going to be taking several days off between Christmas and New Year’s.
- Start to review your hygiene schedule and move any patients up to make future appointments available. Be sure that the patients are eligible for hygiene sooner. Watch for frequency limitations.
- Discourage vacation time between now and the end of the year. Once again, you will be closing for several days during the holidays. That should be enough.
- Be proactive. Review your recare outstanding list and reach out to those patients who are overdue. Call them before they call you.
- End-of-year calendar.Christmas is on a Wednesday this year, as is New Year’s Day.My office will be open on Monday, Dec. 23 from 7 AM-7 PM and again on Monday, Dec. 30 from 7 AM-7 PM. We will not reopen until Monday, Jan. 6.Someone should be answering your phones and someone should be on call.While you may be concerned about taking so many days off, remember that many of your patients will just be returning from holiday vacation and will need to return to work for a few days before considering time off for dental treatment.These days will be hard to schedule and have a high risk for cancellation and no-shows.
- Holiday party. Plan your party now. Pick a day, time, and location that work well for everyone. Set limits on gifts if you exchange them. And, most importantly, have fun!
For more information about Million Dollar PPO Coaching and Consulting, please visit our website at www.milliondollarppo.com, or call us at 877-292-7698.
Dr. Matthew Krieger is CEO and founder of Million Dollar PPO, a dental practice consulting and coaching company serving dentists across the United States. Its core philosophy is increasing profitability through increasing efficiency. It works with its clients through various programs to ensure that they have the understanding and the tools to create the practice that they’ve always dreamed of.
