#893: There’s Still Time to Meet Your 2024 Practice Goals

Dental A Team Podcast

It’s time to assess the goals you set for your practice this year. In this episode, Tiff and Dana discuss taking a good look at those 2024 goals, considering the averages and trends in order to project out, starting to think about 2025, and more.

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Transcript:

The Dental A Team (00:00.761)

Hello, Dental A Team. We are back. have Dana here with me today again, and I'm so excited. Dana, I truly do love the time that we get together. feel like, like right before we podcast, we prep and then that's like when we get jam our personal life, conversation in there real quick. the only time we get that's just one -on -one, which is crazy because we could create that at any point, but it just, it pops up podcasts. You know, we do it a couple of times a month and it's perfect. So

Thanks for being here. Thanks for giving me that time and gifting me with your presence. How are you today? You got like hot stuff coming up, like literally heat.

Dana (00:38.06)

Yeah, yeah like literally heat wave stuff so, you know, everybody send me your love and I don't melt this weekend

The Dental A Team (00:46.475)

Yeah, yeah, I was just in Oregon and I was there with a practice and the office manager was like, gosh, I just don't understand like how you guys do sports. Like you can't, how do you do football? And I was like, the kids are out there dying. My son refuses to play summer lacrosse. He does, he only plays ball ball and spring ball and spring ball is a, is a push because it doesn't end till middle of May. But spring ball starts in February, but your kids are doing year round sport.

So your son has football this weekend, tournaments in Phoenix. I'm in Phoenix and I'm standing here podcasting sweating in my home in Phoenix because it's 102 outside right now, maybe 105. I'm not sure, you know, at the end of August. So bring lots of water, lots of sunblock, lots of shade. That sun gets intense and I will be praying for you, Dana.

Dana (01:18.707)

Yes.

Dana (01:44.307)

Thanks so much. appreciate it. think we're going to need it. That and buckets of water, like you said.

The Dental A Team (01:47.286)

Yeah.

And Gatorade, like lots of electrolytes or the Costco liquid IVs or something. Like, yeah, yeah. But you're in Arizona. I'm gonna call you a native at this point. You've been here for so freaking long, but you're an Arizona gal. You're from southern, you know, more southern Arizona, but you get very similar heat. So you guys are ready for it. It's just not, it's just not, still not fun. I live here constantly. And when I come back from trips like Oregon was beautiful and Colorado was gorgeous this week.

Dana (01:56.116)

me.

Dana (02:12.735)

Mm -hmm.

The Dental A Team (02:19.723)

And that practice, was like, dang, if I could stay here longer, I totally would. It was like 82 degrees, it was beautiful. And then I land last night and I was like, back to the 105. Here we go, a 20 degree swing. Well, we are nearing towards the end of the year, so Phoenix will start pouring off soon. So for all of you who love to come visit Scottsdale in the winter, I'll see you soon. It's right around the corner. And I, know, I air quote winter. I don't feel like we actually get to celebrate winter here, but.

Dana (02:29.619)

Yep.

Dana (02:42.558)

Yeah.

The Dental A Team (02:49.771)

In about six weeks, it'll finally be 90. So we'll see you guys soon. Nearing the end of the year also makes me reminded that we really need to check in on where you guys are at for the year. Like, what are you trending towards? Where are your practices going? We talk a lot about KPIs, key performance indicators, because they're incredibly important to the success of your practice, your team. Like we talk about how a team should be involved. A team should know these numbers.

This is the time of year you guys that you really need to make sure that team is behind these KPIs 100 % and that we're pushing towards them. Now, Dana, I know you've had a lot of practices recently really push on you to like ramp up that business side of what you guys are doing together. You are fantastic at everything, but systems are your jam. So you always, I know start.

with all the systems and making sure that like we've got that foundational piece. But then once we're ready, we're really looking at are those foundational pieces progressing the business side and watching those KPIs. So I know production collections, new patients, like everybody knows those three. If you're not looking at those three, I don't know what the heck you're looking at. But I also push a lot for overhead. And I've really been paying close attention to active patient count because as new patients are coming in, we've got patients attritioning out. And if our new patients aren't

you know, compensating for our attrition and still adding to our active patient count, we're really not growing. So to be able to find that growth. But like I said, I know you've had a few practices recently, they're like, okay, we're ready, we're ready, which is great, because we're towards the end of the year, we need to make sure that we're progressing. Where do you start them for clients, maybe who haven't been watching their KPIs, and they haven't been looking at the trends, or if they're going to make it? Where do you baseline them?

once they're done with systems and ready to move on to that business piece.

Dana (04:43.323)

Yeah, and I think this is a great time of year. If you haven't done it, this is a great time of year because there is still a little bit more than a whole quarter left. And so this is a good time to and really where I say at this point in the year with my clients who when we're ready to look at numbers, we know we have goals, we've got goals established, right? Now it's time to look at the gap.

Where are we for the year? And where are we? Where do we want to be? And what's the gap? And how do we make that up? So if we've hit our goal every month, great, right? There's not a gap there. But if we haven't, which in most practices, we might have had a month or two where we were off, where's our gap? And how can we successfully plan on each of those numbers with what we've got left as far as the year number of working days? What does that look like? So sometimes that is reassessing our goals or shifting our goals because we have a gap to make up. But this is the time of year

to really look at that and say, okay, we've maybe been on track some months, off track some months, what do we have left to make up for the end of the year? And how can we just ensure at this point that we crush it by the time we get to December 31st?

The Dental A Team (05:45.159)

Beautiful, beautiful and figuring out that gap and then adding it back into your goals. So if you're, you know, off by $200 a month or whatever a day, that really allows you then like you're saying to really backtrack, see what that goal needs to be, and then adjust all the pieces. And I think right now, like you said, we're nearing like the last quarter, this is the time when we're pushing you to send end of year letters, we're pushing you to get all those patients in for

re -cares and get the crowns done. And like, we want a busy schedule. We want a full schedule for the end of the year. But if we don't know what our gap is and what we need to schedule to, we might start filling that in advance and then not be prepared to actually make the goals that we wanted to, because we didn't know what they really needed to be. So I think that's really smart of you to, really look at that and figure out that gap ahead of time so that we can plan for it. Because

We can then change, right Dana? You can change your blocks on your schedule. You can change your goals. You can change what hygiene openings there are. And maybe you're like, gosh, we need X amount of new patients to get the case acceptance we have based on the trends of the case acceptance we've seen this year. So if we know we need a certain dollar amount produced on the schedule, we can look at what our case acceptance trends are. What's our average case acceptance. And then we can calculate how many new patients it might take

to get to that diagnosis amount, to get that case acceptance, to get the schedule full. So I think when we really consider KPIs and we really consider looking at where the business is going, backtracking in those ways is something that we often miss when we're on our own or sometimes consultants don't catch it or coaches or business partners, sometimes they don't catch that where you can really take the trends that you've had so far this year and the averages and then project.

what you need so that you can make the changes to hopefully hit those goals at the end of the year, or at least to get really freaking close if you're too far off. Now, Dana, how do you suggest they do like, if they're tracking and they're like, my gosh, this is great, we actually might go over, do they stick with it? Or do they then reduce their goals?

Dana (07:59.295)

So I'm never ever an advocate of reducing goals. We want to the best year that we can. And so like, let's rock out what's left with the team. And no, I'd say keep it absolutely the same. And let's just see if at the end of the year, we can again, make it the best year we've ever had, make it the best quarter we've ever had. So I'm never an advocate of reducing goals. I feel like let's look for the gap in anywhere that we're under.

The Dental A Team (08:22.755)

Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I don't like to bank on things. if we're doing really well right now, fantastic. We're trending towards our goals. We're trending to maybe go over our goals. But then guess what? What if something falls off the schedule next Thursday and it was this $30 ,000 cosmetic case or a $50 ,000 full arch case that you finally got and they fall off and they weren't prepaid and they decide not to come back. Now we've got a gap.

Now we've got now we've got room to make up for stuff. So I agree whenever we're ahead on things I think just stay the course Keep scheduling the way that you're scheduling is obviously working and then next year we know hey I think we were a little low on our goals and what we thought we could do and we can ramp those goals up a little bit more so looking for the gap looking to Manipulate the schedule and manipulate whatever we need to manipulate and change now so that we can hit those goals don't change things to backtrack but

make sure we can hit and surpass those goals for the end of the year. And then also start looking at your KPIs that you're tracking to make sure you're trending. Start looking at what those need to look like next year. Because here in about two months, two and a half months, we're going to push you to start setting those goals for next year, for 2025, based on what you're doing for 2024. The reason we don't wait till January is because if we waited till January, if we didn't do it in November, December time frame, if you wait till January, you're already scheduled.

January should be about 50 % full going into the month, 50 % to goal going into the month. So if we don't have an all team meeting until mid January to set 2025 goals, we're already a month behind on our goals. There's already a gap because most of the time, let's face it, we're not, we're not hitting what we needed to hit. If we're going to increase goals, we're hitting what we're used to hitting.

And it's just going to create a gap. So start projecting and start getting ready to see what are those goals need to be next year and start looking at them in like November, December. So start right now. When you hear this podcast today, I want you to go pull your numbers, pull your production, your collections, your new patients, your overhead, your active patient count, whatever it is that you decided this year. These are the trends we're going to watch. Go pull the numbers that support those and show you if you're on track or an off track practice growth. A lot of people will say,

The Dental A Team (10:47.711)

see 10 % practice growth this year. fantastic. What does that mean? How do you know that you've had 10 % practice growth this year? I agree, you should have at least 10 % practice growth, seven to 10%. That's what we push for. I love the 10 % mark. I agree, you should, but how do you know that you've experienced 10 % practice growth? So Dana, looking at trends, figuring that out, looking at, okay, what do we need next year to look like?

What kind of KPIs do you have your practices watching and going through? And I can speak on my behalf too, with the practices I work with, what kind of KPIs do you have them measuring to see, yes, I grew by 10%.

Dana (11:30.335)

Yeah, typically the big ones that I'm looking at are production and collections for that and just saying, hey, if where I'm at this year compared to where I was last year, are those numbers 10 % higher?

The Dental A Team (11:42.206)

Yeah, I agree. I totally agree. Production collections are huge, you guys. And we say those like in tandem because you can you can produce all you want. But if you're not collecting them, like I don't I you're just wasting your time. So production collections go in tandem. And then on top of that watching your overhead because if you're increasing production collections, and you're saying we're going to grow by 10%, you really want your profitability to be growing as well might not be a profitability growth of 10%. Okay, but

It might be based off of last year. You might be 10 % more profitable dollar for dollar, not percentage wise, than you were last year. That may be true. You might not go from 20 % profitability to 30%, but the dollars in the bank of profitability should be about a 10 % growth, just to the same as your practice is growing, as long as your overhead is staying where you want it to be, or staying at least relatively similar to last year. So overhead, production collections overhead.

And then I throw in there the new patients and the active patient count, because if we don't watch our active patient count, we're only watching the dollars that are coming in. Oftentimes we'll get ourselves in a situation where we start seeing, why is my recare schedule falling apart? Why aren't we booked out six months? What's happening here? Well, we spent so much time on new patients, investing in marketing for new patients and getting all these new people in the door. We forgot about the people that weren't coming back for their cleanings.

Now, Recare kind of stinks. We're clamoring for new patients and we're trying to fill a schedule. And so our productivity really goes down and that 10 % growth can go down. So watching also that your active patient count is growing with the production and collections by that 10 % mark as well is gonna make sure that all of that is in line. Cause if you did X amount with the amount of patients you had, but you wanna do 10 % more, you need 10 % more patient base too.

or you need 10 % more reimbursement rates on your fees. So whichever way it goes, I know I do have a lot of practices right now, I'm gonna put this caveat in there, that are like struggling to see the number of patients that they have. They're in a situation where they just don't have the chair space, they don't have the providers, they're struggling to see all of the patients, but we need growth. So when that happens, it's gonna come into the space of the fee schedules, right? It's gonna come into the space of

The Dental A Team (14:06.651)

your reimbursements. So are we in network with insurances? Have we requested fee schedule increases? This is the time of year to do those those pieces as well. So as you're looking at your trends, look at what your reimbursements have been. Are you seeing that growth? And to continue seeing that growth? it mean we need more patients? Or could we see that growth within the reimbursement as well? So right now this time of year, get those requests out there to your insurance companies, start pulling the information. We've got a ton of podcasts on this.

Start pulling the information for the insurances and what their reimbursements are, the ones that you're in network with. Are there some that maybe beginning of next year, you're like, hey, actually, like, we don't get more reimbursement, we're just gonna go ahead and get out of network because it makes sense for our practice. That's how you're gonna see that growth as well. So Dana, I agree, pulling all the information, making sure we're on trend or on track, trending in the right direction and that we're filling that gap is imperative right now because it's giving the time.

to make sure that that's happening. And then at the same time, really looking at, what would 10 % more be next year? Dana, what have you seen recently? I know you had a few practices that are like, the money, what does the money look like? What have you seen recently really work for practices to track with their teams? you still, for me, it's the production collections. Is that what you're seeing with the?

practice team members as well as like that production collections and new patients is the easiest space for them to see what are you working on?

Dana (15:38.407)

Yeah, I think it's the easiest space for them to see. But then I also think like take a look at if collections numbers are low, then think about the numbers that impact that. then take a look at your AR as a secondary number, take a look at maybe just a portion of it and say, Hey, how's our over the counter collections? Is that an area where if we buttoned up on that, just that piece of it?

it would help have more of a massive impact. I think looking at those as overarching numbers, absolutely. But when one of those is off track or when one of those we have a fairly big gap to make up, then let's look at the other numbers that help.

push that if production numbers, there's a big gap. Let's take a look at our case acceptance. What does our case acceptance tell us for those things? And even sometimes having practices look at if our gap now means we need to hit 120 instead of 100, go back and see what was the month where we were closest to that.

And what did those other numbers look like? So knowing to say, to hit 120, we have to have case acceptance at about 80%. To hit 120, we need 15 to 20 new patients. What did that look like in the months that you were close to kind of telling you, what do we have to do to hit some of these gap numbers that we're building out for the rest of the year?

The Dental A Team (16:33.652)

I that.

The Dental A Team (16:51.187)

I think that's brilliant. I love that you said, look at what will look at what worked and duplicate that. I love that theory instead of reinventing the wheel, look at what worked before and duplicate that. But also look at the overarching maybe production collections, new patients, and then look at what's feeding it. Because that's the piece I think the team really has a lot of control in and when they're like, I don't know what to tell you like I'm doing everything I can. Well, no, it's not you the person. It's the system. So there's a system.

that you're using or not using that isn't working. And if you're using it 100 % of the system is supposed to be, then we change the system because it's not working. It's not you, it's the system. But if we're not tracking these things and looking at those feeder systems that feed into that ultimate goal, we're never gonna know where we can do better or what's not working. And then it does become personal and it's like, gosh, my billing department's gotta go. Maybe it's not the billing department. We don't know that yet. Maybe they do, I don't know.

But we don't know that yet because we haven't checked the system. So the stats are what's gonna show you if the people, the systems that people are using are working. And if the systems aren't being used and it's just lazy, fine, for sure, have that conversation. But sometimes it's like, I don't know, I call and call and call and nobody answers. Well, have we tried text? Have we tried text to pay? Have we tried these other methods that like, what if we just bring in an alternative method that we haven't tried yet and see if that gets us results?

Now's the time you guys go pull those stats, start looking at the feeder pieces, go pull what's been working well for you, what's not working well for you, are you on track, what's your gap? And then start really looking at what am I gonna project and need for next year to really see that seven and 10 % growth? I think now is the time of the year, pull your fee schedules, there's a lot to do guys, pull your fee schedules, pull your stats, like now you're looking at how do I finish this year strong? How do I start next year strong? So go do the things, I love it, Dana.

Thank you for your words of wisdom. know that you have been working really hard with a lot of your practices recently on really generating a lot of movement on the business side with overhead collections, all of those pieces. So I thought this was just perfect for us. So thank you for being here. Thanks for your words of wisdom. And I truly love when I get this time with you. Okay, awesome guys. Let us know how much you love this. Write in [e-mail]. If you need help really like.

Dana (19:04.755)

Same, same.

The Dental A Team (19:13.191)

figuring this out or you need reminders or whatever, we're here for you guys. really do. and I and Britt and Kiera, we really are the ones that usually are providing responses when our admin team gets those questions or in our social settings or on the review below. So hit us up, let us know. We can't wait to talk to you then.