Lie #8: Associate doctors should see your new patients

Sep 14

This is our eight post in the Biggest Lies in Dentistry series. Things the dental industry repeats to itself until they sound true. See the full series here.

Hiring your first associate is an exciting day for most practice owners. You've worked hard, the practice is growing, the schedule is getting full, and you're finally at the point where you need another doctor.

Then someone says what almost everyone says. Great, we'll have the associate see all the new patients.

It sounds perfectly logical. The associate has openings. The owner is booked solid. Somebody has to see the new patients, so why not the associate?

Because that's a business decision, not a scheduling decision. And they're not always the same thing.

The mistake isn't hiring an associate

The mistake is assuming every associate should automatically become responsible for the practice's sales opportunities.

That has nothing to do with whether they're a good dentist. They may be clinically outstanding. They may have better hand skills than the owner. They may be faster, gentler, and more technically gifted.

None of that tells you whether they can diagnose treatment and then communicate its value and help patients commit to getting healthy. Those are completely different skills.

So if you've decided to move new patient exams, and treatment presentations, to an associate without first proving they can produce the same results, you're making a very expensive assumption.

Notice I said prove

Not hope. Not think. Not feel. Prove.

One of the biggest mistakes I see is an owner telling me their associate is great with patients. Wonderful.

Well, a couple of things. Are they diagnosing up to your standard? How does what they diagnose compare to what you would have diagnosed, and are they missing anything? How are their sales statistics, how does their case acceptance compare, and how much treatment leaves the office unscheduled?

Those are business questions.

If the associate is producing the same or similar results as the owner, fantastic. Let them see new patients. If the statistics prove they consistently diagnose well, communicate well, and patients commit to treatment at the expected level, he or she has earned the right to have more sales opportunities moved to their schedule.

There's another way to get the same result

Some associates are excellent clinicians but aren't natural closers. That's perfectly okay.

If they have a proven treatment coordinator or manager who consistently closes treatment at the same level as the owner, the outcome may be identical. The patient still receives excellent care, treatment still gets accepted, and the practice continues to grow.

The key word again is proven. Not assigned. Proven.

Building the practice versus expanding it

Until one of those two things happens, the associate's greatest value isn't building the practice. It's expanding it. There's a big difference.

The owner keeps the diagnosis hat, and the associate increases the practice's capacity by completing treatment. That frees the owner to keep diagnosing, performing hygiene examinations, seeing new patients, and selling the treatment that patients need, which also keeps both doctors busy.

Eventually that may change. Many associates become excellent diagnosticians and excellent communicators. Some eventually equal or surpass the owner's sales results. When the statistics show that happening, adjust the schedule accordingly.

But don't make that decision because the associate has an opening at ten o'clock on Tuesday. Make it because the numbers say they're ready.

What actually goes wrong

Far too many owners hand over their sales opportunities simply because they're busy. Then six months later they wonder why production dropped.

The associate wasn't the problem. The scheduling philosophy was.

An associate should be judged by results. If they can consistently produce the same outcome as the owner, give them the opportunity. If they can't yet, help them get there.

But don't confuse having time in the schedule with having earned responsibility for one of the most important functions in the practice. Those are two very different things.

Part of The Biggest Lies in Dentistry. Read the full series here.

Smile Care Claims handles billing, insurance verification, and A/R management so your team doesn't have to. If you'd like to find out whether we can help, book a consult with one of our billing specialists.

Sabri Blumberg

Over her 28 year career, Sabri Blumberg has seen a lot. Thousands of clients, all with their own vitals and statistics. Yet there was one common denominator.

Insurance was always a problem.

And for 28 years she worked on the other side of that problem. As Deputy Chief Operating Officer at MGE: Management Experts, one of the largest practice management training organizations in dentistry, a position she still holds, she has helped those same practice owners boost production and case acceptance, improve hiring, and go out of network. Every one of those she could fix. Insurance was the one nobody could hand off and get right.

The help available to practices never quite closed the gap. Finally she decided to take the problem on herself.

So, she built Smile Care Claims.

Most billing companies are staffed by billing people, so they treat it as a claims problem. It's a lot more than that. How treatment was presented. How the practice is set up. How insurance is managed in the office, and by whom. Small things, most of them, and every one of them decides whether a claim gets paid.

Smile Care Claims was built from both sides. Benefits verified before the patient sits down. Claims out clean the first time. Aging worked every week instead of every quarter. And a team she trained herself, the same way she built the delivery team at MGE.

Sabri Blumberg has spent 28 years on the practice side. That is what you are hiring.

https://www.smilecareclaims.com/