Gems Publishing - May 2020

... continued f rom cover

have served us well during good times and bad, and I’m confident they will help you, too.

Personal Gems Concierge for a link to my special report on Assisted Hygiene, “The $500,000.00 Hygienist.” ☑ Create a Senior Courtesy Shuttle! Buy a used vehicle and repaint it, then apply a full ad wrap that says, "[Your Practice Name] — Senior Courtesy Shuttle." Offer to pick up seniors for their dental appointments and then drop them back at home (check with your attorney and insurance, of course). I did this and they LOVED it! And they tell all their friends! Look under Advanced Marketing Brain Trust on our members’ website and you'll find several examples of members' wrapped cars. As I mentioned above, I'd combine the new "ad wraps" with what I did with a complimentary shuttle for seniors. Use a little (lot) of imagination … Time permitting, I even had my driver offer to take them to the grocery store or pharmacy on the way back from their dental visits! You can’t begin to imagine the appreciation and relationships we built by going the extra mile (literally) for our patients! Check first with your attorney and insurance company. ☑ Do Daily Follow-up Calls. Have your team make a follow-up CALL to every patient who was injected each day. Ditto for every patient who had even a single unit of prosthetics seated. The wording is very important. Keep it positive. Always say, "Just calling to say you did great today and to check to see all is well, and that you are comfortable?" ☑ Send “Bun Warmers.” You and your team members choose two patients each, every day, to send "Bun Warmers" to. These Continued on page 3 ... "WSJ — In the space of a few weeks, economists have gone from saying that the U.S. would skirt recession to forecasting the deepest economic contraction in most Americans’ living memory."

" Some will do better than they ever have before. It's going to be a small number ... but as long as it's going to happen ... shouldn't you be in that number?!"

As you read down through this checklist, for each item, ask yourself how many of your local colleagues would be willing (or even think) to deploy. You can take action or make excuses … but the two cannot co-exist. ☑ Add Extra Days. At LEAST Saturdays if not also Sundays. Add one or two weekend days, take a weekday off, and see what happens to your schedule! ☑ Add Extra Hours. Open your practice during more of the hours patients won’t need to take time off from work (nights, early mornings!). ☑ Practice "Doughnut-Hole" Hygiene. Offer DOUBLE or TRIPLE hygiene (with the Doctor only doing re-exams, NOT seeing restorative) from 7–10 a.m. and 5–8 p.m. And yes, eliminate hygiene from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. if you find that patients are not scheduling or scheduling then blowing you off (because last-minute, they fear for their jobs and forget they scheduled for a recall visit). ☑ Use a Dedicated Hygiene Assistant. If you haven’t already, this is the time to facilitate your hygienist working out of two chairs at once (assisted hygiene). That's how you take maximum advantage of the doughnut-hole schedule and jam it full of hygiene recall. Assuming your state allows a dental assistant to rubber cup prophy children, you can easily run THREE HYGIENE CHAIRS SIMULTANEOUSLY during peak hours with just one hygienist, a dedicated hygiene assistant, and another assistant taking care of the kids in the third chair. Imagine the productivity of the PATIENT- CENTRIC convenient hours … e.g., six peak hours each day, 7–10 a.m. and 5–8 p.m., during which you’re seeing three hygiene patients per hour! That’s 18 hygiene patients every day during hours your patients will truly appreciate (and take advantage of). Schedule your retired seniors during the middle of the day.

do in the coming months. We have many like them, but they stand out because they have a TAKE NO PRISONERS, do-whatever-it-takes attitude. Does a practice have to be massive to survive and thrive in hard times? Nope. Ask yourself what GG12 members Dr. Terrie Cribbs, Dr. Luanne Curatola, Dr. Jo Zagami, and Dr. David Hanle (and many others) are doing right now in order to ensure their best shot at coming back strong PC (post-corona). What actions did GG12 member Dr. Ken Rasbornik and Crystal take a few short years ago to turn their brink-of-bankruptcy practice around and increase over $800,000 in less than 10 months?

IN THE MONTHS TO COME, IT’S LIKELY THAT … •

Many older Dentists who were already on the fence will simply give up and retire.

VC will pull out of and simply shut down some DSO offices to cut their losses (already happening). Most don't care about the Doctors or the patients ... they never did.

Many Dentists will go bankrupt.

Some will do better than they ever have before. It's going to be a small number ... but as long as it's going to happen ... shouldn't you be in that number?!

PLANET GEMS CHECKLIST FOR SUCCESS Nobody can guarantee your success. But you can take proven-effective steps to ensure you have every possible shot at coming out on top when this mess is in our rear-view mirrors. The following are the first nine steps of a short (not really) list of just some of the strategies and tactics I developed for my practices. I’ll share the final eight steps in June’s edition. They

For a detailed explanation of and sample schedule for assisted hygiene, ask your

2 InsidersCircle.com | 1-888-880-GEMS (4367)

Facebook Group "Dental GoldMine"

Made with FlippingBook Annual report