Author: Jody

Travel is a big part of being a consultant. Luckily, Jody Catalanello loves to travel and she relishes new experiences. She’s been traveling around the world with her parents since she was a child when her father—a now retired professor of management—took the family on extensive international trips for his career. These family trips inspired Jody to enjoy what the world has to offer. And she still loves to travel with her parents (now in their 70’s) whenever she gets the chance. One of Jody’s favorite parts of traveling is being introduced to regional delicacies. She grew up in the cornfields of the Midwest and knows good sweet corn. Some of her fondest experiences with clients include feasting on fried Mississippi catfish, crabbing in Alaska, greek salads in Detroit, green chili stew in Pueblo Colorado, 5-way chili in Cincinnati and provel cheese from St. Louis. Of course Chicago is a world-class city and there is nothing like being home and enjoying all an urban metropolis has to offer. Jody has more than 20 years’ experience in business management and dental practice management consulting. She is also a member of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants, a prestigious cadre of consultants with high standards for membership. She is focused, practical, and task-oriented. In any given situation, she looks for solutions to problems and this helps her to find the most efficient way to accomplish goals for herself and her clients. She knows your greatest strength can be your greatest weakness. A drawback to being pragmatic is being perceived as less sensitive to personal feelings involved in a situation. This is why she and Linda make such a dynamic team. Her ability to focus on solutions and Linda’s ability to enroll the team, ensure successful implementation. In her personal life, Jody has Kevin—her significant other—he counterbalances her goal-driven nature and encourages her to enjoy life in the moment. A graduate of the University of Iowa, Jody spent time as an international business management consultant prior to embarking on her dental practice management career. Since 1988 Jody has specialized in the business of dentistry, where she enjoys: * providing personalized in-office consulting to dental practices. * coaching doctors and team members to new levels of success. * presenting motivational programs to study clubs and dental societies. Jody loves to learn and believes that one of the best ways to become open to new ideas and to challenge herself is to read as much as she can. This practice keeps her in a state of constant growth both personally and professionally. You can check out the Resource Store in the main menu of this website to see some of the books she finds most inspirational. And she also takes guilty pleasure in trashy beach reads and the escapism of fiction. Additionally, Jody loves dental office design and has had the honor of being one of the judges for the Annual Competition for Dental Office Design of the Year, sponsored by Dental Economics. Jody appreciates the joys and the challenges of working with a team. She believes teamwork is the foundation for practice success. She also knows it takes courage to work on relationships and to work on one’s self. This reinforces how important, and critical, coaching is for greater success in life.

What are the benefits of your services?

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When Linda and I observe teams we are consistently struck by communication skill opportunities. Asking questions, listening, and using benefits are the top three areas all practices can work on. Teams are excellent at explaining the technical aspects of what they are going to do, how strong a crown will be, how beautiful a smile will look but the benefits the patient will receive, that deeper core issue, is generally not delved into. Benefits are why your patients buy.

Think about the following. If I asked you what you wanted (business related) in the next 90 days, many of you would say you wanted more new patients or better cash flow. What does that really give you? Does it actually give you more than money in the bank, or a wallet filled with cash? I’ll argue that what you are really looking for is financial freedom, peace of mind, more time with your family, reduced stress over making ends meet, or some combination these. That’s why most of you hire us, to help you get to the benefits that are most important to you.

The same is true in your practice. Identifying benefits allows you to speak to your patients on a much deeper, more personal, and emotional level. The more questions you ask, the more benefits you uncover, the better the relationship, the more likely it is that you will have case acceptance. As challenging as it is for most teams to believe, patients are buying the benefits they receive first and foremost, not the technical quality of your work. Your role is to understand what benefits the individual patient is looking for and to help them understand how your high quality dentistry will get them those benefits.

When you look over the services offered by practices, the easiest “sell” is the whiter brighter smile, relief from migraines or headaches, (or other pain), or better sleep. Patients don’t know why they would want to replace a filling. How often in your practice do you hear “it doesn’t hurt”? Most patients don’t care that replacing the filling now is better for the tooth, will make it stronger and it will look better. What is the individualized benefit for that patient? Is it so they don’t have a painful experience, is it so they don’t miss work unexpectedly, or perhaps it is so they don’t incur a larger personal expense, or is it something else?

Think about benefits as motivators or concerns. A patient can be motivated to come to the dentist by: their appearance, their spouse (or lack of spouse), pain, embarrassment, or what else? Concerns are those things that prevent the patient from moving forward with treatment (money/insurance benefits, fear, distrust, time and others).

By really listening for a patient’s motivators and concerns you will understand what you need to explain to help them make a decision regarding treatment. This also helps your patient’s feel you really understand them and they will be more strongly connected to your practice. This is the foundation of having a relationship-based practice.

Here is some homework: Identify the potential motivators and concerns of your patients regarding your treatment recommendations. See how many times in the next week you can hear your patients indicating a motivator or concern. Watch how using the patient’s motivators and concerns in conversation helps patients and improves your connection with the patients. Enjoy!

Create and Keep Your Dream Team

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Keep your patients coming back!

What is the key element to keeping your patients coming back to your dental practice? Your team! They are the backbone of your practice and they are the “face” of your practice. They manage every phase of the patient experience, from answering the phone, answering questions, delivering care, and saying goodbye at the end of the visit. Your team keeps your practice running smoothly, your systems working, your patients happy, and the dentist happy. This will not happen without a team that is working together with no drama. Here are 5 tips to ensure you have your dream team.

1. Don’t hire the first warm body with an impressive resume.
Your hectic schedule and the time you devote to patient care are not an excuse. Invest in finding the “right” person for your practice. Without the right people on your team, you will constantly hire and rehire. This makes your team unable to focus on delivering the level of care you expect. We recommend holding a “Job Orientation”. This 2 hour meeting will allow the cream to rise to the top, and the superior candidates to standout. It takes the pile of received resumes and allows you to see who they are as compared to all the others. This will determine who is given your valuable time in a formal interview.

2. Use behavioral based interviewing questions and check references
There are two terrible places to sit during an interview. In front of the desk as the interviewee wondering what is going to happen next, and behind the desk as the interviewer wondering the same thing. The best applicants will be interviewing you as well, don’t show up unprepared, unkempt, or disorganized. Plan the questions you will ask to help you understand their willingness, emotional maturity, manageability, ability to prioritize, and personality. Really listen to their response, don’t focus on your next question. Check references and their previous salary. Realize that some people interview well and become someone else on the job. Let the “Jekyll and Hyde” hire go sooner rather than later.

3. Hold Performance Reviews regularly
High performing team members want feedback. What holds you back from helping them analyze how they are doing on the job? Have performance reviews at least annually and in a way that makes sense for you. Everyone in one week, or on one day, spaced out throughout the year, or on each team members’ anniversary date. Make the team accountable for scheduling the reviews. Set a deadline for their portion of the review to be turned in to you a week prior to your review with them. Start now to define your system for a formal annual performance review. Know some team members will need more than annual review. Coaching the team to improved performance and ensuring everyone is working toward practice goals, is the priority for the leader of the practice.

4. The “Team Integrity Agreement”
This commitment between all members of the team consists of appropriate and acceptable behavior standards for the practice. It includes statements such as: I will treat all patient information in a confidential manner, I will turn off or silence my cell phone during business hours, I will arrive at work on time and be a dependable employee, I will clock out when I am no longer working, I will use the internet for business purposes only. This creates a standard set of expectations for everyone. The Doctor included. When behavior is outside of the agreement, it is easy to discuss because everyone agreed to the standards. Ignoring unacceptable behavior only generates confusion amongst the team and passive aggressive behavior from the dentist or other team members.

5. Develop teamwork
Schedule team events outside of the practice. Do a murder mystery with your team, decorate Valentine’s as a group and have your patients vote on the “best”, go to a sporting event, amusement park, or dental meeting. Be involved in your community by sponsoring or participating in a local event. Go bowling or play softball. Do something together. This allows people to get to know one another on a personal level and have fun!

The interest you take in your team member’s lives outside of the practice is given back. Take each individual team member out to lunch twice a year. Talk about them as part of the practice and about their lives, what’s going well, what they want to see different, how their job impacts their life outside. With genuine curiosity and devoted time, you will get a return on your investment in the form of a committed and dedicated team.

To build a tight knit team takes time, energy, and effort. Once you have a strong team, everyone reaps the rewards. Better interactions with patients, feeling like the team is helping to achieve the practice vision rather than you pulling the team along, and less stress. Follow these 5 tips and create your dream team. If you have questions or need more information, contact us!

Building Trust

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Trust is essential to all healthy relationships. Without trust, you, your team, your patients and your family will suffer.  The author and speaker, Jon Gordon has shared his thoughts on the 11 ways to build trust:

  1. Say what you are going to do and then do what you say!
  2. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Frequent, honest communication builds trust. Poor communication is one of the key reasons marriages and work relationships fall apart.
  3. Trust is built one day, one interaction at a time, and yet it can be lost in a moment because of one poor decision. Make the right decision.
  4. Value long term relationships more than short term success.
  5. Sell without selling out. Focus more on your core principles and customer loyalty than short term commissions and profits.
  6. Trust generates commitment, commitment fosters teamwork; and teamwork delivers results. When people trust their team members they not only work harder, but they work harder for the good of the team.
  7. Be honest! My mother always told me to tell the truth. She would say, “If you lie to me then we can’t be a strong family. So don’t ever lie to me even if the news isn’t good.”
  8. Become a coach. Coach your customers (patients). Coach your team at work. Guide people, help them be better and you will earn their trust.
  9. Show people you care about them. When people know you care about their interest as much as your own they will trust you. If they know you are out for yourself, their internal alarm sounds and they will say to themselves “watch out for that person.”
  10. Always do the right thing. We trust those who live, walk and work with integrity.
  11. When you don’t do the right thing, admit it. Be transparent, authentic and willing to share your mistakes and faults. When you are vulnerable and have nothing to hide you radiate trust.

Internal Marketing

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What have you started with your team to keep your name in front of your patients and other referral sources?

Linda and I had a wonderful time at Dr. Nick’s annual Chocolate Party for his referring specialists. What a beautiful event and a nice way to celebrate with those that refer to his practice.

Let us know what you are doing! Have a great day! Jody

What can be shared on email with patients?

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The following question was posted to the Academy of Dental Practice Management Consultants which Linda and I belong to. I thought you would all want to know the answer.

How specific can email to patient be reminding them about treatment? Can you mention specific treatment needs or only make a general statement to contact the office? Is this covered under HIPAA?

The answer below is from:  Linda Harvey, MS, LHRM, DFASHRM •

Email is a great source of confusion for everyone.
HIPAA requires that patient info must be kept secure. Regular email transmission which includes responding to email received from patients is not secure.
That being said, there are several options:
1) use a secure portal such as eDossea or subscribe to a service thru Eaglesoft or Dentrix (I believe they both offer such a service).
2) use an email encryption service (there are free ones)
3) implement an office policy that limits what you are allowed to email to patients such as appointment confirmation. I just met the Practice Administrator who said they have a strict policy against emailing patients or responding to patient emails.
4) get the patient’s permission to communicate via unencrypted email. This is an important piece of information one can gather on the Acknowledgement Form new patients sign. BUT, I would still limit the type of information emailed.

Referring back to your question about treatment, I would not mention specific treatment in an email. For example, an email reminder that the pt has unused benefits would be better than saying “are you ready to schedule for those extractions and implants.”

HIPAA is quite serious about enforcing the regulations; plus the random audits are in full force. Have already met one dental Business Associate that was audited. I just got back from Tampa working with a doctor whose staff gave a patient the wrong records on a CD…patient then complained to the Office of Civil Rights. They are now under investigation and have a narrow window to correct and reply to the complaint.

Linda Harvey is a great source of information regarding risk management and being HIPAA compliant.  If anyone needs a speaker for a study club she would be fabulous! Her website is:  http://www.lindaharvey.net

Happy Valentine’s Day to all!

Adding Value for Your Patients

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As the new year has begun many of our clients are questioning their normal annual fee increase. It is important to look at how price ties to the value and satisfaction you are giving your patients. We have long felt strongly about sharply discounting fees to close a patient on necessary or elective treatment. A practice must focus on both their productivity and the expenses or cost of delivering treatment, to know if they can reduce a fee for a patient. Continue reading “Adding Value for Your Patients” →

Growth

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Most practices we work with believe in continuous personal and professional growth. They realize they and their team have lots more potential to unlock.  So…ask yourself:

How do you want to grow personally?
Are you a better person today than you were yesterday?
What are you doing to get your team to grow personally?
Are you learning something everyday? What? Is it positive?
What can you do to help your team better understand the practice mission and vision?
How are you planning to grow professionally this year?
How are you challenging and stretching yourself?

These are not easy questions, most require thought and introspection. Really think about it, “Are you a better person today versus yesterday? How?” It is a challenge, it means focusing on personal growth as much as professional growth or the latest clinical courses and procedures. Improving your clinical skills or learning a new procedure to add to your mix of services certainly helps growth and production in the practice. Personal change is by far harder, and it is what will put your practice head and shoulders above the rest. Numbers are important. How you and the team feel about yourselves and what you are contributing to your community, is far more rewarding. We challenge you to spend the time you need to get your team onboard and focus everyone on working on improving themselves. Growth in production will happen naturally as a result.

10 Tips from Training Camp

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10 Tips from Training Camp by Jon Gordon
1. THE BEST KNOW WHAT THEY WANT
“I think a lot of people spend their life being average or good at something, but they don’t strive to be great. The best of the best not only know what they want, but they want it more.”
2. THE BEST WANT IT MORE
“We cannot measure desire in terms of merely thought and wishes. The best not only do the things that others won’t do and invest the time others won’t invest, but they do so with passion and intent to get better. The best are never satisfied with where they are.” Continue reading “10 Tips from Training Camp” →

More Thyroid Guard Information

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Check out the information on Thyroid Guards  and dental xrays on www.snopes.com .  It is important for dental teams to know what the public is hearing and reading.  Have a discussion with your team on radiation safety and handling patient concerns. Have a consistent, caring message when addressing these inquiries.

In The News: Dr. Oz

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This information was sent to me and I thought I should share it, as so many patients watch Dr. Oz.  Our hope is that it will allow you to be proactive in addressing patient concerns over dental x-rays and how you protect the thyroid with your use of the lead neck collar.  This would be a great agenda item for your next team meeting.

On Wednesday, Dr. Oz had a show on the fastest growing cancer in women, thyroid cancer.  It was a very interesting program and he mentioned that the increase could possibly be related to the use of dental x-rays and mammograms.  He demonstrated that on the apron the dentist puts on you for your dental x-rays there is a little flap that can be lifted up and wrapped around your neck.  Many dentists don’t bother to use it.  Also, there is something called a “thyroid guard” for use during mammograms.  By coincidence, I had my yearly mammogram yesterday. I felt a little silly, but I asked about the guard and sure enough, the technician had one in a drawer. I asked why it wasn’t routinely used. Answer: “I don’t know.  You have to ask for it.” Well, if I hadn’t seen the show, how would I have known to ask?