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.

A Patient Bankruptcy

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Here is a situation that I recently heard about, perhaps your practice has or could face something similar.

Our office has a family that recently declared bankruptcy and we had to write off over $1,700. Now the family would like to return to the practice after a two-year absence. They were never dismissed from the practice and all collection efforts were ignored. Is the office obligated to take them back as returning patients? Is it in the practice’s best interest to alter their financial policy for this family to prepay only? We want to care for the family but don’t want to lose money again.

Here’s what we know: Continue reading “A Patient Bankruptcy” →

A suggestion from a dentist regarding computer back-up

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I suggest dentists schedule a computer crash simulation on a regular basis (say every 2 months.) Much like monthly or quarterly staff meetings, it is important to know that one’s backup is in fact working and that another machine has the necessary hardware/software to run as the server and that someone in the office knows how to restore the program from the backup.

My office did this some months ago and had to call our support people to help out. It went smoothly (done on a non-patient care day). When I asked the support team if anyone had ever done a crash simulation before they said, “NO, Usually, we just get the panic calls and then have to sort it all out.

Have any of you done this recently?

Dentists are Dangerous?? What do you think of this article? Are your patients reading things like this?

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Dentists are Dangerous
by Patricia Aiken

An internist at Kaiser Permanente offered the following explanation after drawing two semi-circles on the examination table paper. “This represents your mouth” pointing to the first semi-circle. “We don’t know much about it. We pretty much leave it to the dentists. This is the rest of your body,” pointing to the other semi-circle. “This is what we know about.” How convenient. 60 to 80 percent of health is determined by what is going on in the mouth and mainstream medicine doesn’t have a clue or, more accurately, doesn’t want a clue. They are making too much money on the result. Continue reading “Dentists are Dangerous?? What do you think of this article? Are your patients reading things like this?” →

Do your hygienists have a valid license?

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I wanted to share some important information from a colleague about an expired hygiene license.

I just had a client casually check the website of his local state board and found that his full time hygienist’s license had not been renewed for TWO years. She will now have to retake the state board exam! The other part time hygienist’s license had expired in February 2009. In both cases he has hygienist’s working for him with no license! It remains to be seen what type of penalty he will incur because of this. Of course I advised him to lay both of them off immediately until the license issue is resolved. Continue reading “Do your hygienists have a valid license?” →

He Said, She Said: Gender Communications at Work

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By Beth Banks Cohn and Roz Usheroff

At work, men and women use strategies in communicating with each other that the opposite sex may view negatively. Often, misunderstandings can be avoided when coworkers look beyond personalities and consider the different ways men and women communicate.

Let’s look at a few examples from both sides. Continue reading “He Said, She Said: Gender Communications at Work” →

Personnel Policy Manual

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If you don’t have a clear and expertly drafted Personnel Policy Manual, then you are attempting to build your team on quicksand. Today’s employment law is a legal minefield and you must have a policy manual that is fair for all employees and that you follow (no special treatment for “special” team members). Just one wrong word, from a set of policies that you copied from someone else or downloaded, can have serious monetary consequences. This is way too easy to do right. We recommend Bent Ericksen and Associates Personnel Policy Manual. This is an easy way to establish fair policies for all your team members and to be compliant with your state regulations (which in some cases take precedence to the federal government’s regulations) as well as ensuring compliance with the federal regulations. A significant benefit of going with a company that researches employee policy daily is they stay on top of the changes. If you are not already using their information, ask us about it, it really is the most comprehensive we have found out there. No one wants to believe an employee will leave their employment and sue the Doctor and the practice, but it happens.