Episode 583: 3 Tips to Improve Your Hygiene Team

Kiera is showing some hygiene love today! She shares tips she’s seeing work in the most elite dental practices to improve the flow of the hygiene team.

Hygienists, in your dental practices you should be …

1. Tracking your production

2. Maximizing down time

3. Calibrating monthly

This episode dives into what it takes to move dental practices forward from a hygiene perspective.

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Transcript:

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0:00:05.6 Kiera Dent: Hey everyone, welcome to The Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I have this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, filler, office manager, regional manager, practice owner and I have a team of traveling consultants, where we have traveled to over 165 different offices, coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental, and I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress and create A teams. Welcome to The Dental A Team podcast.

0:00:51.4 KD: Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and you guys. I hope today is an awesome, awesome day. I am cruising across the country today, car casting with you guys, and you know, I just wanted to give you guys a mad shoutout. I do love this Dental A Team podcast family. You guys have been family since the beginning, so many of you have been road warriors with me, traveling, taking me on trips with you, taking me on the road with you in the mornings to work, and I just love being a part of your life, and I appreciate you for being the people that this podcast is made for. So today, let's give our hygiene team a little bit of love, shall we? And as always, guys, if this podcast has helped you in any way, shape or form... Oh no, let's be sure that you guys leave us a review. I would love, love, love to hear from you. I absolutely appreciate you guys. And the reason I said, oh no, is because as I'm car casting with the podcast, I surely passed a cop maybe going a little faster than I should, so this might be a different type of podcast we're about to find out, but until then, hang out with me and go leave a review if I've made you laugh.

0:01:56.5 KD: If I've made you smile, if we've helped you create systems and processes in any way, that really has transformed your life, I would love to hear from you. So far, guys looking clear, so we're gonna keep on car casting. So on that note, let's give our hygiene teams a little bit of love shall we? I wanna just give you guys some tips and things for your hygiene team of just things that they can track, things that they can do, things that can make them better. With that said, these are things that I just see. So guys, this is really for the hygiene team, I'm gonna try and help you make this easier and more efficient, and then you guys can take it from there. So with that said, what I would recommend is number one, hygiene teams, we want you producing. I'm gonna say that over and over and over again, that is the goal for the hygiene teams is to have you guys produce. Be strong producers. My goal is to just like a doctor schedule, have my hygienist schedule wicked full. I want them full... Not to where I'm burning you out, but I want you to have a healthy, productive schedule.

0:02:55.8 KD: Hygienist, if you don't know, hygiene team should be producing at least if you're a PPO practice, high insurance, three times your pay. I get it. Insurance is our nasty, so I want you to look for things that you can do in your appointments; Adding fluoride, making sure we're doing perio, that our fee schedules have been adjusted, that we're adding sealants, if we can. If that's something in your practice, I would also look to make sure that we're doing arestin, if you believe in arestin. But really looking to see what additional pieces can we add for our patients? Are there things like laser therapy that our hygiene teams could get trained on? Looking to see how we can truly maximize hygiene appointments for our team. So hygienists just so you know, that is my goal is for you guys to be full schedules, high producers and really look at your dollar per hour, times it by three, and then look to see how many days a week you work or how many hours a day you work, that's gonna tell you what your daily production goal should be.

0:03:57.1 KD: Every night review your chart, look to see what your production goal is, and then ask yourself, what can I do if I'm not at goal to get to goal? And I want you to truly come up with a plan. Is it that you're going to add hygiene appointments? Is it that you're going to do SRPs? What are you actually going to do to move the needle forward for you? Because I think, yes, for an office let's make sure we keep them full but hygienists also take ownership of your schedule, just like doctors, I'm gonna say yes, hygiene team should...

0:04:24.7 KD: Front office team should help you keep your schedule full, but at the same time, take ownership of that, you can look for same-day opportunities, you can go into hygiene exams and be proactive on your schedule, and so when we all work together on it as a team, really a team, to me, that is the definition of a fully functioning dental office, rock on, everybody is able to rise to the higher level. Hygienists if we don't get our schedules full, here are a couple of things that I would recommend that hygiene teams do. I see it in offices, the most elite practices are what I'm bringing to you today, so those hygiene team members, when there is an hour of opening in their schedule, which guys, that does happen, the hygiene team making at least 10 re-care phone calls and text messages, following up with them. I know this sounds annoying, I know hygienists you wanna be clinicians, and I want you to be clinicians. I also will say though, if you can help out your team and when you've got downtime, you help get your schedule full, that is something that means the world to your team members, that is something that I know all teams ridiculously value.

0:05:32.9 KD: So please, please pick up those phones, front office team members, make it very easy, so whether you're utilizing an online dental software like analytics, so dental Intel practice by numbers, have those lists readily available or print them straight from your software, just so hygienist know where to go. Because usually the reason they don't like to call is one, we don't have a good scripting, or two, it's not easy for them to know who should I call? Who should I not call? So therefore, they don't necessarily wanna call, which I don't blame you, if we make it too hard, it's not very fun. So I like 10 calls per hour, and then we report that on our end of day sheet, so hygienists track your production, and then if you do happen to have any of those open times, let's call. Before we call though, I really love you to look. Could you add in any patients? Could you do any team members? Are there any patients on the schedule that are due for cleanings, let's get them pulled over to your schedule and be proactive on that. This is your schedule, and I hope you own it.

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0:06:35.6 KD: How many of you would just love to DIY and get the secrets of people who have been there, done that on your own time? Because I know for me, I love to learn from the best of the best. The people who have been there, done that and can give me the shortcuts, that's why we have created our Dental A Team Virtual Academy, where it's on-demand courses for you at your fingertips, where you literally can learn the secrets from all of my experience, all of Tiffany's experience, Britney, Dana, our entire team's experience at your fingertips, so stop taking the hard route, guys, there's a shortcut sitting there waiting for you, and it's also CE. Head on over to dental A... Thedentalateam.com, and click on our Virtual Academy. Be sure to use coupon code 'Podcast' and get started on that DIY and become the practice of your dreams.

0:07:22.5 KD: Then after that, what additional things could you be doing at that point, wrap up on your notes, sterilization, all the main things that you do as a team member. I will say hygienists, it also can really help save some time if you will be taking their blood pressure and then start your notes right then and there, also, there are some great things as far as perio charting, having somebody help you, Dentrix has a new thing that is a voice-activated one for perio charting, lots of different things, but making sure you're doing the consistent full-mouth probe on one visit.

0:07:57.0 KD: X-rays on your next visit. Big believer in fluoride, and if you are too, rock on, let's do some fluoride. So for those Voice mails, I'm gonna look back to that for you. A great voice mail and phone call for hygienists calling their re-care patients, I've got two different ones, one is, Hey, this is Kiera calling from healthy smiles. I was calling regarding your account, give me a quick call back and leave your phone number. The answer is that is HIPAA compliant, and also everything in the patient's chart is their account, so try that out, your phones will be buzzing, it'll be fantastic. Another great voicemail, if that one makes you feel a skosh uncomfortable, which, hey, get out of the comfort zone, at least try it before you say, no way, I'm not going to do that. The other verbiage would be. Hi, this is Kiera calling from healthy smiles. Dr. Blank and I were chatting, and doctor is really concerned about you and wanted me to reach out to you to get you scheduled. Give me a call back at blank as soon as you can. That way we can get you scheduled.

0:08:55.3 KD: Try it out, say Dr. Blank wanted me to reach out to you. 'cause if we can put the emphasis on our doctors, that oftentimes can help patients decide to want to call in. Guys, at the end of the day, I don't care who's name you have, what verbiage you use. What we really care about are that those patients come back. You can also create what I like to call a sizzle board, meaning we call on all these patients and we put everyone's name up on there, you guys can make it a fun game. You can have a trophy, you can have an award, you can have the go to the greatest of all-time pin that goes around to each person. Whatever your office chooses to do please email me, tag me. I would love to hear what you guys are doing [email protected] but we really want you guys to make it fun. So if we want people to call, we can have a list of all of our patients, and you can have how many calls they made, how many people we are able to reactivate and do a scoreboard for the next month and see who is your dominant key players, and then have them help teach the other people so we can have more patients get full on the schedule.

0:09:54.6 KD: If you're a practice is already full, rock on this isn't for you. If you're a practice with that Swiss cheese, lots of holes in your schedule kind of schedule, this would be a fantastic exercise for you guys to do. Also hygienist, make sure you guys are calibrating, I recommend a once a month hygiene calibration where you maybe work with the doctors, pull up an FMX, go over cases together, so you're really getting that more clinical case for the hygienist. Doctors this is super paramount, especially if you've got associates coming in, your hygienist can really, really help out in this world. So hygiene Team really it's... Let's make sure you're tracking your production, and this is for you guys, this is for you to see, am I a strong producer in the practice, because guys, I believe that your production numbers truly show are you educating your patients? So many hygienists get terrified at looking at their production numbers, I will tell you, these numbers are not to be about production, these numbers are truthfully, to look to see, are we educating our patients? Are we looking for their frequencies on time? Are we able to really give them guidance on it? And if not, we need to make sure that we are helping our patients a ton.

0:11:05.1 KD: We need to make sure that we are diagnosing and not doing bloody [0:11:09.4] ____ prophecies, but truly diagnosing perio. We also need to make sure that we are giving them the best care. And tracking your production is just a goal, guys, it's making sure that we're actually doing the top notch care for our patients. Then when we do have that downtime, let's be team players, let's pick up those phones, let's call. Let's make sure we're all on the exact same page with each other. And then the last piece I've got for you, the absolute last piece is making sure you guys calibrate together. So that once a month calibration, where we're reviewing clinical cases, we're talking about fluoride, we're talking about perio we're talking about laser, whatever it is in your practice, let's do some role play. Let's role play, let's role play offering fluoride, let's practice our sealants and make sure we do really great sealants, whatever it is, take this time to really calibrate and train as a hygiene department, I know you guys love to get together, you guys love to be together and I found that hygiene teams that do this consistently, really grow. My final bonus piece for you is have your hygiene team track their statistics every single week and compare with each other, not 'cause I want your hygiene team to compare, but just to see...

0:12:19.1 KD: Alright, if there's a stronger producer, what does that hygienist do? If there's somebody who gets amazing fluoride acceptance, how do they say it? Let's have them train the entire team, that way we can all be on the exact same page with each other, but really, really, really track your stats every week. I just came from a business event and they said you should be watching your optics of a practice. Are you tracking these optics weekly, if not, how are you even knowing what your team can and can't be doing. How do we know who our best hygienists are? How do we know where people are struggling and they need training, if we're not tracking it? So I would recommend every team, every hygienist on the team, this is also for the whole team, so not just the Hygiene Department, but really ensuring that they are tracking their optics every single week to ensure that we are going after the target, and if we are not, what can we do to help you improve? This way we have a healthy hygiene department, this way the hygienist are truly knowing I am a freaking fantastic producer, I'm a great educator, and I am bringing value to my patients and to my practice, and I'm a solid, top-notch quality team member.

0:13:25.5 KD: These would be the areas I'd say really ramp up that hygiene department, check it out, see what you guys are doing. Use this podcast as a checklist, I just gave you an entire hygiene checklist, and I hope guys, that it adds massive value to your practice. If you want help getting this set up, email me [email protected]. But guys, this is the stuff that moves practices forward, this is the stuff that helps us figure out like, hey, we're not able to hit our hygiene production numbers, alright, let's see, what are we doing, what are the frequencies? Do we need to negotiate our fee schedules without that information, how do we know how we can make the practice better, we don't. And we get splashy results. So I'm gonna encourage all of you to be top notch high optic hygiene teams where you're really looking at that. And then roleplay, roleplay, how we present value, how do we talk about SRP and help the patients see the value in it? What is our Perio protocol? How do we talk to patients about FMXs, and frequencies, and how do we make sure that they wanna do treatment when it's not just based on insurance? All those topics can be role-played and discussed in your hygiene department meetings.

0:14:30.7 KD: So try it out. Have fun hygienists, we are rooting for you, 'cause I do believe that hygiene is a huge heart of the practice. Without the hygienist, doctor schedules are very bare, patients aren't taking care of, and rapport is often missed. The hygiene team, massive shout out to you, go give your hygienist a huge. Take these into a hygiene meeting, I think these are great ways, and if I can help you or we can help dive it, dial it in, we do have two amazing hygienist on our team Britney and Dana who are both consultants and amazing, amazing hygienist, and they love to be high producing amazing educators and being able to add all that value to the practice, so reach out if we can help you and guys as always thanks for listening and have the best day. I really, really hope you take this on and remember, we are truly so blessed because we are working in the best profession we could ever ask for, and as always, guys, thanks for listening, I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team podcast.

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0:15:25.5 KD: And that wraps it up for another episode of The Dental A Team podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.