Episode 614: Curse of the Missing Lab Cases

A tip for the clinical team! Does your practice have a process for keeping track of lab cases? Kiera walks through the following suggestions to make sure everything is buttoned up:

1. Establish a process for cases and all the moving parts

2. Establish a process for checking cases in and out

3. Utilize a lab case specialist — someone responsible for keeping track of it all

If you do have all this established, then make sure it’s regularly reviewed and improved upon.

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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 had 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 travelled 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.

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0:00:51.4 KD: Hello, Dental A-Team listeners. This is Kiera and you guys, I hope you're having a killer day-to-day. I hope your loving life. I hope you're wrapping up for the end of the year, I just want to pop on and give our clinical team some fan-freaking-tastic tips today. Also for offices, guys, I know this is gonna change your life because anybody out there, please raise your hand later, I don't care where you are, take a picture of yourself raising your hand if you have ever, ever been cursed by the missing lab cases, anybody out there?

0:01:23.1 KD: Oh my gosh, this is one of my things that I hated so much in a practice. I remember one time I had an assistant, I won't share her name in case she's a listener, but I had an assistant and I had put her in charge of the lab cases and said, We cannot miss them, we had missed a lab case, and I said, All right, you're really in charge of these, and she missed another lab case and I is like, that's it. I said All right, you're gonna have to make this right. Or you're gonna have to call the patient.

0:01:47.6 KD: I don't know what we're gonna do about it, and she drove two hours across town to go get it and had it back in time for that patient, and we never missed another lab case, so. Guys, also, before we totally kick this off, if this podcast has benefited you blessed you changed your life, please by all means share. Share this podcast with somebody, leave us those five stars. Subscribe to us, that helps our dental podcast get in the hands of more people, so guys, please help us out, do as that favor, help us reach that million download is what I'm trying to say and increase our subscribers. So guys, that's what I'm asking for you. All right, missing lab cases. With the Missing lab cases, so what I found is normally one, we don't have good processes at the beginning, so we're not actually tracking them and putting it in the software and having it where it's really organised on what lab it went to, what the shade was, we have it in that patient's file, and there are lab case managers within every single software. Now, they're not perfect and they do miss things, but what I will say is they do great at organizing and making it to where you guys can absolutely 1,000% have it at least in that patient's chart, so we know where, what, and who it went to.

0:03:04.3 KD: So with that said, the next piece then is when it comes and gets checked in, so we've got to have a process. For us, we had to know when our labs needed to get those crowns back to us. I would always put the due date to like two weeks and two days, and then I would schedule the patients for two weeks and two days, so I would put my due date as two weeks, schedule the patients for two weeks in two days, just to give that lab, a buffer time. Thankfully, I think a lot of us are making these in-house now, so it's not as big of a problem, but we still have those cosmetic cases, we still have implant cases, a lot of those things going out, we still have denture cases, so we've just got to make sure, that we have this organised... I also know a huge pain point was with implants and, Oh my gosh, having those stinking implant parts.