Episode 554: Easy Button: The Same-Day Treatment Mindset

Is your team obsessed with having the best patient experience possible? In this episode, Kiera is joined by Dana to talk about how to get your team into that same-day treatment mindset. They discuss what it takes to get your team on board for a pro-same-day treatment culture, how it can save your office time, and why this approach bleeds into a culture of pivoting, growing, and evolving all at once.

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Transcript:

0:00:05.5 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 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. Hello Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and you guys, I am so excited because I have the one and only Dana on the podcast. If you have not seen her on doughnuts with Dana on Facebook Live every Friday, you better go check her out. She's super fantastic. So much great value and incredible consultant offices literally love, love, love, love, love, love, love you, Dana. They truly do. And I'm just so excited to have you today. So Dana, how's your day, you've had a lot of calls today, hanging out with clients, how's your day been so far?

0:01:21.9 Dana: It's been fantastic. I love these days where I get to be on here with you. And I get to have calls with clients and just really connect. These are my connection days.

0:01:30.3 KD: They really are. And we have a really fun day as a company because we're all virtual, but we got to see all of us together in the morning for morning huddle. And then I podcasted with other consultants today. And then we actually get to do two mock interviews for two potential consultants. So we grill the consultants, Dana, do you remember being interviewed? I feel like it's an intense interview. Is it stressful to interview for Dental A Team? I'd be scared, but maybe it's not.

0:01:55.4 Dana: It is. But yeah, even tips are also pretty gracious when it comes to the process.

0:02:01.4 KD: That's good. That's good to hear. But we make you guys go through a course, because we want consultants who can pivot and who can take beatings from clients, clients are nice to us, but they come at you with some tricky problems all day long. And you really have to be good on your feet and really know what you're talking about with confidence; otherwise, I feel like clients will rip you in half. Would you agree?

0:02:21.4 Dana: I agree. I feel like the new added pivot to core values couldn't be more perfect.

[laughter]

0:02:28.0 KD: Yes, that was a new core value add, guys, we are now the fire up. We got two pieces at the end of that, passion for excellence and pivot. But it's great. And it's fun. And I'm glad that we've had a good connection, Dana. And I'm super excited for our interviews tonight. But in that same vein, I wanted to talk about, Dana, you and I were talking about, in the vein of pivoting. I think it works super well of a same day treatment mindset of a practice because I feel like same day treatment is one of the most incredible services we could ever offer our patients, they're there, let's just do it today. Think of any of us like you go to the dentist, you have your cleaning, you find out you have a really simple filling, just get it done. Or you need to get ortho trays or you need to get a night guard. I can't tell you how many offices I've physically been in. And like okay, "we'll schedule you back for that night guard." And I'm like, "Are you kidding me?" just take the five second impression, flipping a room having to set up and wipe it down. Like that's so much room setup time rather than just doing it right then in there for the patient and for you.

0:03:33.3 KD: So I feel like same day treatment, we can go through the ins and outs of how to do it. But I'd like a more beneficial topic today would be the same day treatment mindset. Dana, what are your thoughts around this mindset and doing same day treatment because I personally love it in practices, it makes my day great, and it's great for patients.

0:03:50.0 Dana: I agree with you, when I think of same day treatment mindset, I think of those commercials for staples that had that easy button, and you just press the easy button. And to me that is same day treatment, it's never going to be easier for us to get the patient there, to get them in the chair, to have them in that mindset of importance of treatment then same day.

0:04:12.2 KD: For sure. And I just think about it as a practice too, it isn't easy button for practice, if the team's in a same day mindset mentality. And so that's really I love that you use the staples button, my maiden name was actually Staples. So you better believe when we'd run for vice president or on the board or whatever we'd always have like, "That was easy." [laughter] Our campaigns is a staple's family. But really, I think it can be easy. And I love that you just said that. And we're starting a new tagline through our consulting company for offices of like, "What if it could be easy? What if having a profitable practice could be easy? What if having reduced overhead could be easy? What if having an accountable team could be easy? What if same day treatment could be easy?" And I think when saying same day treatment might feel hard. But if I said like, what if it could be easy? You would do things a lot differently. And so I feel like getting the team on board. And some of the tips I have for getting teams on board is, first and foremost, why are all of us in dentistry? It's because we wanna serve our patients, we wanna help our patients. And when you can see that same day treatment is truly helping that patient.

0:05:21.9 KD: Let's find a way to say yes, patients love to say yes, we wanna say yes. And so I feel like having that mindset around we will say yes, as often as possible. And even having that as a core value. You can have it as pivot, you can have it as the yes mindset. We obviously don't wanna say yes when it detrimentally hurts another practice or a patient. But being able to say yes, that just feels better. It's easier. It's lighter, and and all around, we all have better days. Dana, any thoughts you have around like, rules for same day treatment? This is a better question that I'm really curious, how do you get team members? More like, "No, I don't wanna do that. I don't enjoy doing same day treatment. No, I'm gonna run by, Like, no, we don't like change. We're gonna stick with it." What do you do with those team members?

0:06:10.5 Dana: I do love how you linked it to service to our patients. And I think that team members, that is truly why they go into dentistry. So I think linking to them that we 100% even elevate one step above their cleaning, or whatever they came for. We just took it one step above and serve them even more. So I do love that. And I think too, think about all the pieces that have to happen on the back end, if we don't do it today, right? If we can't, if we don't take on the challenge of incorporating it into our schedule, then we are having to get them on the schedule later. We're relying on them to then show up, we're all of the pieces that have made this just perfect fit for to happen today. Focus on that.

0:06:57.2 KD: Which that is the most beautiful way to do it. I think even writing out the time. Because people are like, I don't have enough time today. But if you literally mapped this out on a whiteboard, like I'm envisioning sitting in the office, like Okay, guys, here we go, let's think how long does it take us to set up a room for a night guard? Realistically, we're talking five minutes, probably, perfect. But then how long do we have to have that patient come in for? Well, we have to fit them in a 30 minute block. So even though it takes us five minutes to set the room up, then they're gonna be in here for probably 5-10 minutes to take the impression. So right there, let's do it on the excessive side. So 10 minutes, so that's 15 minutes total, then we have to take the patient, dismiss them. So then that means and then we have to flip the room. So we're talking minimum 20 minutes, max, but we had to put it in the 30 minute block, most likely, 'cause let's be real, we can't scooch that up, otherwise, we're gonna get behind if we try to put it to the minute.

0:07:49.5 KD: So we just took a 30 minute block. Whereas if we're sitting in the room, the impression I said most 10 minutes, but guys, if you're taking 10 minute impressions, you need to speed up and practice that just as a quick to set thought, an impression realistically should take you less than five minutes. So sitting in a room that's already been set up, already going to be broken down five minutes to take that impression, I would rather go over my appointment, five minutes. I'm not trying to be disrespectful to the next patient, I'm just thinking five minutes compared to 30 minutes. To me, that's actually easy. That's easy for the front desk to tell them like "Hey, we actually were able to help this patient out so they don't have to come back. They're running about five minutes behind. And we're gonna make sure we get you right back as soon as we possibly can." We might even be able to have an assistant take X-rays or something else to get that next patient started.

0:08:36.7 KD: So think about it, five minutes compared to 30 minutes. That to me, that's easy. That is the easy button. And I feel like so often we don't realize that. And then we have to think, okay, so if we would have taken the impressions, again, we're using night guard or ortho. If we would have spent those extra five minutes rather than 30 minutes, that patient only has to come back one time to get the night guard or ortho trays delivered, rather than bringing them back for impressions and scans, and then bringing them back again for delivery. So not only did that five minutes, save you 30 minutes. Like it just delays the process. So many more weeks, and days for this patient and also for your practice. So I feel like sometimes I'm a very numbers driven girl, that if I could just see like "Holy cow, five minutes compared to 30 minutes?" And I get a happier patient. Why would I not find the way to say yes, and if it's because I'm not good at taking impressions, that's on me to practice and to get better. So I could do it faster and have that mindset, but again, that's the growth mindset. That's the pivot mindset. That's me taking ownership as an assistant or an hygienist to learn how to do it quickly, so I can help more patients. So Dana, that was kind of a long rant on my side. Thoughts on your side on that, anything you want to add to that?

0:09:48.8 Dana: Just but too looking at it as it really is a way to level up that patient experience. Like you said, the patient then doesn't have to come back, now it is a one visit instead of a two visit process. So not only have we been able to elevate health care, we've been able to save ourselves time, but we've elevated that patient experience too.

0:10:08.1 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've 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 the dentalateam.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. And what does that patient gonna go rave about? They're gonna say, "Oh, my gosh, I was at the dentist and they were able to take my impressions." That's what they're gonna rave about. They're not gonna rave about "Oh, my cleaning was great, and I gotta now go back, and then go back again and go back again." They will rave about that. But those small sprinkles of unexpected surprise and delight, they will rave about that.

0:11:12.8 KD: And I love thinking in that elevated patient experience and team experience. It's a win-win on both sides. So I feel like it becomes a mindset. But I don't think it's just around same day treatment. I think it's around, like writing out protocols for Operations Manual. It's around doing fluoride for our patients. It's around making sure we're being as productive as a hygienist as we could be. It's around doctors making sure that they're diagnosing correctly. All these things are an elevated mindset to say, yes, as often as possible. So Dana, any tips on how to get people as like, personal, I feel like this is more personal than it is external? How do you get people to want to develop as people and want to say yes, and want to grow and evolve? Maybe if they've never thought that way? Or it's never really been part of the culture of the practice? How do you even start this process if you wanna build this into your practice?

0:12:07.3 Dana: Sure. I think first, it starts with the leadership, seeing that leveling up in your leadership, seeing your leaders wanting to go above and beyond and to saying yes to those things. And then I think, secondly, for that then it is, as leaders pointing it out, yet. So when we see those team members that are going above and beyond, and we want other team members to rise up to their level pointed out, acknowledge them for doing those things so that those other team members see exactly what that looks like and the importance of doing it.

0:12:38.2 KD: And that's something that shockingly, that's why I actually started reading Audible and listening to podcasts like, truth be told, because I realized, if I'm gonna expect my team to level up, I need to set an example first. So because I was like, I'm never gonna have someone tell me, "Kiera, I don't have enough time to read a book." I was like hard pass. Now, if I can do it, they can do it. Because I not to be very boastful or egotistical by any stretch, 'cause I think we're all busy. I will say CEOs and owners have a lot riding on them. There is a lot of pieces, my world actually is getting less Dana, like we're bringing in all these people. And I'm like, wow, like, I don't know what to do with myself anymore. But during the beginning growth stages, I'd never ever ever wanted someone to tell me, "Kiera, I don't have time for that." So I said, "Okay, fantastic." If I'm going to hope that my team will want to read books, and I'm going to hope that they want to develop as people, I need to set the example first.

0:13:31.6 KD: And Dana, I think without even knowing, I crank books all month long, I am a machine when it comes to consuming content. But I wanna be that example to my team first. And so that way they see the example, they wanna have it and I can authentically speak that this is the culture we have. How is it on a team members, Dana? Because like you said, that was literally why I started listening to Audible and listening to podcast. That's it. I wanted to be able to speak authentically and not be a fraud when I asked my team to level up as well.

0:14:02.8 Dana: Yeah, and I think that 100% speaks for itself. Like we see that, we know that. And it's funny, because I hear you talking about, I read this book, I read that book, and so many times too I want to take your recommendations because I hear the things that you learn. And it's like, "Oh, there must be great content in there. I want to level up too and it does push me to grow, for sure, as a team member.

0:14:26.6 KD: Well, that's really good to hear. And I think it's something where I've never made it a standard in our company, like consultants, you must read seven books, no whatever, that's not my style, nor would that be something I would ever expect. I think it's more just the mindset. And you're right. For me, it's, "Hey, I was reading this book." And it becomes second nature to start talking about it and setting that example. And so I do agree having that, if you guys want, I've also seen offices that do have book clubs, and it's everybody like I've had offices, buy the book and hand it out in team meetings. And then once a week, they have like, Book Club highlight. And so it's on maybe Wednesdays, they all will talk about what they're learning from that book together. And so even if people don't wanna read, it's herd mentality. So most of the team is doing it and they're participating in the weekly book club chat, your team's going to start to follow suit. And even if they don't, they're going to pick up a lot of good knowledge, just by being in that environment.

0:15:27.4 KD: So I love that idea, Dana, of like starting with the leader, and you saying, Yes. I can't tell you how many doctors like, "No, I don't really wanna do this treatment today. Like, we can do it next time." And I'm like, "What? Come on, say yes, already. [chuckle] Come on, help a team out." So I do agree, I think it does start with the leaders. Any other tips, you've got, Dana, that you've seen work really well and practices to help them get into this culture of pivoting of growing and evolving just as the core culture of the practice?

0:15:57.8 Dana: I do think it just stems from culture, placing a focus on culture that focuses on going above and beyond for patients, for patient care, looking at our patient experience, talking about into meetings, how we can level up as a team, I think it really just creates that environment that team members want to do those things.

0:16:18.8 KD: Exactly. And I think that that's really where it sits is, building that culture. So that's why we said it's a same day treatment mindset. It's a culture of your practice. I think we could sit here all day long and be like, "Okay, this is what you do. This is how you map it. This is how you track it." And at the end of the day, the number one deciding factor is your culture of saying, yes, is your culture of elevating that patient experience. Because if we're focused and obsessed with creating the best patient experience, we're gonna freakin find a way to say yes to same day treatment, it will happen because we're all focused on it. So Dana, I love those tips. I love what you give to your clients. Guys, we will dive into this with our clients, we will go specific for them and their practice and what the verbiage is, and how to run the team meeting on it, and how to do the specifics of it. That's what our private coaching does. So if you guys are interested in that, like I said, Dana has the most raving fan client. So if you guys are interested, or that seems of value to you, email us [email protected].

0:17:11.7 KD: We would love to welcome you as a new Dental A Team member and really customize this. So we can help you build your culture to be a yes mindset, to build that culture of same day treatment, to build the culture of personal growth, 'cause sometimes it's hard. I have a lot of coaches and they've helped me come up with ideas and things that I need to do that I never would have known. So Dana, I love this idea of build the culture, starts with the leader, find a way to elevate that patient experience. That is what and how you truly have successful same day treatment. So Dana, loved it. Any last thoughts you wanna have to wrap this up today?

0:17:44.7 Dana: Also, just be that team member, be the team member that looks to go above and beyond, open your eyes to opportunities, whether it's same day treatment or not just to level yourself up as a player in the game.

0:17:58.4 KD: I love that, good. Good. Final mic drop there, Dana. Because at the end of the day, team members you can level up whether or not your practices, you can be the person who starts to trend, and I think oftentimes team members don't realize that. So I love it, Dana, I appreciate you attending. Thanks for being on the podcast today. It was a good time.

0:18:17.4 Dana: Thanks so much. I always love being on here with you.

0:18:19.7 KD: Absolutely. All right, guys, as always, thank you guys for listening. And we'll catch you next time on the Dental A team podcast. 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.