Episode 803: KPIs Are a Scoreboard for Your Practice

 DAT consultants Tiff and Denae discuss key performance indicators (KPIs). When utilized correctly, KPIs can help you understand if the individual pieces are moving in the right direction for the practice as a whole. They touch on finding the right metrics for positions, examples of what to track, how often to track KPIs, and more.

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Reach out to Tiff and Denae: [email protected] 

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Transcript:

Tiffanie (00:01.342)

Hello, hello, I am back here again with Denae and I am so excited as always Denae, I think you are just so fun and I actually just I know it's like late because I don't ever check my mail and This is going out. I think in February, but this is January Recording this and I just got your family's Christmas card and it was so cute right before we started recording I checked the mail and I was like, I never checked the mail. So clearly

 

Denae Black (00:22.952)

Oh!

 

Tiffanie (00:30.334)

I am way behind, but it was so sweet. And Danae, you have the sweetest family. I love having you on our team. I love seeing you grow and just like your whole family blossom and all the fun things that you guys did in 2023. You had a ton of stuff in 2023. It was a massive year for you guys. I can't wait to see what 2024 brings for you. So thank you for being here and for sharing your lives, all of your lives with us. I love it.

 

Denae Black (00:56.32)

Of course, I'm glad you got it.

 

Tiffanie (00:59.502)

I know it was so cute. I'm the worst at those. I do not ever send, I mean, I don't even check my mail. So don't ever expect a card from me, but you will always expect a really big thank you and heartfelt warm thank you. I love it. Um, you know, I handpick, I say it every time we get on these calls, I handpick for you and I really wanted to talk about KPIs by position. We've done a lot of talking, you and I on a lot of different podcasts about, um,

 

Denae Black (01:12.267)

Awesome.

 

Tiffanie (01:26.17)

tracking metrics and KPIs and making sure that the practices in line and different goals and aspirations. Um, I know last year we did a lot of podcasting around how to set goals and how to set KPIs for the practice. But I really thought today going along with all of the pieces that we're working through, um, kind of ops manual style stuff that KPIs by position would be really cool. And just for those of you who are out there that maybe don't know what KPI means, because guess what? I had to Google it.

 

when I was an office manager and they were like, get me those KPIs. And I said, okay, cool. It's key performance indicators. So a KPI is what tells you whether the business is working or not, or the position in this aspect today. We're gonna be looking at the individual positions within the practice and what kind of metrics can you set up to say that position is working and pushing towards the goals of the practice or something's not working and we've got to pivot and change. Caveat there.

 

does not always mean the person is not working. This is why I love metrics. And I love that Danae is so black and white and huge on metrics, because I think if we can focus in on the metrics of the position, rather than the person, we can tackle the real problem, because it's not always the person. Sometimes it is, and sometimes you've got a bad seat, or you've got somebody who's in the wrong seat, who may need to be moved, but the metrics show us that.

 

in a black and white way that I think feelings cannot. When we're caught in the emotional cyclone of like, today is a good day and she's fantastic. Today was a good day and he's great. And then tomorrow is like, gosh, today was so stressful and so hard and they're so negative and I can't stand being around her. Is it her or is it our emotions? Like they're so fleeting and they change so easily. So the KPIs today, Denae, I think.

 

Just making sure that we've got that accountability in place by KPI, by position is something I really wanted to chat about. How do you, you coach on this a lot because I mean you love numbers, like no one I have ever met in my life and I just, I adore you for it. How do you go about finding the right metrics for the positions, like as a general statement and then maybe we can go through some examples.

 

Denae Black (03:29.049)

Mm-hmm.

 

Tiffanie (03:49.83)

because I know doctors really struggle. Sometimes a manager struggles to figure out what they need to be.

 

Denae Black (03:55.442)

Yep. So the number one thing, my number one rule, whenever it comes to KPIs is no more than one person should own that metric. And when it comes to trying to figure out who is going to own that metric and what metric are we actually tracking, it's what are we trying to achieve? So it's one thing to set metrics or KPIs like production or collections or reappointment rate, but why? Right?

 

So you want to start with understanding why you're setting up or what you want out of this position. How can you gauge that this position is a successful position for your practice? And that's what KPIs are doing. They're helping you gauge, are we winning in this position or are there things that processes, not necessarily the people, Tiff, like you said, it's not always the person, right? That person happens to be sitting in the seat, but...

 

Tiffanie (04:48.528)

Mm-hmm.

 

Denae Black (04:53.138)

It really stinks to be the person that's sitting in that seat when the process is broken, and now you're not able to achieve the KPI or the thing that you're trying to achieve. So the KPIs really need to boil down to what are you trying to achieve from that position? And that's going to help give you some clarity around what KPIs are going to be the right KPIs for this position. So for example, if you have a treatment coordinator.

 

Tiffanie (05:16.816)

I love that.

 

Denae Black (05:21.102)

And you know that as a treatment coordinator, we all know a really good successful treatment coordinator is somebody that can close cases. They are a bulldog that can close cases that just no sales. So the treatment coordinator, a really good KPI for them potentially could be case acceptance. And then you have to ask yourself, how do we know if we're winning on case acceptance? Is it a percentage of what we're?

 

treatment planning, or is it a dollar amount? And that's where you start to dig a little bit deeper into finding the right KPI for your practice and for your position.

 

Tiffanie (05:53.787)

Mm-hmm.

 

Tiffanie (06:01.642)

I love that. I love that you said also finding the like finding the right KPI for the goals that you've set. So I know, for example, an easy KPI that most practices will choose is fluoride case acceptance, right? How many times did the hygienist get fluoride accepted in the day? But I think that goes back to your why and what are you trying to achieve? Because I see it happen a lot because it's very easy for hygiene to choose that one. But if

 

it's not positively impacting the overall goals, is that the right KPI to be watching now? So NKPI's, I think on that statement there, are changing. They flow, they add, they change. So the KPI this quarter might be very different than the KPI next quarter or week or however you guys are going about tracking and changing them, but they should always relate back to the overarching

 

Tiffanie (07:00.43)

in their position should be able to see through their metrics how they're positively impacting the goal. So if you've got a metric that has nothing to do with maybe you're trying to get more new patients and that's your main goal, this quarter is more new patients, but my metric is fluoride acceptance and every week when we're talking about our goals and we're talking about where we're at, we're highlighting new patients and only talking new patients as a hygienist, I'm not going to really feel

 

Like I'm a part of the big goal because my focus is, is fluoride acceptance. But if my focus is asking for reviews or asking for new patients, asking for referrals, now I'm positively impacting the new patient goal that everyone else is talking about. So if we're not moving towards a goal as a team, even though we have our individual KPIs, I think it's very easy to for team members to feel segregated or feel like.

 

I'm just here to do a job. If we want that like team, that unit where everybody is working together, we're all here to do a job, but we're all pushing towards the same things. I think that goes straight back to what you were talking about, Demay, when you said what are we really trying to achieve here? If we're really trying to increase fluoride case acceptance, fantastic, why? What is that positively impacting in the end? Is it that we need more hygiene production?

 

So does one of our overarching KPIs need to be that hygiene is at 30% of our production for the month? Fantastic. Case acceptance within fluoride is going to help that, but make sure that it's always relating back to a bigger goal. And then, Danae, I also feel like maybe I'm totally wrong, so I want you to call me on this. I feel like when we know what our focus is, when we can say this quarter our main focus is X, then we can build...

 

individual KPI is a lot easier. I think for, in my opinion, it's much more difficult when you've got like the whole world at your fingertips to choose from, then it makes it really hard to say, is this KPI a good KPI or not? Cause who knows? Because what are you trying to achieve? So Janay, what do you feel? Like, how do you feel about that statement? And then how do you go about making sure that they're doing it right?

 

Denae Black (09:18.77)

Yeah. So I definitely agree. I think that there's kind of two sides to it. I think there's certain KPIs that you guys are working on or should be working on. Big picture. Total practice. If we're working on growing our patient base, if we want to bring more new patients in, if we want to do more implants, things like that. There are group KPIs that each person can, they can change every

 

Denae Black (09:48.824)

individual role is in order for you to know, am I thriving as a hygienist? Am I thriving as a dental assistant? How am I doing on the scoreboard of being a treatment coordinator? So I think there's two different types of KPIs. There's big, big picture whole practice KPIs. And then there's also individual KPIs based off your role. And based off of my role, like if I'm a hygienist, right?

 

My individual KPIs really should be geared towards our hygiene philosophies. What are our hygiene philosophies in the practice? Do we believe strongly in fluoride? And if we do, that's a great KPI. If we know that fluoride is beneficial, but we don't believe in like offering it to every patient, it's not a part of our philosophy, I probably wouldn't add it as a KPI. So the individual KPIs really are your scoreboard of how am I doing?

 

based off of my game, playing as a hygienist or playing as a treatment coordinator, how am I doing? That's what those KPIs are.

 

Tiffanie (10:50.154)

I don't know.

 

Tiffanie (10:54.322)

Yeah. And I think it allows each person to feel individually like they're winning in their position, which is huge. I think one thing that you speak really heavily on is each person in the practice being able to see how they can win and how they can grow. And I think you say often if, if people can't see their growth projection, they can't see where they can grow within the practice, even if it doesn't

 

Denae Black (11:00.568)

Mm-hmm.

 

Denae Black (11:14.103)

Mm-hmm.

 

Tiffanie (11:22.61)

It doesn't always have to mean you guys that your treatment coordinator will be an office manager one day. Like it just means that there's growth somewhere within the position. This is how they see that with individual KPIs and being able to see, wow, I increased my case acceptance by X just by focusing on it, just by allowing that to be a metric that I'm tracking all the time, my focus is there and I increase that that's growth. So I think that gets confusing in a practice. I remember one day.

 

My manager pulled me into her office. Well, it was my one-on-one, right? So we're doing my one-on-one and she's like, where do you see yourself in five years in this practice? And I stared at her and I was like, I'm not really sure how to answer that question. She said, you know, she asked me why I'm like, because you're the man, you're the office manager and like, I'm doing front office. I'm doing treatment planning. I'm doing, I'm doing everything I can upfront. So for you to ask me where I'm going.

 

that would be taking your job. Like, I don't know. So she didn't have a really good, clear idea of how to paint that picture of growth for me outside of positional jumping, right? So for me, I was like, well, I would love to be sitting in your job in five years, but like, that means you're not here. So I don't know how to have this conversation with you. But Denae, I think one thing you do really well for your clients...

 

And for the teams that you work with is that you allow them to see the space within their position that they can grow. So a question like that for them is much different, I think, or can be much different because you with these KPIs, with all these other pieces, you allow your clients to see where they can grow within the position that they have. So kudos to you. I think that's fantastic. And I think your teams really thrive with.

 

that and you've done an incredible job painting those pictures, how do you suggest our clients and our non-clients who are listening today, how do they take those positions within their practice and really say this is something that could grow you and benefit our practice at the same time? How do they do that? Where do you start them?

 

Denae Black (13:33.706)

Yeah. So I do recommend that each team member that they track their KPIs every week. Your KPI should be something that they have access to at any given time. So they can track it on their own end and they can see how are they doing? How is it trending? If they see that one of their KPIs has been off or it's starting to go down for two or three weeks in a row.

 

That's a really good opportunity for me as an employee to say, oh, that's starting to drop. What can I do to get it back on track? So that's where you can empower them to use their scorecards, to track their KPIs, to be able to see what can I do differently in order to continue to improve my role. But when it comes to, and doctors, you guys might be thinking, just like Tiff said,

 

Tiffanie (14:15.901)

Mm-hmm.

 

Tiffanie (14:20.222)

Yeah.

 

Denae Black (14:26.238)

What if I don't have goals to grow outside of this position? It doesn't have to be outside of the position. It doesn't even have to be related to a professional goal. Guys, it can be a professional goal. Maybe it's a personal goal. Maybe it's a financial goal. But it's going to start by helping, by you as a leader, knowing what are, what, what.

 

Tiffanie (14:45.276)

Mm-hmm.

 

Denae Black (14:52.474)

are my employees working towards personally, professionally, and financially? If you have a team member that you know is really, they really want to buy a new car, or they've been saving up because they want to put a down payment on a house, or maybe personally, you know that they have been working really, really hard to run a marathon, right? Like personal, professional, financial goals, you can help tie the success that they're having in their role.

 

to different doors that are gonna open up for them, whether it's personal, professional or financial. So I would say empower them, give them the tools, let them know set very clear expectations of this is what it means to win in this position through a KPI, give them a scorecard, empower them to own those KPIs. And then as a leader, you get the opportunity to support them.

 

Tiffanie (15:38.363)

Yeah.

 

Denae Black (15:46.034)

and to empower them and to help open up other doors based off of their own goals, not yours.

 

Tiffanie (15:53.562)

Yeah, I love that. I love that. Okay. So overarching goals of the practice should be where KPI start. So if our, I'm going to, I'm going to like pick your brain for a minute because it, doctors always want the tangible and it's always dental assistance and hygiene that, that trip us up or associate doctors. So of our overarching goals, maybe for Q1 is increased production.

 

and increase new patients, right? Because those are gonna go hand in hand. Your new patients increase, your production should increase. So if those are two main focuses this quarter, increase production, increase new patients, what would be maybe two good KPIs for dental assistants to track?

 

Denae Black (16:36.898)

So I would look at for dental assistant, new patient retention. We know that we wanna get the new patients in the practice. They're not necessarily controlling like the phones, right? And making sure that new patient scheduling, but as a dental assistant or even a hygienist, if you have that new patient in the chair, tracking the new patient retention and making sure before that new patient leaves your chair, they're scheduled for another appointment could be a really good KPI.

 

Tiffanie (16:47.161)

Mm-hmm.

 

Denae Black (17:04.138)

Another one could be the number of referrals and reviews that they ask for. Those are things that you guys can do. You've got the patient in the chair, check to see. This new patient, is their husband, is their wife, are their kids, their parents, their neighbors? Do they have anybody in their lives that is looking for a dentist? Ask them, you know, ask for these reviews, yep.

 

Tiffanie (17:09.022)

Not that.

 

Tiffanie (17:25.67)

Yeah, I love those. Yeah, I love those because I think most practices and most people jump for dental assistance to same day treatment, right? So they want same day treatment conversion, which I think is fantastic. And I think that that's a great KPI and it definitely helps your production, but it's less controllable than the ones that you just mentioned, Danae, because there's not always going to be opportunity for same day treatment.

 

within the practice. So if that's their only KPI that they're watching, that's the only metric of success and you don't have a really flexible and open schedule, they're gonna keep coming up short. They can't win. But if you have maybe that in conjunction with asking for referrals or asking for reviews and then tracking how many reviews you guys are receiving with the asking, I think is huge. And then I love...

 

I love the way you say it. I'm trying to think of how you say it. New patient conversion, like how is it that, I can't think of the words that I want. You're adding, actually adding that new patient to your active counts. There's so many patients that come in, right? They'll come in for that one appointment and then nobody follows up or they're just like price shopping, right? And we don't see them. So we technically, for 18 months, they're an active patient.

 

but they're not really. So I love that you track that metric of their return and their reappointment rate on specifically new patients. I think that's huge because I don't think that that's something that we often think of. So I love that. So let's think same vein. So we've got production and new patient numbers. How does a billing coordinator, what would a billing coordinator need to do?

 

in that position to increase production and increase new patients. What metric would you suggest there?

 

Denae Black (19:17.783)

Nope.

 

So I would say if your practice is working with a lot of insurances, one of the things or you know that you're sending a ton of claims out or claims out in general, a really good one for a billing coordinator is gonna be like number of outstanding claims or days outstanding claims. That's one that you wanna keep a really good pulse on because before you know it, if you're only focused on patient balances, insurance can get away from you. So the number of outstanding days for your claims

 

Tiffanie (19:46.013)

Yeah.

 

Denae Black (19:48.612)

And then also your the percentage that is sitting in your over 90 day bucket. Zero to 30, even 30 to 60, sometimes there's a little bit more going on, but it's always going to be a rolling effect. And so if you have to pick one out of all of them or two out of all of them for an insurance coordinator, I would definitely say 90 day accounts receivable, like how much is sitting in my name 90 day and the number of outstanding claims for your insurance companies.

 

Tiffanie (19:53.947)

Mm-hmm.

 

Tiffanie (20:16.842)

Yeah, I love that. And then to relate that back to those goals, because I want you guys, practice owners, office managers, doctors, I want you guys to constantly be able to relate them back to those goals for your team members. And I think those were fantastic, and those are so perfect, because relating those back to the production and the new patient increase, you're gonna, that goes back, I think, to the new patient retention, right? Because the number one reason you guys still to this day that patients leave of practice is for billing issues.

 

and misunderstanding the amounts of money that they owe or will end up owing. So if you've got a billing coordinator that's really staying on top of that, ensuring that you're getting all the money you can from the insurance companies and communicating with the insurance companies and patients constantly, your patients are more aware, they're happier, and you're retaining those patients. And I would say, I would venture to assume,

 

that a happy patient who loves the billing system, that their practice is probably gonna rough for friends and family members a lot quicker than people that are like, I'm not really sure what happened. I paid my balance, but I don't know. There's nothing coming in from the insurance. I think it really helps. So I think tying that back in is super easy when you can see those avenues. I love those. So I think those are, I mean, those are the two I wanted to pick out for sure today. Those are the two that I feel like my practices struggle with the most. I get the most text messages.

 

In the middle of the night, I wake up in the morning sometimes like, what should my hygienist or my dental assistant be tracking? I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so funny. Dental assisting in the billing department are usually the hardest to tie back into those overarching goals. But can you think, Denae, is there another space within the practice that might need a good metric, maybe even office manager that might need a good metric idea to tie back to, we'll just keep it at production and new patients?

 

Denae Black (22:04.746)

Yeah. I would say there's two. I would say office manager for sure, because the office manager really ultimately could be accountable for everything. Um, so one of the things that I typically recommend for an office manager is the percent of the team members that are hitting their KPIs because that kind of covers a lot of it, right? They, their, their role is not to make sure that all the KPIs are being hit. Their role is to make sure that their team members understand how to affect

 

Tiffanie (22:09.093)

Mm-hmm.

 

Tiffanie (22:13.412)

Yeah.

 

Tiffanie (22:24.797)

Yeah.

 

Denae Black (22:34.64)

impact those KPIs. So one of the number one things I say office managers should be tracking is how much of their KPIs the rest of the team is actually hitting. The other one is doctors. A lot of times you guys think about, hey, we're gonna give everybody else KPIs, but it's hard for you to find your own KPI. So some really good KPIs I've seen doctors track are treatment planning.

 

Tiffanie (22:35.936)

Mm-hmm.

 

Tiffanie (22:44.695)

I love that. Yeah.

 

Tiffanie (22:54.269)

Yeah.

 

Tiffanie (23:01.597)

Yeah.

 

Denae Black (23:01.73)

How much are you treatment planning? Because you can't do what you're not seeing, right? And we're not dentists, right? Like us at the Dental A team, we're not dentists. We're never gonna tell you, you have to treatment plan more. But there are industry standards out there that you can hold yourself accountable for. So the dollar amount that you're actually presenting to patients is gonna be a really good indicator of how much are you truly impacting your community.

 

Tiffanie (23:06.333)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Tiffanie (23:28.73)

I love that. Those were good. Yeah, good job. I love that. Okay, guys, you have some really great tips on some KPIs per position, which I know that's the biggest question that I get is like, what should we what should each individual person be tracking? And if you're not tracking KPIs yet, I think 2024 is your year to start, get on it, find something that's really easy for each position to track so that they can see some wins and some momentum, and then continue on from there.

 

So action items, I need you guys to go back to the drawing board, figure out what are your big overarching goals for your practice this quarter or this year, and then work with the team on breaking down individual KPIs so that they can relate back to those overarching goals. Here's something that I need to mention that I don't think we spent enough time on today. I need you guys talking about these all the time. You guys need to, did I mention the scorecard? You guys need to track it. I don't care how team members track it. I literally have team members within my practices.

 

that have sticky notes on the inside of their operatory door and they open it and they put a tally every time they ask for a review. I truly don't care as long as they're reporting them back to whomever at whatever meeting at the cadence that they're supposed to. So they should know what winning is. So the KPI is a number of X and this is our goal. So your KPI should have a goal and it should be something like for each team member, you have to ask for five reviews.

 

by the end of the week or 15 reviews by the end of the week. And then they're tallying and at the end of the week, they say, okay, I asked for 13 out of 15 or 20 out of 15. I want you guys talking about these often weekly. Weekly is best if you ask me, Demaine, I think you probably agree with that. Weekly is best. Monthly is a mandatory. I don't want you going any stretch longer than monthly because we need to know if we need to pivot or change. So go back to the drawing board, figure out what your overarching goals are.

 

work with your team on KPIs per their position that relate back to those overarching goals. Allow the team to figure out how they will best track them if they want help with it, help them. But if you allow them to have some creativity on how they're going to track it, they're less likely to say this is one more thing that I have to add to my duties because they'll find the easiest way for them. And then talk about it weekly.

 

Tiffanie (25:45.69)

schedule meetings, schedule, even if it's at your Friday huddle or your Monday huddle the next week, schedule an extra five, 10 minutes to review those and see if you're progressing or de-dressing, what needs to change, what needs to happen. And as always, you guys, we do this all the time. Like, Danai and I are the ones sitting here talking about it today, but all of us consultants on our teamwork with our practices constantly, all of our practices are on some sort of KPI scorecard.

 

just to report to us that we're looking at every single month, at least one time a month, if not more often. I know Denae and I both go in frequently to our own practices KPIs to see how they're doing and offer support, even off of calls or off of visits. So if you need help with this, don't hesitate to reach out. If you're a current client, reach out to your consultant. If you want to chat with one of us, reach out to your consultant.

 

on a call with all three of us, I don't freaking care. If you're not a client and you're ready to be a client and fill out these KPIs with us, always reach out. But if you're not a client and you need help, we're here for that too. I want you guys to know and understand that with all of my heart. Reach out to us, hello, at thedenilyteam.com. We can help you break it down. We can provide the support and we can provide some guidance. We are always here for you. Danae, thank you so much for being here. This was a fun one. I knew you'd have some really good.

 

nuggets on how to create the KPIs for positions. So thank you. Thank you for your knowledge and thank you for always supporting the DELTA 18 community. I truly think you're amazing. And you're welcome. All right, guys, that's a wrap for today. Since I know you loved this and you are so excited to go track the KPIs of your practice with your entire team, drop us a five star review below. We wanna hear about it. We wanna hear how well it goes for you. We wanna hear.

 

Denae Black (27:17.914)

Aw, thanks Tiff.

 

Tiffanie (27:34.654)

how much you loved this podcast because we really truly wanna make sure that we're always hitting the directions that serve you the best. We love our community, we love the people that we're reaching, and then we always wanna reach more and more and more. That's our goal in life, is to just provide so much content to this community of ours and stretch the reach even further every single time. So have a great day. We love you guys. Happy 2024. I hope that it's been so fantastic for you so far and we can't wait to see what you do with the rest of the year.