Hygiene Success ~ The Obstacles That May Be Holding You Back
by Rachel Wall
Have you ever tried to implement a new product, procedure, or service in your practice and for some reason, it just won’t stick? It works fine for a little while, but then the team goes back to doing things the same old way.
Chances are there are some hidden obstacles that you haven’t yet identified.
In our work with hundreds of practices across the country, there are common obstacles that teams face when trying to grow. And some are specific to pursuing growth in the hygiene department.
During my course at AADOM in July at Orlando, we’ll dig into these common obstacles and I’ll share strategies you and your team can finally ‘Get Over It’.
The 3 Most Common Obstacles Are:
#1 The Hygiene Schedule Is Out of Balance
#2 There Are No Systems
#3 Holding on to Old Beliefs and Negative Mindsets
Obstacle #1 The Hygiene Schedule Is Out of Balance
Whether your schedule is wide open or jam-packed, each situation presents its own set of challenges.
If your schedule is wide open then every moment of free time cuts into the production per hour. Even if your hygienists are doing everything they can with the patients in the chair, it may be difficult to reach the hourly production goal. Over a long period of time, this chips away at team morale and motivation. And too much of your admin team’s time may be spent moving patients around to make the schedule look full or trying to recover from a day that’s fallen apart.
If this is your challenge, find the true reason for the open time. Here are a few items to analyze:
- How many patients do we have that are NOT in recare? (This is your reactivation pool.)
- Begin an aggressive reactivation program.
- Begin an internal marketing campaign.
- Work with a marketing specialist to analyze the success of your current external marketing systems and track where your high-quality new patients are coming from.
- Use a call tracking system to be sure your phone calls are being answered and new patient callers are scheduling.
- What percentage of the open time is unscheduled vs. cancellations or no-shows? Is your confirmation process working?
If your schedule is jam-packed, you have a challenge of abundance. It’s a good problem to have, but it can be very frustrating. When you have more patients than you can handle, appointment times tend to get shortened, which results in less treatment enrolled and fewer adjunct services. Also, when there are no appointments reserved for perio therapy, often it just doesn’t happen.
What we often see is when hygienists can’t get patients in for perio treatment for 2-3 months it greatly diminishes their desire to present treatment. And so a cycle of “perio prophies” begins… but that’s a topic in and of itself. Again, with this situation you may be very busy, but you may not have the time to deliver the best treatment and hygiene may not be reaching their production goals.
If you find yourself in this situation, here are some solutions:
- Add more hygiene hours.
- If you’re already at maximum capacity, look for creative ways to utilize your current facility. This may be adding early morning or evening hours.
- It may be time to consider assisted hygiene with a highly-skilled dental assistant.
- Take a good look at the quality of each patient and their commitment to your practice. Perhaps you decide not to pre-appoint those patients that have a habit of cancelling at the last minute or not showing up-be sure you’re tracking this information.
Take time to sketch out your ideal hygiene day, including the procedures and production you’d like to see. It’s exciting to see what’s possible when you get your schedule into balance.
Obstacle #2 There Are No Systems
Recently, I was discussing a client with one of our coaches. Based on their hygiene analysis, we expected to find a hygiene team that was not performing a complete perio exam on every patient and was not aware of each patient’s condition. During the in-office observation, the coach realized this was not the case.
This team was doing a fabulous job with calling out the perio numbers and recording each number on the chart along with bleeding points, recession and furcation involvement. They had even identified at what point they would recommend some form of periodontal therapy. But that’s where they hit their biggest obstacle. There was no system.
Although it seems intuitive to some of us, it is critical to have a clear system for:
- Distinguishing health vs. disease
- When to place patients into gingivitis and/or perio disease treatment
- How to present this treatment
- Clear fees and coding for perio therapy
- When and how to follow up on therapy
- What adjunctive products/services to use
- How to keep those patients in periodontal maintenance
This is especially true when there are multiple doctors and hygienists in the practice. Everyone must be on the same page and using the same system. What happens when we’re confused is we do nothing; we shut down. This is true for patients as well. When patients are confident and clear on both the problem and the solution, they say yes a lot more often!
The great news is that when we put a system in place for taking periodontal patients into active therapy and maintenance, this team skyrocketed. They already had a strong foundation in place. They didn’t have to start from scratch.
Here are a few signs that this is one of your obstacles:
- Low perio percentage, despite thorough periodontal exams
- Acceptance of perio treatment is low
- Not starting treatment until the disease has progressed to a moderate/advanced stage
- Few perio maintenance procedures
If this sounds familiar, sit down with your team and talk about it. Starting with a high-quality CE program and gaining more knowledge is a great place to start.
Obstacle #3- Old Beliefs and Negative Mindsets
Overcoming our old beliefs and assumptions is where real breakthroughs happen. A team that has an open mind to learning, growing, and trying new ways of doing things will have less stress and be much more fulfilled financially and emotionally than a team that is resistant to change.
When a team member is holding on to old beliefs that are not in line with what you’re asking them to do, there is often an internal struggle. And when there’s a struggle on the inside, there’s always a struggle on the outside. This may show up as resistance or reluctance to recommend a particular treatment or service, which may in turn, sabotage your efforts to grow the practice.
A few things to consider when asking the team to embrace change:
- When you’re implementing something new, be sure to take the time to get the team’s feedback and questions about the value of that service or product to the patients first. And really listen to what they have to say.
- Help the team develop a belief in the service BEFORE talking about it will affect production.
- Agree when this change will begin. It’s one thing to say “Yes, I believe that periodontal disease is a chronic, bacterial infection that has systemic effects for my patients” and quite another to be doing a complete diagnostic perio exam, presenting needed treatment, enrolling the patient and completing the therapy.
- Develop a plan for training. It’s imperative that the team has a chance to ‘practice’ presenting the service in a safe environment before rolling it out to patients. This preparation will develop the confidence they need to keep the efforts moving forward.
So before you throw in the towel with the latest service you’ve been working to add, take a close look at the obstacles that may be holding you back. Work with your team (or a coach) to identify them, clear them, and then get moving!
There is a free CD, “Top 10 Tips to Elevate your Hygiene Services, Systems and Profits” at www.InspiredHygiene.com. We’d love to share tips and strategies to help you empower your hygiene team to be their best.