DR. ACE GOERIG
OWNER & CO-FOUNDER
Endodontics is one of those businesses where you generally can’t “make money while you sleep.” You can have associates sometimes, but for most endodontists their income is directly tied to their time spent in the office treating patients.
When you are in the office and you have open time in your schedule, that is a direct hit on your bottom line. An unfilled appointment doesn’t change your fixed expenses and has a very small effect on your variable expenses, all of which must be paid before you can pay yourself. So open time equals lost fees, and easily over 90% of lost fees equals lost income.
Obvious open time
“Obvious” open time is what everyone on the team usually pays attention to. It’s the schedule gaps between patients where you could easily complete another root canal, but there is no patient scheduled. It’s easy to see, and relatively easy to determine what it is costing you.
Assume you work 180 days per year and the average root canal fee is $1250. If you have 1 open appointment every day, then you’re missing out on $225,000 in annual revenues and more than $200,000 in personal income.
That’s a cost worth doing something about. Investing in a proper marketing strategy to ensure enough referrals come in to fill the gaps will pay for itself repeatedly.
Hidden open time
“Hidden” open time is what most doctors and team members don’t notice. It is the fluff and filler in patient appointments that doctors occupy themselves with. I often refer to it as “piddledontics”, which are inefficient and time-consuming diagnostic and treatment flows, and tasks the doctor persists in doing that would otherwise be delegated to dental assistants if the doctor was busier.
When Endo Mastery begins coaching with new clients, one of the first things we do is a time analysis of treatment appointments. Specifically, we are looking for time factors where the doctor has an inefficient clinical flow when benchmarked against other doctors. We also look for what the doctor is doing that could be done by dental assistants.
Based on our analysis, most doctors sabotage their time, with 30% or more of each day that could be freed up for more treatment appointments if scheduling, teamwork and treatment flows were improved.
That’s a huge gap which is effectively “open time” but feels like productive time because the doctor is being busy indiscriminately. Because these patterns of time usage become habitual, eventually they limit or hamper productivity and growth.
Adding up the impact of under-utilized time
I have yet to meet any endodontist who could not add 1 case per day if obvious and hidden open time were better controlled. That’s a $200,000 annual benefit available to anyone without exception.
Most doctors can easily add 2 cases per day by improving marketing and realigning the clinical team to prioritize efficiency for the doctor. Because efficiency is elevated and unnecessary tasks delegated, doctors are typically surprised that they are completing more cases per day with less stress … while adding over $400k to their annual personal income.
Some coaching clients build on this foundation and become highly motivated to grow. Depending on their starting point, it is possible to add 3 or 4 cases more per day, which generates a life-changing increase in income, and creates the flexibility to devote more time to family and outside interests.
Choosing where you focus
High performing practices are not high stress practices. In fact, the opposite is true. Because they have invested in improving and streamlining teamwork and systems, high performing practices are an inevitable by-product when you have a highly efficient doctor and team that is focused on the key drivers of schedule utilization and productivity.