DR. ACE GOERIG
OWNER & CO-FOUNDER DDS, MS, ABE Diplomate
Anything with a lot of components that must work together needs maintenance, service and eventually an overhaul. That’s true for your car and your home, and it’s especially true for your practice.
Unlike a car or house, which are just things, a practice is much more than the physical components you can see or touch. You have a team of people with specialized job roles who need to work together. You have resources and systems that support the work being done. You have policies, procedures and history that guide decisions and actions. And don’t forget patients and referrers, who interact with your environment and bring their own expectations.
Most doctors have a practice that is a hodgepodge of components put in place over the past 10 or 20 years. It’s like an old house that has been updated in some superficial areas but is showing its age in the structure or systems. The occasional coat of paint, replaced carpet, or new furniture doesn’t do anything to fix a cracked foundation, poor insulation or sagging roof.
Whether you have a house or a practice that is getting long in the tooth, it is easy to get used to it and to forgive its quirks and shortcomings if everything is still minimally functional. However, at a certain point, it starts costing you more and more.
Unlike a house with escalating breakdown and repair costs over time, the costs of shortcomings in an endodontic practice are usually hidden. How do you quantify the costs of ineffective marketing, clinical team inefficiency, communication lapses, or an outdated scheduling strategy? You are not writing checks for these costs; the revenues just aren’t coming in the first place.
Signs of needed renovations
When I speak with doctors, I generally listen for two key signs that they need to renovate their practice team and systems.
The first sign is revealed by their level of productivity. How many cases per day are they doing and what are their annual revenues? If they are sitting in that “average” range of 3 to 4 completed cases per day, I know there is a big disconnect in their practices. They are probably missing out on a quarter of a million dollars of revenue or more per year.
Whether they know it or not, their practice management systems are likely dominated by recycled versions of strategies first established 30 to 40 years ago when computers started filtering into practice administration. Endo has changed a lot since then.
The second sign I listen for is what is stressing them? Do they feel too busy or too idle? Do they feel the need to micro-manage, supervise and scrutinize every detail of every team member and their tasks each day? Are they staying late to work on management tasks or taking work home in the evening and on the weekends? Do they have persistent team issues or drama that drains them? Do they feel tired or worn out by the profession?
Stress like this tells me that a doctor isn’t managing their team to current levels and standards. Dated job roles and management approaches mean the doctor is spending far more time and energy than they should managing the team and practice. Modern team organization, delegation and accountability systems are needed.
Make 2025 your best year ever!
As we approach the end of the year and start anticipating the year ahead, it’s a good time to take stock of your practice. How did you do financially? What has changed with your team? Have your marketing efforts resulted in tangible growth? How have your practice, personal and family goals evolved?
No practice is perfect, but it’s important to recognize when your practice is actually holding you back, resisting growth, and working against your goals. The culprit is usually that hodgepodge of factors that individually seem harmless, but taken together are not working for you in a streamlined, highly effective way based on contemporary endodontic practice systems.
If you’d like to change that pattern, a powerful way to start your 2025 team and systems renovation is our 2-day seminar, “Mastering the Effortless Endodontic Practice”, in Las Vegas in January. Early bird tuition rates are still in effect for a limited time.
Join us!