DR. ACE GOERIG
OWNER & CO-FOUNDER
Last week, users of streaming music services were given their annual music analysis in the form of Spotify’s “Wrapped” and Apple Music “Replay”. These annual events reveal your music experience and highlights for the year, such as your most-played artists and interesting statistics about your music patterns like the total number of songs played.
In the same way, the end of the year is the perfect time to do some analysis on your practice experience and patterns for the year. Here are 5 questions that every endodontist should answer:
How many root canals?
In my experience, most endodontists don’t really know how many root canals they do. When I ask them, they often guesstimate, usually on the high side. It’s easy to spot guesstimates because practice revenues don’t match. However, your software procedure analysis report can produce accurate numbers for you.
The number of root canals that a doctor performs tells us a lot about a practice, including the doctor’s clinical efficiency, the approach to teamwork and scheduling, strength of the referral base, and effectiveness of marketing.
How many days worked?
The next key performance indicator for a practice is the number of days the doctor works in the year. What this actually reveals is the number of days the doctor is NOT working, which is especially important.
Endodontics is a mentally and physically demanding profession. From a purely professional perspective, doctors need to have rest and rejuvenation in order to function effectively each day in the office. That’s essential for a long and productive career without burnout. From a personal perspective, doctors should have a great lifestyle with lots of time off to enjoy their family, take vacations and generally be happy balanced people.
Combining the number of root canals and number of days worked, you can also calculate the average number of root canals you complete per day. This is a number that should be increasing from year to year until you find the sweet spot that fully reflects your clinical experience, optimal clinical efficiency, team effectiveness, scheduling and marketing. It’s important to remember that increasing the average number of root canals completed per day by just one more can add over $200,000 to your annual bottom line.
Was there any short or long-term financial stress?
Endodontic practices are also a business, and the primary function of any business is to be profitable and supply an income for the owner. Considering that, whenever you experience financial stress, it’s a sign that the business is falling short of your needs and goals.
There isn’t a level of income that is “right” for everyone. It’s very personal and individual, so your annual assessment should be asking whether your practice is achieving the right level for you. Financial stress such as cashflow troubles, stress around any kind of debt, or the feeling you don’t have enough income to achieve your long-term goals are obvious signs that the practice needs to become more profitable. Endodontics is an incredibly rewarding profession and most doctors under-achieve financially compared to the opportunities they have.
Changes in your referral base?
The next key factor you should be looking at is what is happening with your referral base. Did you add new referrers this year? Did you lose any referrers this year? If you lost them, what was the reason? For example, a doctor in his fifties might find that some referrers who have been with them all along are starting to retire around them. As those GPs sell their practices, there needs to be a strategy in place to ensure the new GP continues to refer to the endodontist.
Most of all, you want to look for downturns or signs of stagnation in your referral base. That goes for the referral base as a whole, as well as for each individual GP relationship. Go through your list, look at each GP and their referral history this year, and ask yourself if anything has changed.
Top 5 practice issues?
Finally, as a year-end wrap up, every endodontist should ask themselves what their top practice issues this year were. There can be a vast range of answers, from hiring challenges and team issues to daily annoyances or major concerns like outgrowing your facility.
From my perspective, most practice issues can be solved with growing the practice, improving teamwork and systems, and have the financial flexibility to devote to solving specific concerns. That’s the nature of good business management. The one thing that can’t be solved easily by good business management is whether you are having fun and enjoying the profession.
If “I’m not having fun” is on your list of issues, then you really need to create a vision for how endodontics CAN be fun for you. I love going to my practice every day, but I’ve also worked hard through the years to create my vision for endodontics and position the practice to support that vision. It’s one of my favorite things to help other endodontists find that path.
It’s time to set goals for next year
After doing your “wrapped” analysis, you’ll likely end up with at least a few things you want to improve next year. Now is the time to really put the effort into next year’s plan. Otherwise, soon it will be next summer, and nothing has changed. A great place to start a new journey is at my seminar, “Mastering the Effortless Endodontic Practice,” in January in Las Vegas. Start the year with new energy.
Another choice that I highly recommend for everyone, even if you think you have everything under control, is to set up a complimentary practice analysis with Debra Miller, Director of Coaching for Endo Mastery. Debra is amazing at helping you look at your practice and life from the top down, clarify your vision, and prioritize your path forward. I guarantee it’s the best hour of free advice that you can get in endodontics today.