Limiting your potential (part 2)

Last week I wrote about limiting your potential by having insufficient or inadequate equipment.

There is another major limitation that I often see

That limitation is insufficient staff.

Think about it this way — the only time that a dentist can generate income is when they are treating patients.

When they are doing anything else no income is being produced.

Things such as filling in lab sheets, writing referrals, waiting for an operatory to be cleaned, pouring up models or setting up instruments.

What happens in the most efficient offices?

In really efficient offices all the delegatable tasks are given to the support staff and the dentist spends 90% or more of their time diagnosing and treating patients.

In inefficient offices, the dentist does a lot of delegatable tasks and may only spend 50% of their day or less actually working on patients.

Multiply your target hourly rate by the number of lost hours and you get an idea of how much being understaffed is costing you.

But, it’s not just about income…

The extra income from being fully staffed is nice but it is not the only benefit.

When everything else is taken care of and you, as the dentist, can focus all your energy on treating patients it has a wonderful freeing effect on the mind. It has to be experienced to be truly appreciated.

How many staff do you need?

Let’s talk about a single dentist practice.

If you have a full book and want to be really productive then the number is four — 2 chair-side nurses, one float nurse and a front desk person.

Does this seem like a lot?

It’s not really, when you see what a properly staffed dentist can produce in a day.

Some dentists complain how expensive staff are. I always reply that staff aren’t expensive — your time is expensive.

Have a great week.