Category: Uncategorized

Bathroom Closed! Please use facility in the back… I want to put this in context. Last Friday afternoon the main bathroom for patients was stuffed with toilet paper. Instead of reporting this to management this is the sign that went up. This is very frustrating because this comes of as employees who don’t care. But the employees do care, why didn’t they report this to management for management to follow-through, and either unclog the bathroom or call the plumber. Maybe the answer is that employees just do what easy… they put up a sign and feel like their obligation is over. Unfortunately this behavior spills over into all other matter at work: patient care, labs, etc… What is the right way to handle this? How do we break the culture of laziness and not following through? I don’t have the answer. Their are two approaches: positive reinforcement or negative. We chose to take the positive route and let everyone know that management is always their for them even for things such as this. Hopefully, this will never happen again…

In the last 3 years I have done very little work in the private dental field. I have been mostly working in a Primary Care Medical Practice: Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. With this said, I still consider human resources and many managerial aspects to be the same. Certainly, both are considered small businesses.

I think its crucial for Dentist to observe the private medical practice sector. Typically it is a precursor to what will happen to the dental field. For instance, private dental offices are becoming less and less.

Corporations are now assuming control and running their chains and/or franchises. They have an easier time because of their negotiating power do to patient size, and utilization of resources. There cost is less because as just stated vendors are willing to offer better rates for larger volume. Second, it is all about how many active patients you have on your roster, not necessarily how much each patient brings into your practice. The value is in the patient not in how much you are getting paid. Why is this a fact? Because, to different entities your patient is valued differently based on how they operate.

Example:

Lets say you are a Medicaid dental practice and for each preventive visit, which includes: cleaning, exam and x-rays you are getting paid ~$70.00. For a Federally Qualified Health Clinic (FQHC) the reimbursement will be roughly 2.5x as much. This means that if your practice is worth $1 million dollars to a prospective FQHC you may be worth closer to $2 million. The value is in the patient and your active roster not your reimbursement rate.

Ofcourse if you are selling your practice to another dentist than it is what it is. Unless, he/she has the ability to negotiate better rates with the Managed Medicaids.

In conclusion, grow your patient base as much as possible and as long as you are solvable keep on growing. Dont focus as much on dollar per patient.