How Workflow Technology Can Improve Dental Practice Performance

By Roger P. Levin, DDS

Like many fields, dentistry has been the beneficiary of new technological advances. In the past 15 years, tech and tools have improved and emerged, creating breakthroughs in clinical care and patient outcomes. At the same time, those technologies can be expensive and can increase practice overhead if dentists do not properly understand, plan for, and implement them.

The interface of technology and production

First, let’s establish the importance of practice production. In every industry, there is one metric that is deemed more important than any other. This primary metric often reveals more about the health of the business than any other data point.

In dentistry, this metric is production. Practices that have good-to-excellent production numbers will often be successful. Excellent production happens when dentists document the right step-by-step systems and train their teams on those systems with measurements for self-accountability. As production rises, it offsets overhead increases, which primarily include inflation and rising staffing costs. If overhead rises sufficiently, it negatively impacts a practice’s profitability.

Second, let’s consider how dentists can use technology to increase production. In most cases, if a piece of technology improves clinical quality, dentists should consider implementing it into their dental practice. However, if the investment would bring down the bottom line, dentists should not implement new technology at the risk of a decline in profitability. In my experience working with practices, the best workflow technology investments are those with a significant ROI that simultaneously increase practice profitability and doctor income.

When considering an investment in workflow technology, dentists need to take the following steps:

1. Develop a technology purchase plan. Dental practices that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on new technologies all at once will struggle to achieve their profitability goals because they will see a corresponding increase in expenses. The key is to develop a technology purchase timeline. For example, some tools make sense to buy together because they integrate well; you can purchase those tools first and wait to add other standalone systems to your practice. Remember: whatever technology you don’t have today has not prevented you from providing excellent dentistry up until this point and it won’t undermine your future capabilities either.

• Understand the audience for your new technology. When you purchase a new technology, you need to develop a defined usage plan. For example, digital radiography and digital impression (both increasingly more common) have straightforward utilization rates and are easy to estimate accurately. In those cases, the machine determines which patients will benefit from the technology, when you should use it, and how much time it will take to use it. However, other less common technologies (such as in-office milling) have utilization rates that are more difficult to assess. Your usage plan will help ensure that you are investing in technologies that you will use on the right patient demographics.

• Analyze the delegation potential of each technology. One of the great benefits of workflow technology today is increased efficiency for the doctor. Many steps that previously required doctor involvement can be performed by another team member. In one example, we spoke to a high-level, technology-oriented dentist who had reduced the need for his involvement in the steps for crown and bridge placement from 10 to four. While his staff members were handling the other six steps, the dentist was treating other patients in different rooms.

• Educate patients about new technologies or new services. In many cases, new technologies allow dental practices to add a new service, a powerful strategy to increase practice production. But this only works if your patients are aware of it; communication with your patient base is essential. At the Levin Group, we recommend sending a simple monthly email to your patients with a few paragraphs educating them on new developments in dental practice. In the email, you can include information about the addition of new technology or services and the benefits that patients will experience. Proactive communication about new tech will improve your brand image and give your practice a leading edge in the market.

• Increase the speed of procedures. While not all technologies help increase speed, the tools that do are extremely valuable. Keep in mind that time is finite, and as a practice owner, you must spend it as efficiently and effectively as possible. If you find the right technology that will save your practice between 10%–20% of the time on a certain procedure, you will have more bandwidth to increase production by treating other patients. When you add the delegation factor to the increased speed factor, you can see how practice production can grow significantly from the addition of certain new technologies. This is a great example of how innovative technologies allow for an increase in practice production. It is not the technology itself that produces more but the increased time that the dentist can devote to additional patient treatment.

The bottom line

Workflow technology is becoming more prominent and common in today’s dental practices. The key to offsetting technology’s increased investment and overhead is to increase practice production sufficiently. When dentists put the right strategies and planning in place, their teams will perform at a higher level, production will increase, and the practice will become easier to manage and more enjoyable.

ROGER P. LEVIN, DDS

Roger P. Levin, DDS, is the CEO and Founder of Levin Group, a leading practice management consulting firm that has worked with over 30,000 practices to increase production. A recognized expert on dental practice management and marketing, he has written 67 books and over 4,000 articles and regularly presents seminars in the U.S. and around the world. To contact Dr. Levin or to join the 40,000 dental professionals who receive his Practice Production Tip of the Day, visit www.levingroup.com or email rlevin@levingroup.com.