Imcisor Newsletter, by Alain Laroche
Business Intelligence for Dental Specialists
My chair is empty!
An empty chair is anathema to dentists. If there’s no patient in the seat, no money is being made. It’s that simple. Specialists will invest in a whole gamut of activities during the course of the year to ramp up business and ensure that they see a patient’s shadow every time they walk by a chair. They might, for example, update their website, use social media, organize one or several study clubs, advertise on radio, TV, or newspapers, or organize seminars. There you go! The goal is achieved and all chairs are busy.
I’m busy!
When talking to specialists, I will often ask them the following question: “Of the two or three educational activities that you carry out on a regular basis, which one provides you with the best return on your investment, or ROI?” Most practices do not know. What they do know, however, is that the orchestration of all these activities produces traffic. Perhaps we should call it a cacophony of activities, since not knowing the ROI for each and every one of them would appear to signal a distinct lack of orchestration. Be that as it may, most specialists will just look at the end result: the chair is full and I’m busy.
What if I were to quantify?
Being busy is certainly one way to look at it. Or you could push the envelope much further. What would happen if you were to quantify results behind your monetary and time investments? Well, for a start, you’d have a better understanding of your practice. Right now, you’re maybe performing three activities a year, year in and year out, and life is good. But what will happen during the next economic downturn? Because there will be one – there is always one at some point in time. If you know today what works best, then you can quickly adapt to new conditions, course-correct, improve and become more agile and efficient.
There is another reason why you should be looking at understanding your ROI. If you are a specialist, there are some activities that referring dentists, hygienists and assistants respond better to. Why is that? Is it because they are simply more interesting to them? Imagine that while orchestrating three different activities you find out that only one produces more traffic, that perhaps only one was truly helping the team grow and develop? You would most likely stop the other two, or re-configure them to address the current needs of your participants. Your money would be working harder for you and you would become more efficient.
Your patients will benefit as well.
In a scenario where all activities are working together as a finely tuned orchestra, each member will appreciate learning new ideas and further developing their skills. Throughout this process, patients will encounter dental professionals who are better equipped to answer their questions, to prepare them for the next treatment plan and to execute it. Measuring your ROI is not just about efficiencies and business, it is also about the higher quality of care, the mechanical and aesthetic outcomes that you, the general dentist and his team provide each patient day after day. Once the treatment plan is completed, the patient will have his own ROI definition of his latest experience, perhaps I should coin it the “ROP” for “Return on Patient”, where he will give you either a thumbs up or a thumbs down. In the end, you are the conductor and you play a key role in orchestrating education activities in a way that best benefits your patients.
Alain Laroche is CEO and co-founder of Imcisor. He has many years of management experience in the health care and dental industries in North America and Europe.