Performance

KLAS Solutions dental practice performance plan program is a customized on-site coaching program for dentists and their teams.  

A Practice Health Assessment will determine the areas of the practice that require enhancing, and depending on the practices’ individual strengths, deficiencies or limitations, you will have access to a business coach, a hygiene coach, a team & leadership coach, and a clinical assistant coach.

Your unique and customized program will incorporate each of these dental practice coaches over the course of 12-18 months with interwoven visits, so you and your team have full dental systems support from each of your coaches.  Your goals and vision are factored into each coach’s performance visit. By coming on-site, we work only with your team rather than you attending an off-site classroom with other teams from different practices who may not share your same vision or experience your same challenges. We find off-site coaching lacks a personalization. In our program, we work at your practice, with your team, with your equipment, with your computer and focus entirely on your specific goals. We will help your team in any area they are struggling with and incorporate team building exercises throughout the program.

We are all aware that communication is paramount in every practice for the health of the business and the health of the patient. As professionals, we don’t have time for drama or miscommunication as our focus must be on the patient. We are in the health industry and our patients deserve to trust us and know they are getting our individual attention.

Performance is a process.

Operating a dental practice doesn’t have to be difficult. Our coaches have over 300 years of combined experience. Our experience will help guide you in avoiding mistakes and attaining more success. Your Performance Program will cut to the chase and provide the action necessary to assist your dental practice in accomplishing your goals. Your program is all-inclusive so there are no extra costs or surprises.  It's time to stop guessing and using trial and error strategies. We want you to be 100% confident in the decisions you make moving forward and how they impact your practice! Athletes get professional coaches. People looking to lose weight get professional coaches. Professional coaches are essential to help you shorten the learning curve and give you the confidence and tools you need to succeed. We will help you assess the situation, diagnose the problem, plan for enhancement, implement the change, then monitor and evaluate just as you would with your patients’ oral health. Tap into our dental practice coach's years of experience!

Focus Area #1: Business

Most dentists are operating at a mile a minute. Phones are ringing, staff need to be managed, and running a dental practice has never been more challenging. Too many dental practitioners try to do it all themselves. They spend hours each day focused on business, staffing or operational issues, and carry all the pressures and responsibilities of both the administrative functions and the patient care. 

Get a Practice Health Assessment

Before you can begin to overhaul your management, it’s essential to know what’s actually going on in your practice. A Practice Health Assessment doesn’t aim to point out what’s wrong, but to identify opportunities for growth as well as areas where you can improve either productivity, profitability, or both.

A Practice Health Assessment performed by a dedicated dental business coach examines your goals and vision for your practice in the short- and long-term. We will review your team’s dynamics and identify areas for enhancement through confidential interviews with your key employees. In addition, we'll analyze your patient database and demographics, review your marketing plans, and look for new ways to add value for your patients. We'll provide you with a detailed report and review it with you personally to guide you through what we recommend.

Devise a Business Strategy

After conducting the assessment, the aim of our dental practice coaching services is to help you devise a comprehensive business strategy. This is customized to address the individual needs of your practice, including:

• planning for increased capacity
• extending your exposure in a particular target market
• focusing on a specific service niche

A qualified dental business coach will be available to advise you, keep you updated on market trends, industry developments, and to help you identify and optimize your most lucrative services. 

Develop Leadership Abilities

Many dentists are excellent practitioners but fall short of having the strong leadership abilities required to manage a successful practice. No matter how good your chair-side manner is, if you can’t motivate your staff to deliver their very best performance, you’re unlikely to operate at maximum capacity.

With effective dental practice coaching services, mentored by a dedicated and experienced dental business coach, you can ensure all your senior employees get the instruction they need to improve their staff management capabilities. Better management enables you to attract more talented workers, and ultimately benefits both the practice and the patients. 

Train Your Staff

Just as you want success in your career, so too do your employees want to be successful. Research shows dental practices can typically enhance their patients’ experiences and improve staff performance by upgrading their training programs. Whether you train your workers personally or make use of external instructors, our dental practice coaching will equip you to make the most of your employees’ strengths and abilities. 

Measure Results

Knowing how well your practice performs against your objectives is critical for future improvement, but many dental practitioners don’t have measurement criteria in place. Our dental coaches are knowledgeable in this area, and will help you develop metrics by which to gauge your practice’s performance. With regular data available, you’ll be able to make informed decisions about your patients, your services and your operations that will increase the success of your business.

We are referred to by our clients as one of the best dental coaching firms in the country, with a dedicated and experienced team of professional dental practice coaches. We welcome you to schedule a free appointment today to identify your practice’s critical business needs and determine whether dental business coaching services will be the right choice for you.

Focus Area #2: Hygiene/Clinical

What are the most important characteristics of an excellent dental assistant?

A competent dental assistant can greatly increase the efficiency of the dentist in the care that is being delivered and is considered an invaluable member of the dental team. They must have strong communication skills and enjoy working with their hands as well as their minds. The duties of a dental assistant are among the most comprehensive and varied in the dental office, performing many tasks, requiring both interpersonal and technical skills and sometimes all at the same time.

The dental assistant becomes a critical link between the patient and the dentist before, during, and after treatment. The dental assistant’s ability to anticipate the needs of the dentist in any procedure, and to act upon them promptly, is also an important factor. This allows the practice to increase its speed in treating patients effectively and efficiently, without compromising the quality of care.

4 key qualities of an excellent dental assistant are:

• Well Organized - Being organized will make everyday tasks more efficient and effective with less stress. It is not easy to juggle multiple tasks at once, however it is essential to being an excellent dental assistant. KLAS Solutions has developed unique dental assistant training techniques to help train and support in this area.
• Social Skills - Dental assistants need to be comfortable speaking face to face with every patient throughout the day. Educating the patient on their oral health needs is essential to patient care. Being personable and delivering information in an educated manner, to sometimes anxious patients, is a very important quality that relates to the success of case acceptance.
• Attention to Detail - This would include focusing on the appearance of your workspace, proper documentation, maintaining the sterilization area and equipment, properly setting up treatment rooms for daily procedures. Nothing is more frustrating to a doctor than sitting down to start a procedure and not having the proper equipment. Proper dental assistant training will help you plan ahead so that you can succeed in your role. 
• Professional Approach - The goal is to deliver a high quality experience to all our patients. When that approach is instituted by the practice, we all win. When a practice embraces professionalism, the perceived value by the patient is elevated. This experience starts from the exact moment we welcome our patient to the treatment room to the moment we escort the patient back to the administrative team. A patient is judging how this process is handled. Your patient will determine if your practice seems to run smoothly or if things seem to be unorganized. Our dental assistant training is on site so that we can clearly understand the practice flow. KLAS Solutions dental coaches will provide the skills and systems to support an effective assistant program.

Dental assistants have varied responsibilities and are paramount to the success of the doctor and the office.  We want assistants to love their profession.  Our dental assistant training increases their knowledge through education, hands on experience and involvement with a professional organization.

Hygiene Program

Your dental hygiene team is the heartbeat of your dental practice and one of the most important services you offer to your patients. Investing in quality dental hygiene coaching for your team can make the difference between mediocre and exceptional perio programs.

At KLAS Solutions, our goal is that no patient with gum disease is left untreated and achieving this requires hygiene systems and additional skill development beyond the basics of tooth cleaning.

The Hygienist-Patient Relationship

The relationship between a dental hygienist and their patient is an intimate one. Patients may see their hygienist just a few times each year, but the relationship is built on trust. Multiple studies exist that verify the importance of dental/patient relationships, and while most focus on chairside manner, a number of these also highlight the importance of communication. With expert dental hygiene coaching, your hygienists can learn to make eye contact, take a personal interest, and provide a warm and welcoming environment for each patient.

Increasing Case Acceptance

Dental hygiene coaching will empower your dental team to increase treatment plan and case acceptance, by training them to:

• Present a routine, six-point periodontal probing to the patient, and emphasize the importance of this step
• Introduce the use of cutting-edge technology and therapeutic treatments such as Arestin, the use of intra-oral cameras, and oral ID
• Guide patients to make independent health decisions, without basing their dental health solely on their dental insurance benefits

By attending our hygiene programs or inviting us to your practice location to train your team, your patients will be better able to understand their risks for periodontal disease and its relationship to their overall health. By establishing consistent and effective educational protocols with patients, you can ensure patents have the confidence, trust and motivation to accept recommended treatments.

Presenting a United Front

Training in the methods of effective perio programs enables your hygienists to play a vital role in case presentation and acceptance. Hygienists are adequately qualified to pre-diagnose decay, spot signs of periodontal disease and recognize failing restorations. They also can recommend exploring other interventions like sleep apnea treatments and cosmetic dentistry.

In addition to generating their own work, hygienists can play a vital role in filling the dentist’s schedule with high-level care. Active co-diagnosis for perio and restorative procedures make a dentist’s job easier and less stressful. This allows the dentist to focus on a high level of client and clinical care.

We coach your team to “prompt the doctor” when they enter the room and to report their conversation with the patient in the patient’s presence to encourage “patient overhear.” This presents a united front that promotes trust in your practice. Psychologists have proved that the more times a patient hears the results of their exam, the more likely they are to accept a proposed treatment plan.

Reasons to Implement Dental Hygiene Coaching

Your hygienists are expected to provide excellent care, while at the same time generating a profit for the practice. The production from a well-run and competent hygiene department contributes enormously to the financial success of your dental office.

Some benefits of coaching include providing hygiene teams the confidence to:

• Enhance their capabilities in perio-diagnosis, enrollment in a perio program and hygiene systems
• Increase their role in the diagnosis and implementation of restorative and other supportive therapies
• Develop their ability to keep patients active in recare

Time management is an issue many hygienists struggle with, which can result in reduced productivity, running over on appointments and dismissing patients too early. Coaching will help your hygiene team to optimize their methods of working to ensure none of these occur.

Optimization of resources is another pain point for many perio programs, but by investing in coaching for your team you can both reduce operating costs and improve service delivery.

Improving Your Returns

Dental practices that implement coaching for their perio programs typically enjoy a substantial increase in their monthly hygiene production. Our training provides you a path to more efficient hygiene-dentist exams, increased restorative treatment revenue, enhanced awareness and improving your patients’ health through quality dental care.

It’s not just your hygienists who benefit from dental hygiene coaching, but your entire team can improve their understanding of what causes periodontal diseases, personalized treatment options, the consequences of non-treatment, and patient values and motivation.

Get your entire team on the same page, improve their communication skills and foster common values around preventive and therapeutic hygiene care. Your hygiene team has the potential to be the backbone of your practice by building longstanding relationships with patients and helping them to say yes to treatments that will benefit them.

Generating Ongoing Improvements

Hygienists who recognize their employer is investing in them are far more likely to be engaged and motivated to continually improve their skills and performance. This results in increased revenue, improved patient health, more referrals, better time management, and less stress overall. A timely investment in dental hygiene coaching could pay big returns for the patients, the hygienists and your practice.

We deliver coaching services for hygiene systems all across the United States. To learn more about our programs, please contact us.

Focus Area #3: Team & Leadership

Strong leaders ask for help when they need it.

Effective leadership is essential to every dental practice. You don’t have to be born with leadership skills. However, with proper training you can learn to become an effective leader. After completing a comprehensive dental team and leadership program, you will be equipped to connect better with your patients as well as your own team.

What is effective leadership?

Becoming an effective business leader requires you to have a clear vision for the future of the practice based on guiding principles or core values. Often, it takes years to develop leadership skills, but many people fast-track the process through training methods, such as our dental team and leadership program.

Effective business leaders typically display a number of common personality traits, which include:

• Self-awareness - which enables you to understand your own strengths and weaknesses
• Decisiveness - the ability to make sound decisions quickly
• Fairness - processes for handling internal issues in a way that’s equitable for everyone
• Enthusiasm - inspires your team to follow your example
• Integrity - earn the respect of your team without having to remind them of your seniority

A strong leader is open to feedback from team members. They recognize those who do good work and they create an environment in which people have the chance to grow.

This empowers your team, creating an ownership mentality that responds better to leadership than it does to micro-management. Catching your team living your core values contributes to a behavior change for team members wanting to do things the same way.

Building a Strong Dental Practice Team

Building a strong and focused practice works best when employees all have a team mentality, which requires each person to fill a necessary role that contributes to the long-term goals of the doctor, the business and the individual. Communication, which is an essential element for achieving this, is comprised of words, body language and tone of voice. The words you choose, the movements you make and the tone of voice you select can all contribute to miscommunications when interpreted by a listener.

Every team is a collection of different, unique personalities who are required to interact with each other regardless of strengths and weaknesses. During the dental team and leadership program, our coach will train your team to identify the different personalities within your practice and provide support for team collaboration.

Training in Communication Skills

At KLAS Solutions, we teach a variety of personality profile systems. This allows you to work better with both patients and your team members. Using a uniquely tailored approach for each audience, our dental team and leadership program equips your entire team to confidently use these communication skills. This helps to promote:

• An environment that promotes less conflict and more collaboration
• Reduced stress and increased motivation
• Better teamwork within the practice

For example, starting the day with an efficient morning “huddle” is an important communication strategy we recommend. During the huddle, you and your team review the patients scheduled for that day, their health history, any outstanding balances, and reminders of patients overdue for hygiene services.

This ensures every team member is on the same page and no one is uniformed. The training enhances the professionalism of your practice and improves the patients’ trust in your capabilities.

Monthly team meetings are a critical element for internal communication, but only if they are effective. If your meetings have become or are becoming sessions to complain, our training modules can help you learn to structure your meetings in a way that enables the team to brainstorm solutions for the practice.

Become a better business by providing the leadership your team requires and helping them to shape their own future—and yours! Discover how KLAS Solutions offers a truly customized approach to managing a successful dental practice. Contact us for details of our dental team and leadership program.