Get Your Group On The Same Page With Practice Intelligence

3 tips to help you break down silos that hinder growth

One of the things that holds group practices back from achieving the level of success they desire is being plagued by the silo mentality. It’s a common problem that affects all types of business, and group dental practices aren’t immune.

Different departments compile different reports that only look at information from their perspective (i.e. marketing and number of leads). The bigger picture is seeing how many new-patient inquiries are being generated, how many are accepting treatment plans, how much production has been generated from these patients, and finally, how many are scheduled for future appointments. This is how you get a full 360-degree view of all operational aspects of the practice.

One of the key ways to achieve this is to ensure dental teams (executives, practice managers, marketing consultants, etc.) have access to clear and concise data that supports business decision-making, marketing planning, and delivering a consistent message and patient experience – organization-wide.

In a recent article by Chris Salierno, chief editor of Dental Economics, he goes into depth about how silos can “cause friction” for group practices and dental service organizations. In his concluding statement, Salierno shares this valuable nugget of wisdom:

“DSOs and group practice management will clearly benefit from overseeing multiple practices that are able to freely share information in the same format. Indeed, those practices will be able to work together more cooperatively if they speak the same language. Now, go and find your silos (both obvious and hidden) and bust them down to the ground.”

That brings us to practice intelligence and how it can get all the key players at your group practice seeing eye to eye.

What is practice intelligence? In short, practice intelligence tells the story of what’s happening – behind the scenes – at your group practice, both throughout the organization and each individual office. Without getting bogged down on technical details, this technology connects to your practice management software to bring all your top metrics and trends to light. You know it’s accurate because it’s coming straight from your offices.

One of the challenges group practices have is their data usually comes from disparate sources. A sophisticated tool brings this information together in one central location and presents it in an easy-to-digest format by you and your team members, regardless of geographic location. This is far more efficient than trying to gather – and make sense of – reports from multiple sources. And it’s this high-level view practice managers and executives need to see to pinpoint areas in need of improvement.

Examples Of How Advanced Practice Intelligence Breaks Down Silos For Group Practices

To stick with the theme of this blog, I’ve put together a list of five examples of how a sophisticated practice intelligence tool makes it easy to pinpoint gaps in your operations as well as see where your teams are thriving.

Take a close look. I’m confident you’ll quickly discover the value of connecting to practice intelligence.

1. Improve Patient Acquisition And Retention Efforts

What’s the percentage of patients you have scheduled for a future appointment at each one of your offices? What’s the average annual value of those patients? What about the net gain and loss of patients? You may think one of your offices is having a fantastic year because you’ve gained a thousand new patients… but what if you’ve lost more than that? Do you have the answer?

Many practices are shocked to discover this is their reality. It could be happening because of perceived indifference – the patient’s belief that the practice isn’t doing enough for them and doesn’t care – or a combination of reasons. But as soon as it’s spotted, the appropriate players can find out why and develop a retention strategy and implement it to reduce the number of patients slipping out the back door.
The percentage of patients scheduled stat measures how many patients are connected to your practice at this moment. In other words, it’s the backbone of retention. Top group practices schedule at least 80% of their patient base, according to data we’ve gathered.

2. Call Conversion Says Everything About Your Front Desk

Are all your offices answering at least 90% of inbound patient calls and converting more than 75% of those calls? Those are the all-star numbers you want to achieve – across the board – in order to be amongst the top 10% of all dental practices we work with.

Once again, practice intelligence brings that information to the forefront in one easy to scan summary. Immediately you can see which offices are struggling to convert new patient inquiries into appointments. From there, your team can get a full list of metrics that show how individual call handlers are performing. Then, these team members can be offered phone training to help them get more new patients into the practice, as well as schedule more future appointments and provide the exceptional customer service needed to improve patient loyalty.

Understanding how well your team is doing at handling new patient inquiries and where they struggle will allow you to improve your new patient experience and your bottom line. After all, each new patient you don’t get is a loss of $700-$1,250 in the first year. And it takes 24-50 new patients per month to achieve sustainable growth. You just can’t miss out on these precious opportunities.

3. Discover Your Digital Presence Analytics And Adjust Online Strategies When Needed

Tap into how many new website visits your practices are getting, the average length of time spent on each site, and even how many online reviews are being generated. From there, you can drill down further to analyze how specific pages are performing, where visits are coming from, and how top keywords are performing in comparison to the competition.

If you notice that certain sites are underperforming, you’ll find great value in these metrics. Are any sites missing key information (i.e. calls to action, keywords, services details)? Is there an airtight SEO strategy in place to get sites to rank high on Google? Are all business listing up to date, including the Google My Business page, for each office? If you’re investing in driving traffic to these sites with direct mail or other print marketing, you’ll want to optimize every website for the best results.

These are just some of the important questions to consider when poring over your digital data.

Conclusion

A practice intelligence tool that brings all this information and more to the surface will not only help eliminate perilous silos but improve harmony throughout your organization. You want everyone working together efficiently and with the bigger picture in mind. It’s what will boost profits, production, and group practice growth.

Practice ZEBRA™ makes it possible to get on the right track. The group practices I work with are using this technology to their advantage to track everything related to marketing and practice performance.

I want to connect your group practice to this game-changing tool and partner with you to make 2020 a year for the record books.
A FREE demo is now available! You can reach me by phone at 888-377-2404.

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