Not a single day goes by that I don’t receive an e-mail or a pop up ad or some direct solicitation about how to find more new patients. Webinars abound on this singular topic. Everyone thinks that he or she has the right answer–the magic bullet–that is going to get your telephone ringing off the hook.

• Postcard campaigns mailed to 10,000 of your nearest and dearest friends in your neighborhood.

• Radio ads for sleep apnea.

• Master social media – in one hour, of course.

• Learn to be a public speaker and go out and give seminars in your  community.

• In bound marketing campaigns from your website.

The list is endless. The choices are considerable. We all want more new patients. This is ultimately driven by the recognition that the lifetime value of a patient is VERY significant–easily thousands and thousands of dollars. It is not the point of this post to evaluate the relative merits of these initiatives. If well executed, they might prove to be successful. But I think we can all agree that acting on these ideas requires a substantial investment of time and money with no guarantees on the return. How about trying something much easier and much more predictable?

With the experience afforded to me over the past 20+ years of management coaching to hundreds of practices, I routinely see an amazing statistic: 25 to 35% of patients who have been seen in the last 18 months do not have a scheduled continuing care appointment. In other words, there exists a fairly large practice within your practice with whom you’ve lost contact. These patients have not sent you a letter asking for their records to be sent to another office. They have simply fallen off the wagon.

Please read this article that I published many years ago that gives specific details on how to conduct a reactivation campaign. The financial rewards of reconnecting with patients with whom you already have an existing relationship will usually far outweigh the costs and energy required to market your practice to attract someone new. As my friend Spencer Peller of Yestrak recently wrote, “we encourage business owners to maximize existing relationships first before looking to create new ones. It’s not that we don’t like marketing that attracts new customers – quite to the contrary, we LOVE marketing. However, spending money on costly advertisements before making sure the existing base is happy (and referring others) is a mistake most business owners cannot afford to make.”

Allow me to introduce you to TempDaddy, a company started two years ago by Alex Adeli DMD, a dentist in the Boston area. TempDaddy is a platform that connects healthcare professionals – including assistants, hygienists, and front desk personnel – with dental practices for temporary staffing engagements. This company offers an automated solution that allows dental offices to find quality staff on very short notice.

The process is pretty amazing. TempDaddy is able to do this by supplying these professionals with a mobile app that allows them to instantly apply for jobs. That same app allows the dental office to review the qualifications of the applicant before they decide to hire the professional. This is a very attractive feature because the dental office controls the hiring process and not some staffing agency. According to the people I spoke with at TempDaddy, 80% of their assignments are filled either the same day or the next day.

The costs are very reasonable compared to other companies in the field. TempDaddy charges a 25% “connection fee” for every hour that the professional works via their platform. But a major and important distinguishing feature is that they do not charge any buy-out fees if an office wants to hire a professional on a permanent basis. The only stipulation is that the professional must work through the TempDaddy platform for a minimum of 40 hours before they can be moved over to the office payroll.

In doing research for this post, I Googled dental temporary staffing agencies and reviewed six or seven websites. I was completely unimpressed with how basic and elementary and dated they appeared. In direct contrast, the TempDaddy website is very 21st century – very interactive and easy to understand and navigate.

TempDaddy is now available in 10 states in the Northeast with plans to expand nationwide. Do yourself a favor and check out this company. You can call them at 888-714-1817. There is a lot to like!

I was thrilled to re-connect with Seth Josephs this past weekend at the Yankee Dental Congress. Seth is the co-founder of DPG (Dental Purchasing Group), a dental-specific group purchasing organization. DPG was created just a little under three years ago in order to leverage the purchasing power of a large number of practices to obtain discounts as well as unique benefits from vendors.

Today, DPG is primarily concentrated in New England with a membership of more than 400 dentists and over 20 preferred vendors. Seth told me that he is now providing services to 10 different states outside of New England with plans to continue expanding the reach of his company. The first 12 months are free. After that, there is an annual membership fee of $99.

DPG is not a buying club that inventories product and competes on price with the Shein’s and Patterson’s and Benco’s of the world. Instead, they offer significant discounts on products from companies that sell direct to dentists. For practices already purchasing from companies such as Ultradent (curing lights and whitening products like Opalescence), Komet (burs and diamonds – the original Brasseler), BioHorizons (implants and biologics), and W.B. Mason (office supplies), it has been an automatic win for them without having to change anything about how or from whom they purchase.

DPG members can also receive wholesale pricing on credit card processing services from Capital Bankcard. Savings using that company alone can often range from $100-$500 per month. According to Seth, he sees dental practices realizing annual savings of $1000-$5000 on lower levels of engagement (1-2 vendors) and up to $10,000-$30,000 of annualized savings for highly engaged practices (5 or more vendors).

To find out more information on how the plan works and the complete list of vendors, you can contact Seth directly at 978-609-4281 or visit the website. In all probability, you are now buying from some of these companies, so here is an easy opportunity to save real dollars