The Dreaded Request

We have all experienced this. “Doctor – could I speak with you for a few minutes at the end of the day?” A valuable and talented team member wants to tell you something in private. Nothing good can happen from this! And sure enough, you find out that because a husband got a promotion, or a new grandchild is being born to a single mom four states away, or an elderly parent needs a caregiver, this great employee – one of the cornerstones of your dental practice – is leaving town.

As I have written many times before, in my experience, the most difficult challenge in dentistry – or any business for that matter – is to keep intact a quality, loyal, caring, and customer service oriented team. All these moving parts running seamlessly and effectively is the engine that powers a successful organization. So even though this soon to be departing staff member has graciously agreed to stay on for three weeks before leaving, it is very possible that her replacement will not have been identified and hired. Thus all of her knowledge and experience and special systems will not be able to be transferred.

Over the years, I have found that an effective solution to this situation is to create a video training manual for every position in the practice. I think it is most beneficial for the front desk. Doctors are able to train dental assistants and hygienists fairly easily because they work closely together in the back/clinical side of the office. But doctors are often quite uninformed about the intricacies of what is supposed to happen on the administrative end.

So let’s make a video in front of the computer showing how to begin the day, how to close the day, how to interact with a Patient Activator or Demand Force dashboard, how to post payments from a big insurance check, how to calculate insurance write offs, how to make adjustments, how to back up data, how to make financial arrangements on treatment plans, how to follow up on overdue insurance payments, how to print out daily/weekly/ monthly reports, etc, etc. The list is extensive to say the least. When that next front desk person is hired, I think that you can see how much easier it will be to get her up to speed on how all of  these various functions are performed in your office. No guess work – just watch to learn exactly how to perform each and every task. The same principles can be utilized for clinical jobs as well.

I also strongly suggest that when you have to contract and absorb the expense for a full day of training for new updates and improvements for your Eaglesoft or Dentrix or Practiceworks management software, that you videotape the entire presentation.

This process of video taping should not be misconstrued as a threat to anyone’s job. We hope that our great staff members will stay on forever. But life is complicated – we live in an increasing mobile society – so it is a wise and prudent business strategy to be prepared for the worst.