Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Workflows for Maximum Efficiency

Carrie Weber:

Welcome to the Jameson Files. I’m your host, Carrie Weber, and it’s so great to be back with you as we have an amazing guest with us. Dana Johnson is with us today. Dana is a good friend of mine. We’ve known each other for several years now, right, Dana?

Dana Johnson:

Many, yes.

Dana Johnson and Novonee Consulting

Carrie Weber:

And you know when you’re all in the same realm in dentistry and in consulting and working with dental practices, you can’t help but become friends when you’re on the road speaking in consulting. For those of you that may not be familiar with Dana, Dana has a consulting company called Novonee. And Dana’s background is pretty incredible as a Dentrix trainer moving into consulting. Some of your accolades are Dentrix Trainer of the Year and Top 25 Women in Dentistry. So it’s a real honor to have you on as a guest. Dana, thank you so much for being with me.

Dana Johnson:

Well, thank you for having me. When you were talking about me being on the Jameson files when we were at Hinman, I’m like, oh my gosh, that sounds so fun. And I am super excited to share some experiences with all your audience.

Carrie Weber:

Yes. And you know, for those of you that are wondering, “What’s Novonee?” There are times when I’m talking with practices and their specific need is around getting team onboarded and utilizing Dentrix in a maximized way, and becoming more efficient, more effective in their work, especially in the business side of the practice with their practice management software. And boy, that’s when your name comes up a lot, Dana, because you excel in your expertise and in your ability to give instruction that’s not only helpful for the team to learn, but you also help them know how to apply it and implement it, which is the key. 

So that leads us to today’s conversation. Something that you’ve been talking about a little bit more and more recently is workflows and what that means in dental practices, what practices are struggling with. So as we step into that conversation, which I’m actually really excited about, I’d love to hear what’s led to this element of what you’re instructing and teaching practices. What is it that you’re finding in the dental practices today that has really put an emphasis on helping them build out workflows in the practice?

Why Proper Workflows are Important

Dana Johnson:

Yeah, thank you. There have been three layers that I’ve been noticing across our industry– new team members coming into dentistry for the very first time. I have several practices, and so do you, probably, with new team members who are coming from retail or they’re coming from medical or they’re coming from another industry and they have no idea how to work the front desk in a dental practice. And so a lot of times what happens is you hire this new team member and you kind of throw them out to the sharks with no training, no onboarding. And they’re wondering what to do. So these new team members are really looking for help. They’re looking for onboarding, they’re looking for training and that. So that’s the first layer I’m seeing a lot of.

And then we’re also seeing a lot of team members, whether they’re a dental assistant moving up to the front desk, or maybe somebody that started out as an amazing receptionist and now she’s being promoted to a treatment coordinator, and she’s asking, “What is this job supposed to do? Help me.” 

Then the third layer I’m seeing is a lot of doctors reaching out to me and really wanting to be more involved with what their team should be doing every day, every week, every month. They have no idea. They’re in the back treating patients, but they really want to have a more hands-on approach. And so I’ve been having a lot of doctors reach out to me saying, “What should the daily, weekly, monthly workflow even look like?” It’s been really, really great. And because I can help with all of that, it’s been really fun.

Carrie Weber:

I’m curious when you go into conversations about workflows, are there some specific ones that you see the most frequently non-existent in a practice. I always talk about when there’s a lack of intentionality, a lack of process, typically how that shows up in practices that are lacking systems, processes, workflows, is chaos. A lot of people throwing their own past experiences into the pot and just hoping it all works out. Where do you see it show up the most in the work that you do? A little bit of that accidental workflow or lack of workflows, so to speak. 

Dana Johnson:

I really see it showing up with a lot of frustration, a lot of feeling overwhelmed and stretched. I feel like a lot of people are reverting back to their old ways. This is how I used to do it. I’m just going to go back to this way. I’m going to pull out my three ring binder and start writing down patient names because I don’t know how to do it in the software. And so I’m just going to go backwards. But then I find that they’re spending an enormous amount of time, because anytime you have that manual system, it takes three times longer to do it. So team members are getting to the end of the day and they’ve worked eight hours and don’t feel like they’ve gotten anything done. Or they’re getting home late to their families and they’re frustrated. 

And so I feel like team members are at their wits end. They don’t know what to do, and so then they leave because they don’t know what else to do. They’re not getting the training and support that they really are asking for.

Carrie Weber:

Yes. Two out of the three main areas that you’re seeing these requests or needs for workflow training and clarification are in that onboarding process. Either hiring a brand new employee or bringing a person that’s on the team into a completely new role, which still demands training as if you’re onboarding them as a new employee because they’re entering into a whole new realm of the practice.

Dana Johnson:

Exactly. 

Using Practice Management Software to its Full Capabilities

Carrie Weber:

It’s interesting, I think you probably say this, too, especially when it comes to practice management software, or any of the software’s tools, technology, if we were to step into anybody’s practice, the likelihood is that they’re all only utilizing it at a fraction of the capabilities that that tool has for them to be efficient and successful.

Dana Johnson:

For sure. 15 to 20%. Most offices are only using about 15 to 20% of the software’s capabilities. 

Carrie Weber:

Wow! What are maybe one or two of the things that are huge missed opportunities that you see again and again for those 15 to 20% utilization practices?

Dana Johnson:

Definitely what I see is the operational side of the practice. I talk about that in the weekly workflow. That is keeping your schedule full and productive and keeping money in the bank. Those two things, being productive and collecting what you produce happens in that weekly workflow. Most teams that I go into work with, or do a practice assessment for, or I’m just having a discovery call with a doctor, most practices do not know the reports or the lists that they can generate out of their own practice management software to find patients that are unscheduled. They have post-IT notes all over their desks for their patients that want to come in sooner. 

I remember walking into an office in Alaska once, and on the backside of where you walk in, you have cabinets and stuff where all the office supplies are, and there were color coded post-it notes everywhere. And I’m like, “That’s beautiful. Tell me what that is.” And they said, “Those are all the patients that want to come in sooner.”

Well, you know you have an ASAP list for that, right? And so they just didn’t even know what the ASAP list was. So I see millions of dollars sitting on the treatment manager of patients that have unscheduled treatment and they just don’t know that these reports or these lists even exist. And so that’s where the 15 to 20% comes from. Because they just don’t know what they don’t know. 

Carrie Weber:

They’re barely using it for its scheduling functionality. They’re barely documenting what they need to have documented in there for each patient record. 

Dana Johnson:

I know.

Carrie Weber:

That’s something else that I thought about when you were talking about the chaos and the stress and the overwhelm. So many practices are living almost in a little bit of a digital purgatory. They want to go paperless or they want to be more digital. They want to maximize the tool, but like you said, they get overwhelmed and then they revert back to those old habits. And so they’re often doing both and end up with the inefficiencies of double work because, well, they put it in the computer, but then they write it down over here so that they have easy access, and we’re asking, “Why are you doing it twice?”

Dana Johnson:

I know. And I say, redundancy will kill you. 

Carrie Weber:

Oh, that’s good. Redundancy will kill you. And it’s a little bit of a case of we’ve always done it this way. This is the way so and so wants it done or whatever the case may be. But it’s almost like they haven’t fully embraced or fully believed in the tool to say that this is where we’re going to put it. This is how we’re going to do it, and so eliminate that extra work.

The Advantages of Proper Onboarding

Dana Johnson:

And what happens is, for example, that you have an outgoing office manager or treatment coordinator who is now training the new person coming in. So your outgoing office manager, she only uses 15 to 20% of the software. And now she’s training your new person. 

Carrie Weber:

So you’re just passing on the bad habits.

Dana Johnson:

Yeah. And so your new person now has learned 15 to 20% of what the software can do, but she’s only going to retain about 30%, because we know learning retention is only about 30% unless you have repetition and learning. So she’s only going to retain about 30% of what she’s taught. So now subtract out the 70% that she’s already forgotten. So then there’s just this dilution of knowledge because of the way that we’re training our teams.

Carrie Weber:

The dilution of knowledge. I hope everybody that’s watching or listening is understanding. When you teach a limited amount to a person and you pass that on, they’re only gonna retain a limited amount of the limited amount that you taught.

Dana Johnson:

Exactly. And that’s what’s happening in our industry, and it’s been happening for a long time, but I think we’re really starting to notice it now because of the high turnover that we’re seeing. I’ve been really immersing myself in these studies, and I read a study from this HR magazine company outside of dentistry. It wasn’t a dental study, it was a general HR study across businesses. And 40% of team members will leave within the first 90 days without proper training and team development. So you’re going to lose 40% of your team within the first 90 days if you don’t train them.

Carrie Weber:

I think it is one of the most commonly overlooked pieces of practice success. You and I both lecture across the country, and I ask this question quite often to audiences, “How many of you would confidently raise your hand when I ask you if you have a clear and intentional training and onboarding process for new employees into your practice?” Rarely do people raise their hands. And because they recognize they either were onboarded, more thrown into the fire, which is the cliff effect of onboarding team members where we’ve been without this position for so long, we’re just so stinking glad to have a warm body in the seat. And if they said they had dental experience on their resume, great. We don’t have to teach them anything. But we both know that that’s not true. If you want to keep any kind of consistency and cohesiveness in your systems, in your practice.

Dana Johnson:

Exactly. 

Four Keys to Daily Workflows for a Profitable Practice

Carrie Weber:

So when you talk about workflows, you talk about the weekly workflows that some of those operations pieces are part of. Tell me a little bit more about specific workflows you want practices giving attention to.

Dana Johnson:

So if we kind of back up a little, we start with the daily, I mean, every day, every single day there’s four things that I teach my teams. I think about the daily routine like the accounting process. This is what you need to do every day so that none of the production or collections is missed. 

Balance Your Day

And so the first thing is balance. Balance your day. I’m even shocked at how many people don’t run a day sheet every day. Balance every procedure. Is it in the clinical note? Is it assigned to the right provider? Did you post all the payments correctly to the right provider? What do the adjustments look like? So someone on the team needs to be filling that out, and sometimes you can delegate the day sheet. It’s called the day sheet in Dentrix. It could be something different in your software. Maybe the hygienist has their own day sheet they have to do every day and sign off on it. So the day sheet is number one. Within 24 hours of the data service, you have a balanced day sheet. 

Send out Your E-claims

And then as soon as you have a balanced day sheet, you can send your e-claims, and electronic claims go out within 24 hours of the data service. Period.

And a lot of team members are saying, well, I have to wait for my doctor to get the clinical notes done. And I’m like, well, then doctors that are listening get your clinical notes done, because you are not going to get paid for that crown or that implant placement until your clinical note is done, because that clinical note has to be attached to the claim. So if you’re sitting on your clinical notes for a week that’s a week longer that that money’s not sitting in your bank account.

Carrie Weber:

And let’s face it, how many of us are fresh on the memory train a week after we did something? We’ve all said that to ourselves. We have some notes jotted down over here, and we intend to put it in the system in a few days. And then we get to that point and we’re wondering, what did I mean by this? What was happening here? 

How many patients does that doctor see between this Monday and next Monday? And so we’re playing a little bit of roulette there hoping that we’re going to be as specific and clear as we need to be. And if you’re dependent upon that documentation for anything with your insurance networks those are key for you.

Dana Johnson:

For sure. And, you know, if you have good templates there’s no reason why that clinical note can’t be completed, at least the bones of the note. You may have to put some flesh on the bones later, but the bones of the notes should be completed before you walk your patient up to the front desk. If you have good clinical notes, there’s no reason why that can’t happen.

Carrie Weber:

So, Dana, you make it sound so simple. So why does it not get done?

Dana Johnson:

Exactly. I have no clue.

Carrie Weber:

You’re like, that’s why I’m in business.

Dana Johnson:

It’s simple. It is simple. I think that people just use the excuses that they’re busy, they don’t have time. They’ll do it later. And a lot of it is about time management, I think.

Carrie Weber:

Absolutely. Time management. And to your point, I think it’s the overwhelm when you don’t have systems in place, when you don’t have set workflows. You’re inconsistent.

Dana Johnson:

And then a lot of times when you don’t have systems and processes, you have to kind of think about, okay, what do I need to do next? How do I do that again? But when you’re consistent and you’re doing things the same every day, you know, you do these four things every single day, you get pretty darn good at it. You know, you become a master at something when you do something every single day consistently. So balance your day sheet, send your e-claims within 24 hours. 

Allocate Payments

The third thing is optional, but I do teach it to all my teams. And that is doing what’s called allocations. So you’re making sure that the payments have been allocated to the right provider. And there’s a system inside of Dentrix that makes it really easy to do that.

I always say that’s optional because not every office does that, but it’s part of my four things. 

Generate Billing Statements

And then the fourth thing that happens every single day is we generate billing statements every day. And some people look at me like,”What? We only do statements once a month.” And that’s great. Every patient is still on a 30 day cycle. They’re only still getting a statement every 30 days, but when you do it every day, then you might go through two statements today. Tomorrow, you might have to go through four statements. It makes it so it’s not such a big project. And so I make sure that that’s part of my daily,

Carrie Weber:

I love that. Make it a habit, stay on top of it so that you don’t have this snowball occur. And that really reduces the risk of overwhelm.

Dana Johnson:

Yes. Of course.

Carrie Weber:

The risk of falling behind. It helps you stay on top of things. I love that.

Keys for a Successful Weekly Workflow

So on the weekly piece, you talked briefly about those operations pieces. What else? Any other missing pieces on that recommendation front.

Keeping Your Schedule Full

Dana Johnson:

For sure. So the weekly process, you know, it’s not so much that you do the same thing every single day. But what I do tell my teams is if you are the hygiene coordinator, for example, and you have to make sure your hygiene schedule is full, making sure you’re following up with unscheduled continuing care patients, hygiene patients, then I want to see that a couple times a week you are spending 30 to 45 minutes uninterrupted. I call it off the floor time. I want that team member off the front line, off the front desk, in a back room on a phone, or doing texting or something where they’re just focusing on reaching out to unscheduled hygiene patients. Because a lot of times what I see happen is we rely so much on our automations, we forget that patients ignore our automations.

So we have to actually pick up the phone old school and call a patient or something. So I really want my team members to get some of that off the floor time, because I can guarantee you if you spend 30 to 45 minutes of uninterrupted time, you will get more done during that time than trying to just connect with patients while patients are checking in and checking out and the phones are ringing and all of that. 

So I really try and get my teams to maybe have their own little morning huddle. Like after the main morning huddle, I like my front desk or my admin team to have their own kind of little morning huddle and say, okay, I’m going to spend 45 minutes between this time. I’m going to be in the back room if you guys need me. And then they can cover the front desk, and if they support each other, then the treatment coordinator can spend her time reaching out to patients that have unscheduled treatment. 

And I’d like to see that a couple times a week when they see that there are some times in the day that might be a little bit more quiet, where you’re not having 10 people at the front desk all at the same time. So a couple times a week, that’s like the weekly, that’s keeping your schedule full, following up with unscheduled patients. 

Checking Account Balances

And then the second piece of the weekly routine is for the financial coordinator. Weekly, you have to reach out to patients that have overdue account balances and check where their insurance payments are. And maybe weekly you have to check and see if you’re sending anybody to collection this week? Do I have to send any letters out this week? So that’s all part of that weekly routine where you have to fit those tasks in throughout the week. You might not be doing the same thing every day, but during the week you have to fill up that time.

Carrie Weber:

Taking that time to really have that focus time to work on the business. I love the recommendation of a secondary huddle to really orchestrate the day and make sure that everybody on the business team is supporting each other and filling in where necessary so that that really important work can get done. I love that, Dana.

Dana Johnson:

Every team that I’ve worked with that really allows each other to get some of that off the floor time, they really treasure that because yes, it really lets them focus and not be interrupted. They really cherish that time. 

Carrie Weber:

It’s really challenging if you’re trying to do that kind of work at the front desk with the comings and the goings and the phone and the patients and the team members. The ability to truly focus and to do things efficiently and effectively are extremely challenging. So, it’s such a great recommendation. 

The Monthly Workflow

So tell me a little briefly about the monthly piece. I know that you talk about monthly workflows. So any big pieces of that that you would recommend practices take a look at?

Dana Johnson:

Monthly is definitely looking at your trends. Because we have these systems and processes that we are doing, and numbers tell a story. Numbers tell us if our systems are really working and where we get to celebrate. So every month we get to look at our numbers and see are we celebrating or are there maybe things in our systems that we might need to tweak a little bit. 

So monthly is really looking at trends. We’re looking at practice numbers. We’re making sure that our month end, if we have to run a month end, is running on time and things are happening there. 

For example, I have hygiene coordinators or the team member that is accountable to the hygiene schedule. I would want her to be keeping her eye on the patient retention number, because that’s going to tell her if patients are coming in regularly and staying on track. It’ll show our doctors if patients are leaving the practice and we might not know it. The financial coordinator’s going to be wanting to look at her accounts receivable numbers. Are they going up? Are they going down? So the monthly routine is really looking at our numbers. Are we celebrating or are we tweaking our systems?

Carrie Weber:

I love that. I had a great consultant once tell me, “Inspect what you expect.” And I love that that monthly piece sounds like it fits right into what he’s recommending. You have to take the time, and you have to know where to look to see those trends that you set, to see what your numbers are telling you. I think that’s tremendous. 

So the daily, the weekly, the monthly, those are the workflows that can help your practices be more efficient, less overwhelming, more intentional, and help you stay on track and help you meet the goals that you want to achieve in your practice. I love those recommendations, Dana. 

How to Access More Information on Productive Workflows

So where can they find more information about you or about this kind of instruction or resources that we’ve been talking about today?

Dana Johnson:

Absolutely. Since this is such a popular topic I do have an on-demand webinar that anyone in your audience with your name and email address can get access to the on-demand recording. And then with that, they will also have a downloadable tip sheet that will also spell out everything for them. If they want a printed piece of paper or something that they can reference back to they can have that all for free. And when they do give me their name and email, they will get on my email list. I do a podcast, so I also have a podcast that you were on. And so they’ll get my podcasts and they’ll get my monthly newsletter. And if they ever want to unsubscribe, no worries, but they can have that free on-demand webinar and that downloadable tip sheet that’ll go through everything that we just talked about today.

Carrie Weber:

So is that located on your website, Dana?

Dana Johnson:

So I’ll give you a link to that. By the time this podcast goes live, it will be on demand. I’m doing this webinar actually live this week. 

Carrie Weber:

Wonderful. 

Dana Johnson:

By the time this podcast goes live, it’ll be on demand. So I’ll have the link available for you and your audience, and they can just watch it anytime they want.

Carrie Weber:

Wonderful. Thank you, Dana. So, yes, Dana has an amazing podcast of her very own, The High Performing Team Podcast. I highly recommend it and not just because I was a guest. She really has tremendous guests and does some great instructional episodes as well. As you can see, Dana is so full of insights and valuable information to help get your team on track. Again I can’t sing her praises high enough. You can find more information on her website, novonee.com. Is that correct, Dana? 

Dana Johnson:

Yes. 

Carrie Weber:

N-O-V-O-N-E-E. I recommend that you go seek her out and her resources. And again, thank you for providing the complementary resources on the workflows for this audience. I know that that will be very valuable to them and we appreciate it so much.

Dana Johnson:

I appreciate you having me on. This was a super fun conversation and so relevant to what we’re seeing in our industry.

Carrie Weber:

I love it. So thank you for being with me and for taking the time. We’re so grateful to you. 

Dana Johnson:

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Carrie Weber:

And thanks to all of you in the Jameson Files community for joining us for another episode. I hope this was valuable to you. If this information and the other episodes you’ve listened to are valuable, please spread the word, share the Jameson files with your dental friends and community so that we can be about the business of building healthy, happy lives in the dental profession together. And so with that, be well, and we’ll see you next time.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Jameson Files. Visit us online. You can subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify. See you next time.