3 Steps to Increase Production through Hygiene in 2010

Has your hygiene department production flat-lined? Are you under-utilizing your hygienists' skills for observation and assessment and their ability to connect with your patients. Now is the time to change all that. You'll be blown away to see how some simple changes can create more than $100K in additional production next year.

Here's the bottom line: If you could increase hygiene production by $150/day or just $19/hour, 2 hygienists can increase their annual production total by almost $60,000!

If those same 2 hygienists each enrolled at least $1000/week in restorative treatment, that boosts your production by $96,000. Together, that's over $150,000 in increased production for your practice. I'm not going to leave you hanging. I'll tell you how to get there and it's really not that hard.

Step 1- Pump Up Perio! I preach this every other month and I won't be quitting anytime soon. The fact is that if two hygienists enroll just 10% of their current patients into active perio therapy and then perio maintenance, hygiene production will increase by $60-70K in the first year. You better believe their are more than 10% of your "prophy" patients that have perio disease right now.

Step 2- Empower your hygienists to help you enroll restorative. Remember: The first step is to spend time educating your team on your treatment philosophy and get all Docs in your office on the same page, too. Enrolling $1000/wk out of each hygiene operatory is very conservative. The trick is, those patients have to actually schedule that treatment for those dollars to show up.

Step 3-Financial Arrangements and Follow-up! Every patient that is presented with either perio treatment or restorative treatment should never leave your office without a written and signed financial arrangement. If you don't have a financial arrangement form, create one. Make this Priority #1 for the new year. Patients that are confident say YES. Patients that are confused say NO. Make it clear how you make it easy for them to pay. Make it clear what portion of the fee they are responsible for and when it's due. Then follow-up! If the patient isn't ready to schedule that day, then put them on your follow-up list and ask for their permission to call in 2- 3 wks, and then DO IT!

Bonus Step 4- Share this with your team! Talk with your hygienists about what you'd like to see happen in 2007 and then support them in accomplishing it. Give them the support they need to develop and implement a perio protocol and make technology accessible so they can use it for perio charting, taking intra-oral photos, etc. AND, share the increase. How can you share the growth with your team next year? Implement a plan for a Team Bonus, Profit Sharing or Team Trips. These are just a few of the ways you can acknowledge your team for their dedication to you and your patients.