Dental Business Processes Example Case Study

Once something is fixed, other things start to kind of, you know, show themselves up and, and that's always good for us to have an understanding. So it's good to see it outlined like that. The idea of putting it into some kind of spreadsheet to kind of see it all is also very, very useful.

Hello and welcome. If you run a dental practice or you know somebody who does, then you're going to love this session. Today we're really going to dive into deep to find out what makes a great dental practice. I want to uncover the core systems and processes that really every dentist needs to get dialed in. And we're going to be chatting with a mother daughter duo, Dr. Linda and Dr. Crystal Dean Deroux. They have two synergistic practices in Northern Virginia. The one probably I think we'll really focus in on is their primary practice, the Ashburton Children's Dentistry. It's a long standing family centered practice that looks after children and families. Been doing it for well over 20 years. It's a really great, thriving business and I think understanding how their business works will help you think about how you should be running your practice. So let's dive into their world. Maybe. First things first. Just like to welcome you both to the call.

Be here. Thank you.

Very good. Well, maybe just to start, if you can, like I'm going to take you through the exercise we call the critical client flow. And it's a great way to kind of uncover and maybe that's what I'll do. I'll just share what I have on screen. But just to start, do you want to let me know who do you think your dream client is? It's the person who pays your advertised prices, refers, friends and family. They're a pleasure to deal with and you know, you would like as many of them as you could get or be able to service in at Ashburton. How would you describe them?

We would say that the one that we would most want to, because we feel like we'll have the most impact on will be like prenatal moms and moms of children between 0 and 3 years old. Because at that point we have the most opportunity to change their lives and.

Help is looking for this health focus kind of health centered.

Facility or health centered practice.

Yeah. And.

Was it. Sorry, what was the age? 0 to 0 to 3. Yeah. Perfect.

Excellent. And oftentimes and it's probably not something we necessarily need to capture on the critical client flow. It's always really good to go deep into who that person is, you know, it's obviously a small family, you know, mum and dad maybe in a certain geographical area I'm imagining, particularly for the dental practice. I mean, they need to be able to travel into the practice. It's not like you can do it over zoom. There might be.

Certain characteristics, whether it's a demographic or, you know, they're bringing in a certain type of income. I find just really dialing in that sometimes the best way to think about it is thinking in your head without saying their name. Can you maybe think of one of your clients that meets this profile that is a really great example of one of these dream clients and maybe just tell me a little bit more about them.

Wow. So they are usually holistic minded. They want to care. They care more about the health of their children and not generally what insurance covers. They're mostly homeschooling them. They're health conscious about nutrition and functional medicine. Functional medicine kind of people. And they usually shop at the organic food markets and things like that.

Yeah, I love that.

Getting very clear on that means as we go through the critical client flow, when you think about designing about your systems and your processes means you can always optimize towards them. So if you have to make a decision, you'll go, oh yeah, well, what would be best for that person? And you create your processes around those. Now when we think about that dream client, when they come to you, typically what is the first product or service that they might be coming to you for? Like, is it, oh, I've got a sore tooth and then I go see the dentist? Or are they being quite proactive and they're wanting to get their kids locked into care? Like, where would that dream client start?

A lot of times they're coming in when they're just a baby. A lot of times it's mostly they're having trouble nursing, difficulty breastfeeding, or their child is not sleeping well. They're hearing loud noises when they're sleeping and they don't like that. They want to find out more about it.

And what would you call that first session? Is that just like a consultation, a kid's checkup or do you have a particular name for that first session?

They go through what we call a discovery call, which is their first contact with our practice, where they speak to one of our team members and say, oh, we're looking to go to this kind of place or my child has this kind of issue. And then the team member kind of receives that information and explains to them what we do in our practice. Because it says dentistry most People are thinking teeth when they called the practice. So we feel like we need to explain to them that the teeth tell a story about their kids. And so that we're not going to be just looking at teeth, we'll be looking at other functions and how the child is growing and things like that. Sleep and airway, breathing, feeding and those kind of issues.

So that's the first appointment is the discovery call and then the appointment that they come into is called a comprehensive assessment.

Perfect. So I'm going to.

Perfect. All right. And when you think about how you're currently grabbing the attention of these moms, what works? Well, I'm imagining you're doing things like word of mouth. This strikes me as something I could imagine these mums talking amongst themselves. Are there other methods that work particularly well for the way that you grab their attention?

Google and Instagram.

Perfect.

The kind of high level would be referrals from talks that we've done.

Yes, perfect.

Yeah.

Speaking English and for the Google. Do you do.

Paid Google My business. Like organic? A little bit of both.

Yeah. Organic and Google my business. We haven't really done any Google Ads as of yet.

Yeah, perfect.

And when that inquiry comes in, they generally picking up the phone and calling you or are they emailing them? How do you get that first inquiry once you've got their attention?

It'd be a Google. Sorry, it'd be a call, email, things like that. And yeah, typically is that first contact is how they then schedule a discovery call.

Yeah, perfect. And.

Some sort of form on the website. So then that first engagement off the back of that, someone will handle that incoming inquiry.

Yep, we're a good fit. This is a legitimate person, you know, you're not just some spam or something like that. Okay, let's take the next step. And then you book in the discovery.

Yes. And before the discovery call, between this call and discovery call that gets sent an email with forms and things like that that they can start getting. Yes, they can get. Start filling out the forms as well. So that way we can go over it during the discovery call.

Perfect. So sometimes what I'll do and I just captured off to the side, some of the detail comes out.

In some of the later stages, when we get to documentation the key here for the critical client flow, we often just try and grab very high. We explain some of the key steps with a few words in each box. So that way we can kind of see the real flow here, which is great. So we've got the inquiry that comes in. Comes in from a Few different ways. We do some sort of qualification, send the form, we book in a discovery call. That's probably when you start to introduce some of the things that you were talking about as far as, hey, we're a bit more holistic here. Ask some more questions to get a complete picture. And then what usually happens at the end of that call is that do we book in for that next session at that point?

Yes. At this point it's time to book in for the in person visit which is a comprehensive assessment and.

For the booking of that call questions. I'm just going to go book.

Assessment.

Is there anything that happens sort of in between then like I'm assuming you don't collect any money at this point in time. There's not.

Yeah. That's a complimentary. We do collect, we try to collect their insurance information. Although we're not an insurance based practice. We do say that if they would like to utilize insurance for the appointment that this is the time to give us that information, both medical and dental.

And is that something you mention in the discovery call or do you follow up with an email afterwards or this.

Is between the initial inquiry to discovery call. So they have all that information. So we, so that way we utilize the discovery call to go over both insurance verification and forms.

Got it.

So it's a very, it's still, it's still a qualifying type of appointment before.

They, and after you explore a little bit about that of the discovery and then you book in the assessment. Is there anything that happens between the assessment and.

That session? As far as.

I mean you're, you're probably gonna, once they book in for the assessment you might send them some information. I don't know if you send a, a booking confirmation or if there's anything else that needs to happen.

Yes. So. So for the discovery call itself they'll get an email with a lot of, of our links to videos information, just kind of more research on the practice after that. Then they'll get a booking confirmation text email with and then another kind of new patient introductory email just reminding. Just the same information, just a little bit more just to kind of confirm and dial down what kind of practice we are because we definitely need everybody to be on board with understanding how we practice. So we send a lot of emails beforehand. Yeah. Onboarding. Yes.

And in the discovery call like at the end of that session do they.

They'Re filling out the form on that call like, like you actually book them in for that or do you send them something for them to book on themselves? For that, that discovery session or does it happen at the same time?

So during the discovery call is where we're going to book their first appointment, their assessment appointment.

Awesome.

Yeah.

On the phone.

Yeah. And is there any. As I said, you haven't collected any money at this point in time?

No.

That'S right. Well, we could maybe. Yeah. Deposit or something like that.

Okay, so then for the onboarding, is there anything else that happens behind the scenes after the discovery call that you're doing at your end? Like are you entering them into a CRM? Are you setting up a. That profile or anything like that?

Not. Or they do have. They do. By the discovery call, they have a profile. Yeah, that's how they get the forms. Yeah, they are. They have a profile in our system by that point. So. Yeah, but no, we don't. The nurture sequence hasn't started quite yet. That is it. That's future.

Yeah, that's what we'd like to do.

Because some, some of these things and you might end up deciding. It's almost like that first bit of the inquiry here is, is like the qualification, are they even real? And should we get back to them? Then there's kind of like. Almost like the setup where we're sending out some forms, setting up a profile. And then after the setup, then you have your, your discovery session. Just do this. Yep. Then we have your discovery session and then there might be a little bit more, as I said with the onboarding, just some emails and notifications and things prior to having the session. Then. Then you're actually having the session itself, which is. What do we call it? We called it the comprehensive assessment. So that's this one here.

Assessment. I'm just kind of move this around a little. There we go. And then like. And there's probably a bit underneath the assessment we capture high level. And then later on you go into detail because you've probably got a way in which you conduct the assessment and some checklist points that you go through to make sure that this assessment is done. Once that's. That's done. Actually this might be some other things as well, is onboarding. And then maybe when they come into the practice, I'm. I'm assuming there's some sort of like welcome or something like that from the receptionist that might welcome them and get them to sit down and, you know, just acclimatise them. Is there anything else that you can think of that happens on that? Almost like if you think about it, the assessment, a big part of that I'm thinking is going to be delivered by the dentist. And the welcome is a separate person, obviously that's going to be your receptionist.

Right.

They get to sign forms and go over the office policies in person as well. Practice policies.

Yeah, perfect. And policies.

And then they go in and have the assessment. And then after they come out, after the assessment, is there anything that happens then? Does the dentist do the assessment and then deliver their suggestions and findings inside that assessment? Or is it something that they need to think about and go away and then they come back for another consultation? Or is it like, when is the feedback on? Okay, this is what we're going to.

Do during the assessment. We gotta confirm the things that are going on with the child and then we'll give them some more homework and have them to get them more data. And after that then we have the consultation.

Oh, hey, I know you're tuned in right now, so keep this super quick, but you like awesome YouTube videos, don't you? Well, there's not really that many YouTube channels that create great content about how to systemize your small business. So I want to make sure that you catch every video that I publish. So if you haven't already, firstly give this video the thumbs up and then go ahead and subscribe to my channel. You can even hit the bell notification to make sure that you're the first to know when I publish anything. So go ahead, do it right now, I'll wait a sec and then I'll transfer you back to the video.

So after that there's almost like there will be another consultation data gathering first.

More like data gathering, like more images, pictures.

Just more diagnostics, screenings, things like that.

And it's almost like you determine in the assessment what data you're going to have to gather.

Exactly. And answer questions, validate every, all the information found in the forms and just kind of figure out who this patient is in the chair. There's a lot of time that the PA that people need to kind of get out everything that's going on for them. And then we also take some preliminary pictures so we can get an idea, like you said, of what kind of data we're going to gather.

And some of that might, some of it happens in the assessment, but then some of the data gathering might be another appointment.

Exactly. Depending on the situation.

And then after some of the data gathering. And the good thing is I always go, just like you said, depending on the situation.

Because ideally you want to capture what we call the most logical path, what is most likely to happen. And whenever you're stuck, you Always go back to that ideal person, that ideal client. And that's why I say, have a picture in your head who that person is. And then you say, well, what happened when she went through? And you might go, okay, well, after that data gathering, you know, we collected everything that we needed. And then do you have another meeting where it's kind of like a findings.

Meeting or this is where now it's like the final treatment plan and essentially the strategy is developed and so we can hit the ground running after.

Yeah, right.

Consults. Everybody who's involved in treatment should be a part of that.

Yes. Yeah. And the good thing about what you've got here, I'm imagining as well, like I said, these are very high level and underneath these, you know, there's going to be a handful of other bullet points and milestones and steps, you know, obviously for the data gathering. 1 and the treatment plan is there's going to be having to book them in for another appointment. So. And it will most likely end up being a very similar system to the same system that was originally used up to book the discovery call. Like it's, it's the same receptionist would check with them, find out, get it in the system and then send out the, the reminders or the system would send out the reminders. So this is great. I can now see, I get a bit of an idea and always a great way to know if a critical client flow is good is if someone at arm's reach from your business could listen to this or watch it and go, oh, I get it. Okay. They've got a handful of ways that people become aware of the business.

There we go. And then.

The inquiry comes in, we set up something in the background.

And then we have a discovery call. Then there's some sort of onboarding where we kind of make sure that they're all set up before they come into the practice. They have that welcome from the receptionist, then some form of assessment is done. From there we determine what needs to be gathered, maybe some more appointments made and then finishing up with this. So when we look at this, sometimes the next question I like to ask is, where in your critical client flow is the pain? As in which part of this breaks first or is put under the most stress when you get new. Lots of patients coming through. Is it, hey, we don't have enough leads? Is it, hey, we don't have enough dentists to do the work like. Or even from. Yeah. Your experience where, which parts are the most challenging?

I would say, I would say from the leads we need the leads. We've kind of ironed out some of the kinks from the back end. And so now it's really funneling in the right clients.

Yeah, perfect. Which is great because then it helps you then focus. When we think about systems as well, sometimes where you might get started first, and you go, well, how are we currently generating leads? Is that, well, systemized? Is someone.

Taking responsibility for that on the team to make sure it's happening day in and day out? Because sometimes what you'll find with smaller practices or what I love about what you guys have done here is it was obvious to both of you what the next steps were. There was no real big gaps. Sometimes I'll chat with a business and, you know, there'll be a gaping hole down here or something, and you're like, oh, well, that might explain why you're having some challenges that you're having because you're not onboarding the person correctly or maybe you're not doing this or that. So for you, this is clear. You first capture always what you're currently doing, not what you would like to be doing. And then you make what you've got repeatable and make sure that you're doing the basics well. And then you start to layer in on top. And then you say, okay, well, the word of mouth, organic Instagram and speaking, we've got some systems around that and it's firing consistently. Well, let's now add in a new channel. And then again, what you do is you, um. Later on, this becomes almost like a. You create a dashboard where you look at your numbers and you go, okay, well, I'm getting X number of leads, X number of those, or end up converting into clients. You know, we get X number of discovery sessions per month, and you basically come down where you've got stats or numbers for each one of these. And then you start to watch the stats and say.

Where. Where are we? Not happy. Like, kind of like what you've done right now. You said, well, I could do with more leads. Great. Well, that's where we focus. Later on, when you solve the lead problem, something else starts to then open up as the next problem. Because business, you never.

It's a marathon that. With no finish line, like, there is no ending because at every step there's you. You just unlock a new something to be worked on. If we say that the leads are the area and we mark that as needing the most work, is there any other area that you would say would be secondary where you're just like, the next one where we think we could.

Dial it in a bit, probably in intake forms.

Yeah, perfect.

Just that we have a lot on purpose, but I want to make it as smooth and intuitive as.

Is that the around the setup piece is that. Or do you mean for when that first lead comes in?

Let me see.

Both. So the qualification kind of mini form. Yeah, we don't have one of those yet, which I think would be essential. And then the forms that they do fill out.

Yeah, awesome. Oh, very good. I'll just stop here. I don't know if, as we went through that, if.

Either of you had any insights or takeaways, like, for example, you kind of thought, oh, yeah, dialing in that area would be a step in the right direction. Yeah. I'm not too sure if anything else stood out for you or if that confirmed anything in your brain with the way your practice works.

Yeah, I mean, I would love if, as you can tell, the reason why we're so unified in it is because it's been a painstaking type of, you know, journey in ironing it all out. And as you said so awesomely, that once something is fixed, other things start to kind of, you know, show themselves up. And that's always good for us to have an understanding. So it's good to see it outlined like that. The idea of putting it into some kind of spreadsheet to kind of see it all is also very, very useful. And then it would just be great, I think, to have.

This is. In an ideal world, state of ideal, someone to look at every bit of what, you know, the. The squiggly bit.

Yeah.

To see exactly if, yes, we have the order intact, but, like, what. What within that order can be made, can be perfected or can be.

Yeah, I love that.

Set a good foundation.

Foundation, right. Yeah.

So I'll give you. I'll just leave you with a couple of suggestions and tips. So the first thing I would say is, and maybe it's one of you, or maybe it's someone in your practice. We always talk about this idea of identifying the system's champion. So you want to try and find someone who is almost like a junior apprentice. Maybe it's the junior dentist and they are very, you know, they know how to do the technical work. Maybe they've gone through dentistry school or they're a dentistry nurse and they understand that part of it, but they don't necessarily understand all the rest of what goes on. They can be. And then maybe they've just come out of university and they're hungry to learn they make some of the best systems champions because ideally what you want to do is you have them connect with more senior team members like yourselves and they try and want to pull out from their brain what it is you're doing and then capture that down into a checklist or a process or something that one, it helps them, but then two future team members that come on board next time. Okay, well now we have a checklist for the receptionist that she follows when a new patient comes in. And I know they fill out this form, this form, this form, and I enter the details into our CRM over here. So think about finding that person and that will be very helpful for them. And it's actually a real gift for that person to become an apprentice because it's this systems champion. It's just a great way for them to learn. But it helps you capture what you're currently doing and making it repeatable. And then your thinking was right. Like.

Oftentimes your other team members might not fully appreciate what other people within your organization are doing. So sharing with them, going through this exercise and sharing with them the critical client flow, they go, oh, now I know why the dentist asks me for that information and why it's so important because it's inside that data gathering step and if I don't get it right, it actually makes their job a little bit harder. So teaching with that tool is very helpful. And then yeah, we just again we, we go back to what you're currently doing and you capture what you're doing first and making sure it's very repeatable and we remove any key person dependency and after we do that then we start to look to improve it. And that's when we go, oh, this system is missing or we need to re engineer this process or how do we make this better? But you guys are well on your journey as far as having built something great. Now we just got to really make sure that it's, it's captured. You centrally store that knowledge so that your way of doing things can be replicated.

There's a few sort of steps in the process. I'll send a copy and when we connect or afterwards I'll send you a copy of this just so you can have a little bit of a look. We just went through step number one, which is the critical client flow. But I think you guys are just a great example for other dentists about someone who's clear on their target audience, genuinely want to help figured out your process. You've built something that works really well. Now we just want to go, how do we scale this? How do we make it bigger? How do we reduce the key reliance on you? Because oftentimes a lot of small practices, they don't make money unless the core dentists are in there. And if you're not working, the business isn't making any money. And that's, that's that bridge that you want to try and cross.

So is what you just described, could that be what, like in SOPs, like a standard operating procedures, we do that? Yeah, we do have quite. Yeah, we have that for most of our processes. Now, as we're putting this down, I go like, maybe we need to review SOP on a couple of the client steps.

Yeah, yeah, you're exactly on point. And I think, as I said, you're a little bit further along than most. Some practices, they don't have any systems sops process documented, whereas you've got some documented. Now what you try and do is you start to spot where the gaps are. Typically, it's wherever the pain points are. So I think you need to lean into getting some sops around, lead generation and capturing, because that's the other thing. A lot of SOPs in small practices, they're usually strong in certain areas. Like it might be around the delivery, but you might not have any SOPs in the administration side or the marketing side or the HR side. And you really need to then think about the SOPs in all of the areas.

And then what you do is you also want to build up a culture of systems in your organization. So everybody just gets used to. Oh, yeah. Every role has clearly defined tasks that they need to be worked on and there are corresponding SOPs that help them deliver it to a particular standard.

Exactly.

Very good. Well, I'm going to pop a link through to your website so people can keep an eye on you and follow along with your journey. If anybody else wants to kind of see what you're up to, where's the best place to send them? Is there anything else you'd like them to take a look at?

Definitely our Instagram. Our Instagram has a lot of cool information and interviews with all types of providers from all over the world, including Australia.

In the UK and all of that. So our Instagram and our website is www.kidsmile.com and. Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, yeah, perfect. Well, lovely to meet you both and we'll talk soon.

Thank you so much. Nice to meet you.