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659: 5 Data Secrets to a Thriving Practice – Dr. Barrett Straub & Miranda Beeson
Episode 659 • 24th November 2023 • The Best Practices Show with Kirk Behrendt • ACT Dental
00:00:00 01:04:25

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659: 5 Data Secrets to a Thriving Practice – Dr. Barrett Straub & Miranda Beeson

If you want your practice to grow, you need data. But how do you know which numbers to look at? To demystify the data you need, Kirk Behrendt brings in Dr. Barrett Straub, ACT’s CEO, and Miranda Beeson, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, to share five data secrets for a thriving practice. Make informed decisions with data, not feelings! To learn which numbers to start tracking and why they matter to your practice, listen to Episode 659 of The Best Practices Show!

Episode Resources:

Links Mentioned in This Episode:

Get your Golden Ticket to ACT’s To The Top Study Club: https://info.actdental.com/golden-ticket

Main Takeaways:

Numbers don't lie!

You can improve anything with data.

Without data, the story you tell yourself is fiction.

Learn about the main KPIs you should be tracking.

Tracking data requires transparency with your team.

Quotes:

“So many of us base decisions and planning off of our feelings when the data itself doesn't lie. And we can't argue with it. If you tell me your feelings about something — if I'm an admin team member, I [can] say, ‘Yeah, but I feel like this about it.’ But if we're both looking at the same piece of data, there's really no discussion to be had. It's right there. It's the truth on paper, and you really can't argue with that.” (5:48—6:10) -Miranda

“You know how this works if you're a dentist. You have a lot of feelings. ‘I feel like we're way too busy. I feel like we have too many holes in our schedule. I don't feel like we're productive enough. I don't feel like my hygienist diagnosed enough perio. I feel like most of my AR is family and friends and is uncollectible.’ Feelings. Feelings are dangerous places to go. You start to tell yourself a story. Feelings, when it comes to me, can be happy feelings. But they can also be irritation feelings. Data calms us. If you're feeling any of these things, it's really good to transition away from feeling to, ‘What are we seeing? What's the data telling us?’ It's powerful in this whole thing.” (6:43—7:31) -Kirk

“Leading a dental practice without knowing your data and understanding it is like placing an implant with no diagnostics. Now, you could do it. Some people do. But, long term, will it be successful? Is that really the right thing to do?” (7:32—7:47) -Kirk

“From personal experience, this is how it happens in most dental practices. We're busy doing dentistry because we are the CEO of our dental practices and the assembly line. It's hard to do both well. We focus on the dentistry and we don't make data collection a habit. If it's not a habit, we don't have the energy or time at the end of the day, end of the week, end of the month to collect it. And so, we go by feelings, and we tell ourselves a story in our head about the reality of our practice. Without data, that story is fiction. Unfortunately, we make major, long-lasting decisions based on fiction, on how we feel. Many times, and we see this a lot, we get deep in our careers, and look back and say, ‘Darn. I should have . . . I would have . . .  I could have . . . had I set up a system to collect data.’ With that data, I can make educated, data-driven, nonfiction decisions based on my practice. But we have to take a deep breath and say, ‘Okay. Yes, I have to do dentistry. I don't have a lot of time.’ Therefore, back to Kirk's first comment about having your team help with data, we've got to set up a system so that the data is a habit, not an intentional action by us. That will fail because we're too busy doing dentistry.” (8:04—9:26) -Dr. Straub

“When you have data, you can improve everything. You can improve efficiency, you can improve the care patients get, you can improve the efficacy of things that you do. It helps you understand trends. You're thinking, ‘Gosh, I saw this patient. Where did she go? I don't know where she went, if she's an active patient, or not. I haven't seen her for two years,’ type of a thing. You can take a look at their treatment history and needs. When you know this data, you can provide a more customized approach to care and maximize the opportunities and treatment planning.” (10:13—10:45) -Kirk

“There are some team members who get turned off by talking about the numbers or looking at the numbers. So, if we can always equate that to those team members to how we are affecting people in a more positive way through these numbers, that really does help to speak to the team. Because the bottom line is, we need to know the data. The numbers are really important. It's important for you to be responsible for yours and what you can have an impact on. But as, say, a hygienist, if you're looking at your periodontal numbers, you may say like, ‘Well, I don't want to base what I'm doing every day on if I'm raising this percentage over here.’ But if you're raising that percentage, you're also helping more people achieve health and reach their goals of oral health. So, sometimes we can blend that for the team to make sure the team realizes these numbers do have a true impact on how we affect people.” (10:57—11:43) -Miranda

“Consistently tracking and reporting on the data fosters collaboration and communication. We talk about accountability a lot. Accountability requires some type of accounting. It's not, ‘I'm doing my best.’ It allows us to talk about the same things. So, when we can agree on a number, we now can work together on the motions that support that number.” (13:36—14:00) -Kirk

“What gets measured gets improved. But what gets measured and reported on significantly or exponentially improves. If I'm bringing you a number that we have both agreed is an important number and it's going up a little bit every week, we are as happy as can be, and everyone can see and understand what's driving the decisions. It's not about money. It's not about getting another boat or those types of things. We're trying to make a number healthy, and it creates a common effort towards a common goal.” (14:03—14:34) -Kirk

“Tracking data requires transparency with your team. I love having some type of data anywhere. I mean, go to a baseball game. If you guys are watching the playoffs right now, you can't watch more than three minutes without a ton of data falling all over the screen. They're making decisions on pitchers, left-handed versus right-handed, spray charts, all of this stuff. You can't run a baseball team — even if it's a kid’s baseball team — without some type of data. That's why we have GameChanger as parents to keep the crazy parents from yelling too much, because all you have to do is show them the batting average and they quiet down. I was one of those. I'm like, ‘I think my son is better. Oh . . . He's not that good. He should bat eighth or ninth.’ It allows for objective performance evaluation and encourages team members to own their role. So, you’ve got to have some accountability.” (14:40—15:27) -Kirk

“[An important key performance indicator is] new patient acquisition and retention. New patients are the number of patients that had their first completed visit in the practice and they're counted as a new patient by the ADA code.” (16:06—16:17) -Kirk

“There's another number that's associated with new patients because, remember, everybody is putting all this in and going, ‘Oh, I get 400 new patients.’ Well, that's great. But you don't see half of them. Half of them cancel, whatever. That's a lot of money to attract those types of patients. I think every practice should have new patients. They should be the right type of patients for your practice. You have to know the number for your practice.” (16:30—16:51) -Kirk

“There's another [important] number that's called recaptured. This is the number of patients who have not completed a visit within the past 18 months but now have completed a visit and are brought back into the practice. We lost them. They had become inactive. Somebody on the team has worked hard to get them back in the practice. You need to know that number.” (16:52—17:12) -Kirk

“There's another number that's important with this. It's called loss. It's the number of patients who have fallen into the category of not having a completed visit. Now, your software can collect this information automatically. Usually, it's 18 months. Some people are going out to 24 because of COVID-19. That's legit. But as a practice, you’ve got to decide what's the threshold. In most practices, it's about 18 months. As you can see in this example, we had 22 new, 22 recaptured, but we lost 82. The net growth was negative 38.” (17:13—17:46) -Kirk

“What I often will hear from teams, and we go back to feelings of, ‘I feel like we're doing really well. We crush it with new patients. We have at least 20 new patients every month.’ I'll say, ‘Let's take a look at what our true patient growth is though, because that is a little bit different. You are crushing it with new patients. Good job!’ Because, like you said, lots of money goes into acquiring those new patients. We're wowing those patients. We're winning them over with that experience, hopefully. But if we're not looking at those pieces in the middle, especially the lost, then all of that effort, in the end, is for nought because we're not actually growing the practice over time. So, I think this equation and this section here of reporting is really important. If we're seeing a really high number in the lost [category, we need to set] up some type of plan with our administrative team to capture those and hopefully add them back into your recaptured number. It comes back to feelings versus what's the real data. So, this is a good one to start off with, with teams.” (18:16—19:12) -Miranda

“It is a lot of energy and effort to on-board a new patient. We want new patients. It's easier to not lose a patient and keep them in their dental home that they already know, as well as recapture. So, we're not ever going to say don't get new patients. But if you give equal intentionality to not losing and recapturing those patients that have gone over that 18th month, then if you do have a down month in new patients, it's not as big of a deal.” (19:25—19:55) -Dr. Straub

“[Knowing the percentage of new patients who reappointed for hygiene] is really important because of what we just said: how much effort, time, and energy it takes to bring new patients in. How many of those patients are leaving without a next scheduled visit? Or they're just scheduled for a restorative appointment. What we know about our hygiene department is that's where we build our patient loyalty over time. They're going to be coming back again, and again, and again. We're going to be serving them, building relationships. And then, also, that drives more treatment options down the line as long as they stay with us. So, this is a really, really important thing to look at. ‘We crushed it! Twenty-two new patients last month.’ But if only seven of those new patients are actually rescheduled within your practice, how much effort did you put out for that return?” (20:32—21:15) -Miranda

“A lot of times, you work so hard to get this patient referred, and you're fee-for-service. You get this patient to come in, and they need $17,500 worth of restorative work. So, you do an awesome new patient exam. Then, your treatment coordinator stalks them over, and over, and over, and over. They're not returning your phone call, and you're pummeling them with this $17,500 thing that they have to decide on. Now, think about this. That's a great new patient. They're not tethered to your practice because they don't have a hygiene appointment. And ultimately, they're not going to return your call. That patient may not be ready to hear the $17,500 thing because the previous dentist they went to said nothing was wrong. You might refer the patient out. You might think, ‘Okay, this is a great patient. They’ve got to go to the oral surgeon.’ What a lost opportunity that is.” (21:38—22:31) -Kirk

“I want you to think about this. Every new patient — and I do mean every, if they're the right [patient for your practice] — has to have a hygiene appointment. However you decide to have patients come through your practice, have the mindset as a team that we're going to get them scheduled. If I was working at the front desk, this is what I'd say. ‘Okay, we do a lot of different cool things here, Mrs. Jones. Let's do this. I am going to refer you out to our oral surgeon. But before that, I'm going to schedule two appointments. I'm going to get you scheduled with our oral surgeon, but I'm also going to get you scheduled with Sally. She's one of our amazing hygienists. I might even schedule a third appointment with Dr. Straub here.’ So, I'm going to have you locked in, tethered somehow to the practice, before we hang up the phone. It's one of the biggest lost opportunities in dentistry.” (22:32—23:17) -Kirk

“Another thing you could do is break down your new patients. Again, it's back to new patients. It's great to get the right new patients, but we need to understand where they are coming from. And so, by referral source is critical in your practice. It allows you to better understand how successful your marketing is. If you don't have this, you're just guessing and throwing money everywhere.” (24:04—24:25) -Kirk

“Teach someone to fish. Create accountability. It's not my responsibility to make sure that [the patient referral source data is] being accounted for. And maybe they don't know. Maybe I haven't, as a leader, set an expectation for them that this is something that I need. Maybe this is new data that we're tracking that we've never really tracked in the practice before, but now we're starting to see a trend towards wanting to make sure our marketing dollars are working for us, so this is new. So, it's my responsibility, as a leader, to set my team up for success with clear expectations. And so, for me, explaining this report and what's expected month after month and watching them watch that data grow puts that accountability back into that role.” (25:47—26:25) -Miranda

“There is a capacity issue in dentistry. We're going to talk about maximum or optimal capacity. It could mean that every chair in your operatory is full every day that you decide to work, whether it be four days or whatever. But it doesn't necessarily mean that. In almost every dental practice, optimal or maximum capacity is an issue of willingness, not ability. Every practice can have their chairs full at 95%. You just have to know what to do, and you have to want to do it. So, please don't watch this and go, ‘Well, you don't understand our area.’ No, that's not true. With some great training, with willingness, with some understanding, with some great coaching, every single practice in the United States can have a 95% capacity. Now, the question becomes, what do you want it full with?” (27:02—27:50) -Kirk

“Capacity is pretty simple. It's retroactive. You have to look historically and say, of all the hours available in a chair in operatory number two, how many of those patient hours was there a butt in the chair? It's as simple as that. It's seven of eight, eight of eight, six of eight hours, whatever your hourly offerings are. That's super important to know. Let me tie a few things together here because many dentists look at the morning schedule and say, ‘We are so darn busy,’ only to find out they're actually only at 85%. That same dentist often says, ‘We are so darn busy. I need to build out two operatories. I need to buy a new office. I need to hire another hygienist.’ If you have two hygienists and they're only at 80% capacity, then wouldn't you first fill their chair before a capital expenditure of more ops, another office, another hygienist?” (28:19—29:21) -Dr. Straub

“We see dentists that have 2,100 active patients per dentist, and we see practices with 1,000 active patients per dentist. Those are two different models. I'm not going to say either is right or wrong, but one practice needs 44 new patients a month, and the other needs like eight. New patients by themselves mean very little unless you know your annual patient value. So, when I get a new patient, how much do I bill, or how much dentistry do all my new patients do annually?” (29:50—30:24) -Dr. Straub

“Eventually, you want to say, ‘I'm attracting 44 new patients, but my annual patient value is $200.’ Well, great. What if you had eight new patients at $1,000 annual patient value? So, now, then the next level is to say, ‘Not only am I going to attract new patients, I'm going to attract the good kind of new patients that show up, that accept my treatment, that give me more of a return on my investment in them. I'm going to make sure my chairs are filled with more of these right patients.’ When you start to connect all the dots like that, your revenue goes up, your happiness goes up, your predictability goes up. But we have to first, as you're doing this data analysis, say, ‘What kind of business am I in? How do I want it to feel?’ It's not about production, and it's not about new patient values. It's so much more than those two numbers.” (30:41—31:39) -Dr. Straub

“As a team, what do we all show up to work for? Yes, to take care of people, but to get a paycheck. That's how the office pays us, is by having butts in the chair. As a hygienist — I've told this story before and I'm going to loop it in. I know Chris, who works with us, has said the same thing — I used to get so excited when someone canceled first thing in the morning, before or after lunch, and at the end of the day. It was the best time to have someone not show up. It was a relief. I was celebrating it until I realized the importance of capacity and what that actually meant for the practice and, in the end, what that meant for me and my ability to grow economically within the practice . . . Your profitability of...

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