4 Pearls to Maximize Your RDH Department

Episode #258 with Dr. Sam Low

In this episode of The Best Practices Show, Dr. Sam Low highlights four critical areas in which to improve your practice’s efficiency, profitability and customer relationships. He brings his 25 years of practicing, teaching and consulting expertise to the challenge of evolving habitual office systems to meet challenges faced by dental practices of all sizes.

Dr. Low shares concrete strategies in four key areas of practice management. He talks at length about optimizing the role of dental hygienists to best leverage their talents and also introduces the concept of a “product market center” through which to sell dental items for the convenience of patients as well as to establish a revenue stream. Dr. Low also suggests ideas for getting as much value as possible from recall appointments and the many long-term impacts of Covid19 on dental and periodontal practices.

Today’s presentation took place as part of the Covid19 Dental Relief Conference.

Main Takeaways

Your dental hygienist is also your new patient coordinator. (13:37)

Review dental-assisted hygiene with enhanced efficiency. (21:00)

Create an oral hygiene product market center. (37:05)

Ways of ensuring standard recall appointments are effective and valuable. (47:43)

The 60-minute appointment is over – especially for PPO patients. (52:16)

Key Quotes

“We are losing out by not maximizing what we do with our hygienists. They are not cleaning people. You know what they are? You watch. They're the nurse practitioners.”

“Stop using the words, “fix” our “treat” ever in a dental practice. Always use the word manage.”

“(Patients) need to walk out of there knowing that gum disease is … an autoimmune disease.”

“Dental hygienists: If you have anxiety and fear about going back to work and you are working with a practice that has always had quality infection control, you have nothing to worry about.”

“If you are in a PPO practice, especially in a hardcore PPO practice, you are not going to be able to have hygiene appointments for 60 minutes. It’s not going to happen.”\

“Look outside of dentistry (for business models). Start reading things outside of just dental magazines.”

“Teledentristy – used the right way – is going to be probably one of the most important areas we have.”

Snippets

Four revenue-related elements to examine in your hygiene practice (8:05-9:31

Leveraging your dental hygienist appropriately. (14:05-14:57)

Periodontitis: Takeaways patients need to have. (19:11-19:34)

Four buckets for periodontitis classification. (24:28-24:55)

What you’re optimally doing in the second hour of a new patient appointment. (26:58-27:33)

Valuable laser applications. (35:20-36:36)

Systems for co-marketing and offering dental products. (41:40-42:52)

Strategies for reducing your rate of no-shows and cancellations. (49:38-51:50)

The evolving role of teledentistry. 1:00-1:00:26

Bio of guest

Dr. Sam Low is an associate faculty member of the L.D. Pankey Institute and Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida’s College of Dentistry. His consulting practice focuses on creating positive interactions between dentists, periodontists and dental hygienists through communication skills and continuous quality improvement to enhance esthetics, tooth retention and implant placement.

Contact

Website: www.drsamlow.com

Email: slow@dental.ufl.edu

Resources

VoiceWorks: https://www.floridaprobe.com/voiceworks.htm

PreViser: www.previser.com

PerioSciences: https://periosciences.com

ProBiora: https://probiorahealth.com

ActDental U: www.actdentalU.com