How to Thrive In A Failing Economy

Here are a few ideas that may help boost your production quickly, regardless of economic conditions, and get your practice back in the game as a strong contender:

• Develop Efficiency  —  The more efficiently you run your busi­ness, the more money you can save and the faster you can bring money in. DENTECH has several programs that tracks and locates monies that may have fallen through the cracks. The Unbilled Work Report shows all completed work that has not been claimed. You may also request it to show claims that have a hold status to locate forgotten requests of secondary claims.

• Take Advantage of New Opportunities – Use this time to reconnect with prior patient appointments. Use DENTECH’s Treatment Scanning program to locate procedures that you have previously tagged as requiring a follow-up appointment and contact those patients. For example: run a treatment scan report for denture patients and call them for oral cancer exams. You may find this would be a convenient time for them to have the procedures completed. Also, the Incomplete Work Request holds a lot of patient information. This program can generate all patients with outstanding treatment plans within a given time frame. It will uncover procedures that have been started but never completed and displays available insurance benefits and renewal month. Another is the Lost & Found program that simply lists all patients last seen within a specified date range that do not have a future appointment or recall in the system.

• Be Diligent, Not Aggressive – When we have to tighten our own belts, so do your patients. This may well be the right time to implement the Budget Plan or Promised Payment programs. Equally, either of these programs makes it easy for your patients to keep up with their payments. The Delinquent Payment report will show any patient who is behind with their Budget/Promised pay­ments. The report includes data such as patient/account messages, balances, pay­ment amounts and dates. Pay close attention to your accounts receivable and get invoices out right away. While you must remain diligent in the collection process, DENTECH has many programs and reports to keep you in touch with your receivables. The Aged Accounts Re­ceivable report documents accounts with an outstanding private balance, while showing the last statement and payment dates. It also indicates amounts of budget or promise payments, dates of dunning letters sent and messages.

• Spend Less; but Spend Wisely – Don’t completely cut your marketing/advertising efforts, however, make sure you are benefiting from them. Businesses who try to save money by eliminating marketing also minimize the chance to generate new business, during an economic slump. You can track your marketing results by using DENTECH’s Marketing Referral Analysis program. This program will show what is or isn’t producing the results you desire, therefore, ena­bling you to discover new ways to market more economically. Now more than ever is the time to keep your name out there to establish market dominance. The Practice Demographic Report will furnish specific information regarding your patient clientele. This report will help in determining distinctive groups of patients in which to target certain services or products.

• Do Something Extra – No matter what state the economy is in, patients love to feel like they are getting great value at a reason­able price. Try putting together a package of popular products or services for an especially great price. Then send out a creative postcard to your patients (including your non-active patients) to highlight it. You can easily generate a list from the Patient Ex­tract program that can also include labels and/or postcards.

• Reward for Referrals – Your own patient referral source is the best marketing tool you can have. You can take advantage of this source by implementing a reward for referrals program. DENTECH has several methods for tracking and acknowledging your referrals. The Marketing Referral Analysis program pro­duces reports that shows a complete count of new patients per month and per referral source. It also displays per month/referral source production totals, along with year-at-a-glance totals, while the Referral Acknowledgments Report lists the referral source, date, who was referred, acknowledgment, and date sent. DEN­TECH can also generate a thank you letter to send along with possibly movie tickets or gift card.

Whether you are looking for ways to increase productivity or merely maintain the cash flow in your practice, DENTECH has all the practice building tools required to assist you to grow your practice. A down econ­omy closes a lot of doors for all business owners, however, if you know where to look, and utilize the right tools, you can find and open a whole new world of doors. The only way to survive a recession is to get a handle on your practice and where you can improve. You never know…a recession may be the best thing that ever happened to your practice.