Every month we receive dozens of calls, emails and chat messages from our website with questions of various kinds.
There are doubts about how to increase the number of patients, how to reduce the absence of patients in scheduled appointments, things related to competition that is often unfair, and also, doubts related to the profitability and profitability of the clinic.
It is interesting, because all these doubts have a common origin: The disorganization of dental clinics.
Business model
Understand, a company to thrive, profit and stay alive needs to have a solid business model.
The business model is nothing more than the way a company (clinic) is organized to deliver the best service to its customers and thereby earn a profit.
In other words, your clinic needs to have administrative organization to work well and deliver the results you want.
But, what exactly would be the administrative organization of a dental clinic?
Today we want to show you what are the vital areas of your dental clinic that need to be very well organized if you want to have a profitable and profitable clinic. Follow.
01 – Administrative organization
See, a company is a collection of processes. It is no different in your clinic.
There are several activities that are performed daily and repeatedly at your clinic.
Patients are scheduled, received, cared for, evaluated, their treatment plans are negotiated, treatment begins, etc., etc., etc.
All this daily step by step needs to be documented, standardized and repeatable, regardless of who is going to do it
So, the first step in organizing your clinic is to create work processes and protocols.
Examples of work processes and protocols are:
Protocol for receiving the client at the clinic;
Protocol for preparing the operating room;
Negotiation protocol with the patient;
Sterilization protocol;
Billing protocol.
Etc, etc., etc.
In our management consultancy for dental clinics, we map, install and train the clinic staff in more than 30 standard protocols and processes.
And do you know why protocols and processes are fundamental for dental clinics? Because they give predictability of the result of what is being done. Furthermore, the processes and protocols ensure that what needs to be done will always be done, and in the best possible way.
02 – Marketing
See, there is no clinic without patients. And to capture patients these days, you need to have a marketing process.
The marketing process of your clinic should be divided into two distinct groups, but which complement each other:
Passive Marketing
There are all actions of publicity, propaganda and attracting patients that occur passively, that is, when the potential patient comes to you.
This system fits:
References and indication of other patients;
Site;
Blog;
Youtube channel;
Facebook;
Etc.
Active Marketing
Active marketing actions, on the other hand, are those whose main characteristic is to take the attitude of actively seeking the patient and bringing him to your clinic.
Examples of active marketing actions are:
Events;
Telemarketing;
E-mail marketing;
WhatsApp Marketing;
Active partnerships;
Localized fundraising campaigns;
Active commercial prospecting;
Etc;
It is difficult for a clinic that wants to prosper and have monthly revenues of R $ 200,000 and above to achieve its goals without a well-conceived, planned and executed mix of active and passive marketing.
03 – People
It is amazing how even today most dental clinics recruit and amateur-manage their main assets: the people who work at the clinic.
And here we are talking from your secretary to your fellow dentists. See, if you want to have a profitable and prosperous clinic you need to invest in the recruitment, selection, training and supervision of your employees.
It doesn’t help to have a team of top-notch dentists and a mediocre secretary.
Likewise, there is no point in having a team with excellent training, but who are more concerned with their ego and their status on social networks than delivering excellent service and a consumer experience to their patients.
A cohesive, well-trained, oriented and constantly supervised team is one of the greatest assets that any dental clinic can count on to stand out in today’s competitive market.
04 – Finance
We have already lost count of how many high-level clinics with super competent professionals already break down or are about to break down for not taking care of financial management.
It sounds incredible, but today we still find clinics whose owners do not separate personal accounts from clinic accounts, who withdraw from the clinic much more money than they can give, who live a lying social status just to please their colleagues and society by decapitalizing their business, putting him on the verge of death, every day.
Financial management involves two distinct parts:
Financial control – It is the registration, verification, information of the daily financial movement of your clinic.
Financial management – It is the decision-making process that only occurs from the financial record of the facts.
The following tools are essential in the financial part of any dental clinic:
Capital flow management
Determination of working capital requirements
Mathematical pricing of services
Cost control
Performance indicators
Projected cash flow
If you do not know what it means or are not sure how to do each of the controls above, contact and talk to a Senior Marketing dental management consultant.
Conclusion
To organize is to determine the roles, functions, structures and resources necessary to achieve a purpose.
Remember, you organize the clinic and earn money, not the other way around. The goal of organizing a dental clinic is to deliver the best service to your patient, profitably.