Every company is a collection of processes. Processes in dental clinics, in turn, are a set of activities that aim to contribute in some way to the delivery of a service.
Imagine a patient who comes to your clinic today and is attentively attended to by a very polite secretary who collects the patient’s initial data, offers water and coffee and then takes him to the office of the professional who will attend him.
Now, imagine that this same patient returns to your clinic a year from now. In this hypothetical scenario, his secretary is someone else, she is not very attentive, even a little cold. She gives a form in the hands of the patient who must complete a long and laborious questionnaire. She does not offer water or coffee to her patient. Certainly a very different experience from the previous one, do you agree?
Because it is exactly this variability in the provision of the service that brings a series of problems to dental clinics.
Perhaps the main problem that the lack of standardization of processes, not only of attendance brings to a dental clinic, is the loss of patients.
It’s just that people like predictability. Nobody wants to be poorly attended, or to have a different service with each interaction with their clinic.
In addition, when you do not have very detailed processes and well-established routines, care is dependent on the talent and goodwill of each person in your clinic.
And believe me: if you want to grow, having a real company in the dentistry area needs to reduce the dependence on people and their talents and goodwill to the maximum.
POP – Standard Operating Procedure for Dental Clinics
Imagine having a clinic where each person on your team knows exactly how to proceed.
Each team member understands and understands her role within the total delivery of the service that a patient hires.
Imagine also that in this clinic the service is standardized (not robotic), people follow a script for each routine activity, whether inside or outside the office.
Such a clinic is viable as long as it has well-defined operating procedures.
POP, or standard operating procedure, is the synthesis and genesis of the main activities within a well-documented, standardized and repeatable dental clinic.
Think of your clinic today. Answer a few questions:
How are the activities carried out?
Are there well-defined scripts for scheduling appointments?
Markdowns?
Is there a clear and objective process for explaining the treatment plan to the patient?
If one of your employees leaves the clinic, what will be the stress level to hire and train someone else?
The standard operating procedure is the description and repetition of a procedure, whether for customer service or for providing direct service to the patient, which is repeatable and standardized.
Examples of POPs that can and should be created in your clinic:
Reception of patients
Telephone support
Scheduling appointments
Fitting patients on the agenda
Appointment rescheduling
Sterilization
Organization of the clinical pre-care practice
Organization of the clinic after-care clinic
Credit analysis
Sales commissioning
Relationship and after sales
Etc, etc., etc.
Operational procedures are based on various tools with checklists, inputs and tasks.
Operation manual For dental clinics
A collection of standard operating procedures form an operating manual for a dental clinic.
When you have standard operating procedures for each of your clinic’s macro processes a document called the clinic’s standard operating manual takes shape.
But the clinic’s standard operating manual goes beyond the clinic’s POP list. It also contains premises for the use of the manual, as well as flowcharts for interconnecting the activities and sectors of the clinic that contribute to the delivery of the final service to the client / patient.
Why invest in an operations manual for a dental clinic?
Clinics lose thousands of dollars annually due to disorganization, rework, training of employees, waste of material and other dysfunctions.
If you want to have a successful dental clinic that produces a good quality service for the patient with the least possible dependence on people’s attitudes, you need to invest in the format of a clinic operation manual.
To depend on people’s humor and goodwill, in addition to the natural talent (or absence of it) of their employees is to rely on luck. Do not do it.
A good operations manual will bring, among other benefits, to your dental clinic:
Standardization of care;
Accountability of those involved in the business;
Definition of functions and interfaces between functions;
Quality in the provision of services;
Loyalty of patients who can always count on a good level of services;
Increased productivity;
Increase in billing as satisfied patients return, invest more in their clinic and refer their business;
Decreased dependence on specific people.
Decreased waste of materials and hours of work;
Decrease in costs with stopped stock and loss of inputs
Conclusion
The job of mapping the operational processes of a dental clinic, standardizing its operations and standardizing its routines is an investment that pays off quickly.
If you have a clinic that has grown and is dissatisfied with the lack of standardization in work processes, get in touch. Senior will help map your work processes and create and implement a good operations manual that will bring you several benefits as an entrepreneur and your patients, in the form of better services.
Senior Marketing