You Cant Manage What You Cant Measure

Use KPIs to motivate your team, keep them accountable, and aligned toward the same goals.

By Laura Bowles, DEO

One of the biggest challenges dental leaders face is how to extricate themselves from the day to day micromanaging of staff/associates. When youre putting out fires, focusing on your business growth strategy falls to the bottom of the list.

Thats why metrics are so important. Building a culture of knowing (and owning) KPIs can help motivate your team, keep them accountable, and aligned toward the same goals so you can get out of the weeds, and get time back to focus on your growth strategy.

KPIs can help reveal areas where you should focus your attention, what you need to do less of or stop completely, bottlenecks (or weak links) within your business, and much more. Metrics can assist you in decision-making by enabling you to objectively measure performance so that everything is not dependent on you reacting under pressure.

For planning which KPIs are best for your team, DEO created this resource: [MASSIVE MANAGER CHECKLIST] Critical KPIs For 9 Dental Group Positions. This resource was cultivated from our proprietary DEO MAP curriculum, the first operating system just for growing dental companies. It includes KPIs and roles/responsibilities for 9 key dental practice positions that have helped 1,000s of dental entrepreneurs keep their teams on track, aligned, and grow their businesses.

Here are some of the checklists recommended KPIs by position:

• Associate: production, supply/lab cost per hour, and treatment acceptance
• Dental Hygienist: production per visit, reappointment percentage and the number of sealants, etc.
• Office Manager: collections, cancellations/no-shows and RPRS
• Regional Operations: P & L performance, and facility utilization
• Marketing: new patients, and Google reviews
• Treatment Coordinator: patient acceptance, and follow-ups
• Insurance Coordinator: AR days, and % of claims < 30 days
• Front Office Team: over-the-counter collections, and scheduling efficiency

By tracking the right KPIs, you can shelve emotions and opinions and let the metrics guide you - to have super productive discussions on where support is needed, plus uncover new strategies. The result: better consistent performance across the board and holding your team accountable by looking at the same exact things.

Take an example from the construction industry: when you enter a building, you take for granted that it isnt going to collapse. Construction has systems and checklists in place to ensure this. Use KPIs to pattern your dental group the same way. If you dont keep track of processes and goals with KPIs, you are going to have to regularly interfere in each department (and every location). You cant manage what you cant measure!

For more, click here to get your free copy of the [MASSIVE MANAGER CHECKLIST] Critical KPIs For 9 Dental Group Positions.