Here is a simple and powerful thesis, and one that will define success of your career, at least financially:
When a dentist is doing anything other than creating practice production, the dentist is doing the wrong thing.
So, what is the right thing?
Unfortunately, Levin Group often finds that many dentists engage in other responsibilities that aren’t productive and don’t create production. The main role of the dentist is engaging with patients, and this means performing, diagnosing, or presenting treatment. These are the main responsibilities of a successful dentist. Now, by any definition, there are many successful dentists who have different levels of production, revenue, profit, and income. But from a practice management standpoint, you must eventually measure success by production level, and dentists with more production are more successful.
If you aren’t focusing most of your time on practice production and treating patients as described above, then you are doing the wrong things and wasting time. The keys to being able to concentrate all of your energy on patients are to have excellent systems in place, encourage the staff to follow those systems, use measurements to determine staff performance and delegate at the highest levels. This means that you must trust your staff to do their jobs. If you are doing anything other than patient-related activities, you’re doing someone else’s job.
Remember, you’re the dentist and the practice leader. True practice leaders would not even consider doing their staff members’ jobs. Nor would they tolerate staff not doing their jobs. When you build a set of systems and culture that allow everyone to work at the highest level, you as the dentist and practice leader can work productively with patients.
If you want to increase practice production, you must do the right thing. The right thing is for practice leaders to spend all of their time with patients.
Editor's note: This article originally appeared in DE Weekend, the newsletter that will elevate your Sunday mornings with practical and innovative practice management and clinical content from experts across the field. Subscribe here.
