What will you do when you can open your practice? Do you have a plan on how you will fill your schedule once your practice is back up and running? Have you created a list of those patients you were forced to cancel?

You are going to want to make up for lost production as quickly as possible. Consider front loading your schedule. What does that mean? That means, you might want to consider prioritizing your call back list to those patients who have larger outstanding treatment. In other words, fill your schedule with high dollar treatment first.

If you have not created a list, do it now! Go back to your schedule from the time you had to cancel non-emergency appointments and write down the patient name, the tx and the estimated production - including hygiene.

To go about creating a list, go back into your schedules and start the lists.  Use excel or Google sheets!

DO NOT USE YOUR PRACTICE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE FOR THIS LIST

Your practice management software will populate your list as unscheduled treatment altogether rather than filtering out those cancelled during your shutdown. Remember the patients who actually had appointments are likely the ones who will reschedule their appointment when you resume your business.

It might be a good idea to consider doubling up hygiene for as long as you have been out to make up for time lost, especially those re care patients who do not need an exam. 

Don’t be concerned with a mix of procedures during this time. Remember, you will play catch up for a while.  You have outstanding treatment already in your bank. Schedule those patients with high production first. 

Another way to boost your production numbers when you are back up and running is to set yourself up for same day conversions.  This cannot take you more time to set up and break down. You’re going to have to do this on a moment's notice. There is no time to move an emergency patient to another operatory in order to start treatment.  You will NOT have time for this. The goal is to be prepared to convert that limited exam broken tooth to a buildup and crown - same day 

My goal for you is to double your production numbers.  I want to see these numbers double for as long as you have been shut down.  If your practice has been closed for three months, I want to see you double your average production per hour number for as many months. Initially, that will mean some cherry picking of treatment to keep numbers “artificially” higher than normal, but we all know that’s not going to be sustainable for the long run.

My ultimate goal for you is to see how possible it is for you to increase production - even double it - without working harder or longer, and without having to focus on high-value cases to the exclusion of all others..

You may not think it is possible to accomplish this.  Trust me, it is. I would like to show you how. Actually, some of the answers are in the blogs I write.  I have told you how your practice can survive this pandemic. 

I heard a dentist on a webcast say something yesterday that bothered me.  He said, there will be a large number of dentists who will close their practice or sell as a result of this pandemic.  He continued by suggesting dentists don’t have any other option. But you do have options. Maybe he is just banking on the value of your practice dropping and he plans to scoop it up.  These guys prey on you. They are telling you you will not make it. But you can - You have all the resources, right here to grow.