Here at ePractice Manager we work with a wide range of dental practices, which we can generally put into two categories—the reactive practice, and the proactive practice.

It’s important to note the signs of these two categories in order to honestly evaluate your practice, and to make the necessary changes.

A proactive practice is in a constant state of evaluation and is consistently working towards predictability.  

Signs of a proactive practice:

 The practice is focused on actively working to make internal adjustments to increase productivity.

 The office administration understands the importance of tracking, monitoring, and reporting all statistics, and ensures that all key performance indicators (KPIs) are routinely evaluated.

 The office staff are fully trained and consistently improving their knowledge base through continuing education events, resulting in a healthy work environment and an empowered team.

 The practice has low staff turnover and high job satisfaction among its employees.

 New patients become established patients with regular and routine visits.

A reactive practice changes and updates routines based on outside stimuli, rather than looking within the practice for areas of improvement.

Signs of a reactive practice:

External issues are often cited as the cause behind faltering KPIs, such as:

“The economy is the cause of our low numbers this month.”

“Kids are out of school right now.”

“The office is in a low income area, so patients tend to go with lower cost options.”

Management is continuously dealing with disagreements between the staff.

There is frequent turnover of office staff.

 The office environment is stressful and feels disorganized.

 Large amounts of money are being spent on marketing and new patients.

 The daily schedule is rife with no-shows, cancellations, and reschedules.

 Low treatment presentation and case acceptance numbers.

 The doctor is focused on trying to run the business side of the practice, rather than the clinical.

For some tips on how to evaluate where your practice currently stands, check out our blog “A Simple Systems Check to Evaluate the Health of Your Practice“.

Being able to identify issues early on will put you on the road toward becoming a proactive practice—and remember, we are here to help!