Do you think dentists need business coaching?

[SeattleRDH]

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[armorshell]

Seems like theres a lot of this on the CE circuit, so probably. It is enlivening to think that, despite how awful we are at business as a profession, dentists still tend to do pretty well. I remember my aunt (Wall street stockbroker) telling me my dad (GP) was one of the worst businessmen she knew, yet he still managed to run an insane practice.

 

[charlestweed]

In my opinion, it is a waste of time and money to hire a consultant to come to the dental office to lecture the dentist and his staff on how to run a practice. Every dentist has his/her own style, both in management and clinical skills. Some dentists are fast and efficient and some dentists are slow. Some dentists like to spend time talking to the patients. Some dentists like to spend as little amount of time talking to the patients as possible and let the patients evaluate their office by looking at the treatment outcomes. Some dentists like to a run high end office and advertise a lot. Some dentists like to run a bare bone, low overhead, 1-assistant type of practice and do zero advertisement.

The consultants tend to over-promise and under-deliver. Beware of consultants who promise increase in production and collections and demand payment in full the day the process begins.

 

[yunowu]

I agree with Charlestweed. The advice which most consultants and financial advisors (I have four of them on multiple continents) give is based on their education background and life experiences. They may or may not be accurate or applicable to your present circumstances..I always follow up with additional research of my own..case in point. My Aussie financial advisor is the only one that advocated me to liquidate my US real estate holdings at the height of US real estate bubble. Although initially doubted his words of wisdom, I am eternally grateful for them now. The other three financial advisors (including the one here in the US) were firmly against it. I liquidated my US real estate holdings between 2005-2007 and recently my Shanghai real estate investment. The one commercial property that I picked up recently in Osaka is just a pure speculative play. I went ahead with this deal anyways despite the fierce objections from my aussie financial advisor. The owner panicked with good reason and I jumped in with one eye glued to the radiation monitor..So the moral of the story, yes, seeking financial and business advice is probably a good idea. But the advice which the "experts" give is just their "opinions", which may or may not be applicable to your present situation..

 

[DanielleCarney]

As a Consultant and also running a Dental Practice Only Billing service for office nationwide, I have to say..

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get some kind of professional Dental Specific Business Advice and coaching when you start your own practice or join an existing practice.

You should always use someone who takes the time to ask about your Practice Philosophy and finds out what your short and long term goals are. There are some very important things you should understand right away about your software and reports you should look at on a daily basis.

This is my 22th year in the Dental Field and my 3rd year running the dental billing company. I have never seen as much embezzlement as i have during this recession!

Protect yourself never trust that your staff members are doing what they say, make them back up everything with reports, keep an eye on the adjustment reports and make sure you look at the Audit trails at least on a monthly basis.

Also please make sure that you set up security levels within your Dental Practice management software, some Dentist think these are a waste of time. They are helping to protect you!

 

[Dentyte]

The answer is no if:

-you know how to build an office, the equipment you need, the sq footage you need, where to setup in your city, who you are targeting, how to advertise, if you know all about the dental software you will use, the digital x ray system you will use, how to do collections of monies, how to send people to collections, all the proper legal documents for pts to sign, all the consent forms, dialogue that your staff will use with pts, how to create and present a tx plan, how to do financing, how to have automatic notes pop up in the computer when you do each specific procedure, etc.

My point is this... You have way too much to learn by trial and error. You can hire someone to help you set it up right from the get go or you can stumble through it through trial and error. It is up to you. Good luck.

 

[Antoniaweldin]

According to my point of view, I think that every business owner must require business coaching. Because it enhances the outcome of the business. Moreover it built the motivation of the business owner.
I case of dentist, it is really very helpful in improving the speaking skills.

 

[JVanHorn]

I work with a lot of dentists from the role of a business advisory aspect. Specifically we help dentists make sense of their financial reports and present them in a way where they can actually make better decisions.

You'd be surprised how much better a dental owner can do with just a little bit of knowledge in the areas that they weren't trained in.

All of our clients are very intelligent and extremely capable, it's just that they didn't know what they didn't know.

But to the specific question. Some consultants blow and are after your money. Some are worth their weight in gold.