#875: Keep Those Hygiene Schedules Full

Dental A Team Podcast

Tiff and Dana drill down on how practices can avoid their hygiene schedules falling apart, including the benefit of ASAP lists and their opinions on re-care.

Episode resources:

Reach out to Tiff and Dana

Tune Into DAT’s Monthly Webinar

Practice Momentum Group Consulting

Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast

Become Dental A-Team Platinum!

Review the podcast

Transcript:

The Dental A Team (00:06.99)

Hey, Dental A Team podcast listeners, we are back at you again. We are so excited to be here. I have Miss Dana with me today. You guys know she's one of my favorites to podcast with. Dana, I have to say, I know a couple podcasts ago, you guys may remember, I asked her about some legging recommendations. She gave me some hiking, like legging recommendations. I wasn't able to find the specific pair that you talked about yet, but I did find a Lulu pair.

that I used in Yosemite last week. And honestly, I've used them for a couple of hikes here in the Valley as well in Phoenix. Amazing. I was so happy because they were specifically that material. It was a different kind of material than regular leggings. And I'm so happy. And I was thinking of you the whole time. And I was like, my gosh, she was right. And it had so many pockets for my phone and all the things. So thank you, Dana. And I know you've also been really, you've been working really, really hard.

in personal life in your world of fitness. And I think it's really cool. And I wanted to acknowledge that today. And I wanted to let the world know that Dana is a freaking rock star. She was so strong. saw, I don't even remember the rec the other day that I saw you, you posted something and I was like, holy cow, like the things that this woman is capable of doing are incredible. So kudos to you, Dana. I love it. What is your, I always like to ask you a question. What's the most fun

thing in CrossFit that you're doing right now. Like what's something that you're working to overcome, accomplish, you're killing it on, something that you're really having fun with right

Dana (01:40.331)

Yeah, I mean, I feel like I'm always working on something, right? And I think this year I turned 40. It was a big birthday. And my goal was to be the strongest that I've ever been. So I've been focusing a lot on strength, but I always am practicing skill work. And I finally got my rope climbs down. So I can actually do those like consecutively. So that's exciting. And I've been working on my handstand pushups to the point where I can do five in a row. So I'll take that.

The Dental A Team (02:02.895)

So cool.

Nice.

The Dental A Team (02:09.935)

Okay. Well, I mean, I struggle with five regular pushups, not on my head. So that's impressive to me. I know that in CrossFit there's people that are doing a lot of amazing, wild things, but to me that is amazing and wild. So congratulations. That's huge. Awesome. I love it. I love it. Well, you work really hard in and out of the quote unquote office. So thank you for always being here and thank you for always being willing

Dana (02:24.629)

Thanks.

The Dental A Team (02:39.722)

record these podcasts with me for our listeners. I know they're super beneficial. Today's content is actually really fun for me because by trade in case you guys did not know, Dana is a licensed and trained professional hygienist. That is what she did. I mean, she's done it all. She's done all the positions really most of them I should say not dentist, none of us has been a dentist, whatever, it's fine. But she was a hygienist, you guys for a long time and she still is a hygienist.

I think it's really cool. think it's always fun for me to have these conversations with you to gain your perspective from your side as well. Today I wanted to talk about really keeping the hygiene schedule full. So I know from my perspective from dental assistant and then from my perspective as a front office, which you also have that perspective, it's kind of like a free for all a lot of the times. And it's really just not always first or high priority.

But from the hygiene standpoint, Dana, what is that like? Let's just go through, what does it feel like when you look at a schedule and you're like, great, this is a killer day, it's gonna be awesome. You get through your first patient and then you look back at your schedule and it's totally falling apart. Or you look ahead and you're like, gosh, I only have scheduled, I'm only scheduled out a week and a half. Like, what is that like as a hygienist looking at your schedule and seeing

Dana (03:55.689)

Yeah, I mean, it can be stressful because really for me, I mean, you probably know this about me, Tiff, but I'm pretty goal oriented. And so obviously, I know when I don't have patients on my schedule, that affects my ability to get to goal. then to like, I am there, the reason why I'm there and what I love is that patient care and being able to take care of my patients and do the things that they need when they're in my chair. And so if my schedule isn't full or isn't ideal, I don't get to do that as much as I ideally would love. And so it can be stressful, it

The Dental A Team (04:01.997)

Yeah.

Dana (04:25.633)

be frustrating, right? Because so many times, like hygiene is just like your routine care, right? And so it's, it doesn't, it is stressful as far as like, did I not build enough importance for that visit? Or where did maybe, you know, my communication with that patient make it so that they didn't value their time with me? And so I think that it can be frustrating and stressful for every hygienist.

The Dental A Team (04:49.836)

Yeah, I think that makes sense. And I think that's important what you just said, because you just took it from a spin that I didn't even expect. And I think most probably team members for an office workers and assistants don't expect that either because it feels, or we allow it to feel, we take it very personally when a hygienist is like what happens to our schedule. But you have taken it personally when a patient falls off of your schedule. So you're already in a space

unrest of like upset of gosh, what could I have done differently? Or how could I have been better? And then we come out I'm gonna say we for the front office, we come out at oftentimes of like, hey, I did the best that I could, what do you expect from me? So then you're already you're already in a space of upset and unrest and, and trying to figure it out. And then we come at you like, don't come at me. And now you're you know, the hygiene team

then maybe take offense to that and become defensive. So that makes sense. I'm actually really glad I asked you that question, because I'm not sure I've ever asked that or dove into that. And I hope the listeners heard what Dana said as well as, and then can kind of see that picture painted of how an upset could occur between two people or two groups of people very easily because of one misunderstanding. We're both kind of taking offense to a situation without understanding the other person's point of view.

That was actually incredible. Thank you. I knew you would say something really great, but I wasn't even expecting as far as that went. So that was really fantastic. Thank you. I see within that a space of communication. So making sure clear expectations are made from the get -go. That we're always asking more questions and assuming less. That's a reminder I love to give everyone in my life. Ask more questions, assume less.

and assume the only assumption can be that you don't know the answer.

The Dental A Team (06:50.57)

ask more questions and assume less and assume the only thing you can assume is that you don't actually know the answer because you're not the other person. So that's huge right there because I think that's a space where people can really say, hey, let's talk about this. And if we have solid systems set up from the get -go, a good foundation of what do we do if something falls off the schedule? What do we do when the schedule falls apart?

That's a really easy space to meet expectations and hopefully refill a schedule before a hygienist even notices. That's my favorite thing to do is to make sure that he or she has a full schedule and doesn't even know it fell apart. So with that, some common, common ways to do that, we're gonna dive into a few for you guys today so that you can really be prepared to meet those expectations and really clear up a lot of communication between the two of those two departments or three departments.

My favorite and Dana, think we work on this a lot with practices, blocked scheduling and ASAP lists. Those are my two favorites. I love blocked scheduling. We talk about this in a lot of different podcasts for a lot of different reasons, but within hygiene, it really helps set and build the value and ensures that your new patients are scheduled where they need to be. When those new patients schedule blocks and those SRP blocks are in place correctly, we're scheduling

out into the future. as they come off, it's very easy if someone falls off the schedule, maybe an SRP got called into work and can't come later today. Well, guess what, I've got another SRP that's very easy to find, that's probably about the same time, if not exactly the same time of day, that can likely come in and I can choose that one to call and bring them in earlier. The ASAP list is super similar, like what time of day are they looking to come in, making sure we're notating all of those things, every system as far as I know,

Has the capability of an ASAP list. know Dentrix does, Open Dental does, Dana's saying yes, so that means Eagle Soft does. She knew that was my crux. Ascend, I can't answer that question. And then Curve does, and I bet Care Stack does as well. So utilize those ASAP lists. If you don't know how to do it within your system, Google you guys. I know we get a lot of those questions and I'm happy to answer them. So you can reach out, [e-mail] as

The Dental A Team (09:08.058)

But usually if we don't know the answer, we're typing it in Google for you guys. So Google at first reach out to us if you need it or if you need help creating the system around it. But that ASAP space with those blocked schedules really helped to solidify a grouping of people to pull into those holes. Dana, how do you help practices see the system behind a good ASAP list? Because I know a lot of practices really struggle to see the value

creating it and can sometimes feel like it's redundant or they're like, gosh, I've called all these people. What kind of systems do you put in place for

Dana (09:46.707)

And I think this keeps coming up more and more right now because a lot of offices are short on hygiene hours and so the last thing we want to do is have an opening and there have been an easy person to put in there but it's not easy because we rely on our memory and let's face it as much as our memory is great, right? Four or five even close to six months later not so great if we're all being honest with ourselves and so I think the Where I see a lot of the pushback on the ASAP list is if they've tried it and it's messy,

The Dental A Team (10:09.57)

Mm -hmm.

Dana (10:16.373)

There's no cleanup system. There's no like we just keep calling the same people. There's no anything There's not great notes in there So my first thing is who do you put on the ASAP list and really the ASAP list is anyone who rescheduled who canceled right or rescheduled and didn't get back on our schedule I guess so they just canceled or

The Dental A Team (10:30.012)

sorry.

Dana (10:35.749)

They didn't and they didn't reappoint so putting those people on your ASAP list because you know They were due or our past do and need to get in fairly quickly Anyone who we had to schedule out a little bit farther than we'd like to and who wanted sooner or anyone who we put in a not ideal time for them and they would actually prefer something different so those are who goes on your ASAP list and then it's a really it is just when do we call them and When do we clean them

Right? And so it's just kind of creating those rules of thumb. So when we call them, obviously when we have a cancellation or we have somebody who even we anticipate calling side booking if we need to. So that would be when you would use the list and then it's just an easy cleanup

how many times are we gonna reach out to this patient and offer them something sooner before we take them off and we just give them their original appointment because we've tried to make it within our schedule and we don't wanna keep also bugging them to a certain extent. So it's just kind of coming up with that cutoff. I usually say like three or four times and then they just come up the ASAP list or making sure that we're checking our ASAP list and is somebody on there already have a sooner appointment? Like did we already do something and we just left them?

The Dental A Team (11:23.946)

Okay.

Dana (11:49.039)

on there. So it's just having those strategies that make ASAP list work. just oftentimes can get clunky because we don't have those strategies in place when we start it.

The Dental A Team (11:57.04)

Mm -hmm. I totally agree. I totally agree. And there have been so many times when I was in practice that I would say to a patient, like, gosh, I know for me it would be really hard, you know, to move my appointment up in my life, but I like to think that it would be easy. So I know we've offered a couple of times, but I don't want to keep bugging you. Do you me to keep calling if they come up, or do you want me to take you off the list? And oftentimes patients will be like, no, it's not a bother at all. And I know it's annoying. Like, I can't make this one, but please keep trying. And I'd be like, totally fine. It's not a problem whatsoever. I just want to make sure I

driving you crazy with the phone calls or patients would be like, yeah, you know what, you're right. Like, I'm probably never going to be able to come in early. So just take me off. I'd rather just keep the plan that I have. So it helps to clean it up. Just asking a simple question of, is this beneficial for you? Or is it a nuisance? Because either way, I want to make sure that you're satisfied. So and I think we think we're invading, right? That's always the issue. We always feel like we're invading somebody's bubble or we're bothering them. And we don't want to be a

So then we shy away from calling them or like, gosh, I just called them two days ago. I'm not going to call them again. But if we ask them upfront and they tell us it is, or is not a bother, now we can make that decision that goes back to not making assumptions. So I think that's huge. Now, Dana, I preach this to all of my clients, all of my practices I work with, re care, make her re care, re care. When I was first new into dentistry, I was a few years into dentistry, my

dearest doctor they worked for for a long time. He was a re -care maniac and he used to drive me insane until I saw, okay, I get it. He's like, we're not six months booked, we've got a problem and he was just hammering this re -care constantly and I was like, what is the deal? But when we stop calling people and we stop being like front of mind, right? Top of mind, we're not in front of them anymore is when they forget about us. So whether they're scheduling or not,

us sending the reminders, the text messages, the emails, the quick phone calls, it's just like, hey, checking in on you just wanted to see where you're at in life. That's putting us top of mind so that when they do have a second to schedule that appointment, we are the place that they're calling. I say, call until call and text and remind until someone says I'm not coming back. Dana, what's your philosophy on re care, especially coming from a hygiene standpoint, right from a hygienist?

The Dental A Team (14:21.601)

who needs to see these patients and wants to see these patients again in your chair, how do you feel about the repair space?

Dana (14:27.531)

I mean, I 100 % agree with you. I consider myself a fairly good patient, but I'll be honest that it's most important when I'm in your office. And so if I don't schedule when I'm in your office, I'm going to need those touch points because life happens. And as much as I want to stay on top of my dental care, I want to be there every six months. Sometimes I just do that friendly nudge of like, hey, don't forget, you never did schedule with us, give us a call. And so I agree with you. think putting it in automated and then also reaching out personally, I think hitting it from both sides.

really can help keep people consistent and keep you, like you said, top of mind.

The Dental A Team (15:02.156)

Totally agree Dana. I think that was beautiful. You have such an amazing perspective coming from the hygiene side and really just seeing how the dental assisting side, the hygiene side, the front office side, like all of these departments just combined together to get the job done on keeping a hygiene schedule full. It's just so important. It's so imperative. And I love what you said there. And just gathering all of those pieces, hygiene department, this is coming from you guys in my opinion. And I hope you guys share in that because it was a really cool perspective. Now,

I just want to recap, Dana, thank you so much for being here with me today and for allowing me to pick your brain and put you on the spot. I know you're never expecting all of the questions that I ask you and you take them with grace and with love and dignity and all of the pieces and you showed us some aspects of hygiene and that I wasn't expecting today. So was really, really cool. So thank you. And you guys out there, I really want you to put this powerful message into play. I want you to take all of these bits and pieces and really help keep your own hygiene schedule.

super full, that's what we're here to do today. That's what we're hoping for is to just have this amazingly full hygiene schedule. Now, here are the things you guys ASAP list if you're not using it within your system, do it now. I know a lot of people like the handwritten notes, like we said, but put it in place. Always, always, always be calling your re -care. You guys, I know this can be scary when you don't have anywhere to put them or you're worried about where you're going to put them,

When we back off is when we start to see in the future, the schedule really start to slow down. Blocking out new patient spots. And then you guys just have a plan for what happens, what you're going to do, what your team is supposed to do. What's the system for when things fall off the schedule? Who is responsible? How are they going to fill it? And who are they going to enlist to help if they can't do it themselves? So make sure that you have all of these systems in play, you guys, and in place.

The plan is going to be my number one spot because all those other pieces fall into that plan. You guys go do it, go implement it and let's see what you can do with this hygiene schedule. As always, thank you for being here with Dana and I today. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. And if you have ideas that you're open to sharing to the dental industry and the dental world, drop them below in a five star review so people can see them. They do read the reviews, especially when it comes to individual

The Dental A Team (02:26.671)

podcast so if you've got some ideas pop them in there otherwise find us on our social platforms as well the dental a team and then [e-mail] is where you can submit any emails over to us if you have ideas if you have questions if you want some systems if you want to bounce ideas off of us we're here for that and open to it thank you so much guys and we'll catch you next time.