Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Dr. Dar Radfar: Team Mistake
31 Plays24 days ago
Dr. Dar Radfar is back on Dental Fuel to share his insights on building a strong dental team! 🦷💼 He dives into key strategies for retaining staff, fostering a positive work environment, and the valuable role that practice coaching and consulting can play in elevating your practice.
About the Guest:
Dr. Dar Radfar is a seasoned dentist with over 22 years of experience in the field. He is a key advocate for integrating sleep apnea and snoring treatment within dental practices. Dr. Radfar began focusing on sleep apnea in 2009 after experiencing a life-changing car accident caused by his own undiagnosed condition. He has since become a pioneer in developing dental solutions for sleep apnea, creating over 1600 mouthpieces, and sharing his knowledge through RadSeminar.com where he educates other dentists.
Connect with Dr. Rad: @dr.radhealth
Connect with Ignitedds and Dr. David Rice: @ignitedds Free Intro Call
Connect with Tanya Sue Maestas: @tsmaestas.dds
Learn more about 90 Day JumpStart : https://ignitedds.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Dental Fuel Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Dental Fuel, the podcast that focuses on what no one else is talking about. Mistakes. The dental world is full of before and afters, and no one is talking about the middle. Dental Fuel brings you the unspoken in-between. Welcome back to another episode of Dental Fuel.
Sponsorship and Program Overview
00:00:17
Speaker
Dental Fuel is brought to you by 90 Day Jumpstart, a program to help you increase production and break free from financial stress.
Challenges in Practice Optimization
00:00:25
Speaker
Optimizing a dental practice can be challenging for both young and seasoned dentists.
Dr. Radfar on Team Management
00:00:30
Speaker
Dr. Radfar talks about his real-world experiences and offers guidance on team retention as well as the importance of potentially hiring third-party consultants to help with an analysis of your practice. Let's listen in.
00:00:43
Speaker
For you, were there any team mistakes that you made in building you know your practice and your team ah that really you know stand out to you when you think back about when from when you first started or even now if if you have some team struggles?
Appreciating and Balancing Team Dynamics
00:00:58
Speaker
Yeah, you know I think the number one thing that a lot of owners struggle with this is retention of teams, especially nowadays where working remotely from home is so fruitful. ah In the dental world, that's almost impossible. and so keeping your team on board. I just noticed that showing a lot of appreciation you know and kindness, it's almost like without any disrespect to any of your staff, you do treat them like their own your own child.
00:01:26
Speaker
Again, not to disrespect their intelligence or their capability. It's how would you speak kindly to your own kind? It's hard sometimes when they make mistakes, but guess what? We make mistakes as practitioners. We're not perfect. And so some of the mistakes I've made with staff is is sometimes being a little too lenient, um being too fun.
00:01:45
Speaker
you know and and letting things and conversations go to a certain way that it shouldn't have gone between them and not stopping it in a private matter, pulling them to the side and saying, hey, let's not talk about stuff like that, because that could be disrespectful towards other people in the office, even even though it's funny. So I think I was a little too lackadaisical. I was trying to be the fun dentist creating a fun environment. So there's a fine line between really strict and really fun. And so you got to be careful with that.
00:02:14
Speaker
but I think leaning towards more on the strict side, but yet still having that you know happy-go-lucky, non-grumpy, mentality is crucial because if you're showing any sort of mood, good luck with your staff trying to entertain and making your patients happy or they're having a good day. I know it's hard on us as dentists. I feel your guys' struggles day in and day out, but you really have to work on your own happiness and kindness to yourself to be able to give kindness to others in in the hardest days when things aren't going right and your staff's just you know not doing their thing.
Role of Consultants in Practice Management
00:02:51
Speaker
I do strongly believe in consultants and coaching. I had two of them throughout my 22 years, a third party coming in and addressing the issues. It's so much easier than us talking about it in a morning huddle. So once you get the money to ramp up, I would recommend having some sort of systems coaching and consulting person to come in.
00:03:14
Speaker
to be able to kind of analyze your office and see where your hygiene's going and how your assistants could take more intra-roller photos and the way we talk, the way you manage the phone systems, all those things is something that I believe a third party is better at doing than us dentists trying to do it all while you're still seeing patients most of the week. When these consultants come in, they kind of they spend a few days in the office and and take a look at what the procedures are throughout the day.
00:03:41
Speaker
Yeah, for example, they' go calm most of them, I've worked with a few and I and and have a lot that refer me sleep apnea dentists to be, and I refer them offices that or need help of organization. And what we usually see is an analysis of the numbers, and and then they usually do every a meeting every other week.
00:04:00
Speaker
for three to four hour blocks, where you would literally close your office for half a day. And you're losing production, you're in collections, you're losing seeing patients on a Tuesday from 8am to noon. But you want the staff to be there, everyone's, you know, it's a normal working hours.
00:04:16
Speaker
And I just noticed that that was really, we're all honed in. We're not doing it on a Saturday. We're not doing it after work. We're not doing it during our lunches. it's You got to take some time. and You can use your admin day for that to be able to have them really go over certain systems. For example, what happens when a hygiene patient leaves and they don't want to schedule because they don't know what they're doing in six months. What are we saying there?
00:04:37
Speaker
Are we saying, well, let's go ahead and put you on the books. You can always change it when you get the email reminder. Dr. Rad's schedule does get really booked for cleanings. If you call then, it may be a few weeks out. Let's keep you on the books for like stuff like that. I could tell my staff that a hundred times, but sometimes a third party ah explaining that and then watching them in action.
00:04:59
Speaker
and if they're if they're coming to the office, can and can kind of remind them, hey, do do you remember what happened? Why did this person not get scheduled? When you had seven you know recalls today, why did all seven not get scheduled? they don' They go in the computer, they see only five. Well, because they said they didn't know this, cut well, did you tell them what we you're supposed to tell them about you know keeping the keeping them on the schedule and then they can change it a couple of weeks before with their email reminder. ah Stuff like that, I think it's really crucial to kind of hold their hand a little bit until it becomes ah habit and it becomes their personality. I think, I mean, that's so interesting and probably very helpful from a practice standpoint. I think that it's helpful in the sense that, you know, you you can't be everywhere at once.
Implementing and Retaining New Protocols
00:05:42
Speaker
And I think that having the consultants there to ah kind of overlook it and maybe not monitor, but just kind of just take a look, you know, get give the 360 view from ah from a different perspective.
00:05:54
Speaker
and help reinforce some positive changes, I think is probably really helpful. Whereas, you know you may go up to the front desk and you say, hey, I need you to do this. They may do it for a few people, but then it kind of falls through the truth through the cracks. And then you're back to ah square one where whatever you said you're going to implement isn't being implemented. So I think that that's great. I think that that's wonderful advice for our listeners and you know any practice owners to potentially incorporate into their day-to-day practices.
Beyond ROI: Lasting Changes with Consultants
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah, the problem is, is we think, okay, we're going to pay you $2,500 a month. How much am I going to get make in return? Some of the stuff that they teach is priceless. And some of the stuff that they teach, you know, every single basketball team in the nation.
00:06:34
Speaker
That's a great team, has a coach on the sidelines reminding them what the play was for the 4,000th time this year. And then you have the Docker, which is the lead player and all of the assistants, which are all the other team members executing the play. And then they will still fumble the ball or turn over the ball. Or they would still have issues that have to be like, hey, you guys, you've got to remember. And until it becomes majority of the time, a habit that's successful and less stressful and more accountable so people know what they're, the who's the first one on the phone? Who's the second one on the phone? What happens when it doesn't get picked up? Who checks messages at lunchtime? something you know All these things you think,
00:07:15
Speaker
People would know, but they they don't. They really don't know. And they need to be kind of reminded and trained. And after six months to a year of being consulted or coached. Majority of the things get retained and then hopefully we keep our staff and no new staff have to keep coming in because then you got to have those people updated and challenged. You know, that that's another fun thing. Well, if I train all these people and then they leave after two years, what happens? Well, you can't live in that kind of negative fear mindset. You hopefully create a working environment that they stay as long as it's possible for them.
Growth and Accountability with Consultants
00:07:50
Speaker
Would you say that these consultants um that you have consulted with helped you grow and change your leadership style in the practice? Yeah, I mean, um I told you, let's not talk about ah ROI, but we actually did grow 33% year-over-year and 32% the other time we did it. So it definitely made us grow just by simple hygiene strategies that we had, let alone making sure that we documented how many times we did intro oral photos per patient, like the one, the assistant who did the most got a gift card at the end of the month. and
00:08:28
Speaker
So stuff like that was very crucial because I feel like it took a little bit less of a stress off of me. So even though I had my own duties as well, I had to make sure I diagnose 30 crowns a month. you know I got to look for stuff as well. And so it's it's ah it was it pushed me and held me accountable for my actions and my things.
00:08:52
Speaker
And also some of the other things like making sure HIPAA is in order, our forms are in order, that it protected me. Making sure our cons consents are signed every single time. And do we do it right ah correctly? You know, and all those systems are in place. Those are those are real really golden benefits from a consultant coming in and helping you with that. It's great to track that too. I think that those met metrics are very eye-opening, especially over time. You can see where you started and where you're at after after the consultants come in and after you put things into play.
Final Tips and Call to Action
00:09:24
Speaker
This episode had a ton of value. We hope that you'll be able to implement some of the key tips that Dr. Radford touched upon. If you're looking to grow your practice and need some help along the way, be sure to check out 90 Day Jumpstart. You can start for free by contacting Dr. David Rice. Check out the link to his account in the show notes.