17 Daily Habits of The Most Successful Dentists – Dental Practice Management
You can spend years and invest millions to be a successful dentist, but that cannot guarantee you a successful career as a dentist. What really matters are the habits that you have in your day to day dental practice.
We are discussing 17 daily habits of successful dentists.
Going forward to next 4 points.
9. Support Your Support Staff & Have Trust On Them
As mentioned in point number 1 of this article ” Running a Dental Practice is a Team Job”. So you need to empower your support staff so that they can play a better role in your dental practice.
How can you support your support staff?
- Have a friendly & caring attitude towards them.
- Give them the required respect and realize that they play a role in the success or failure of your dental practice.
- Look out for the dedicated support staff and provide them the necessary additional training to help you better. Investment in their training is going to benefit your dental practice a lot.
- Teach then simple works like patient counseling, media management, X-Ray management. Also when discussing a case plan, make then a part of the discussion. Sometimes due to a hectic schedule, you might miss some points. In that case, a support team who has been exposed to case planning before will remind you about the missing points. This will prevent you from making any unforced errors.
Dr. Rhonda R Savage, DDS with more than 16 years of experience in private dental practice stresses on this point. She says in her interview with DentalEconomics: Effective and successful dentists let their support staff help. “Many offices struggle in this area. Some doctors do the entire examination process. The point to note is that when the assistant is involved, case acceptance increases. The more the assistant does, the more the doctor can have a handpiece in his or her hands, doing only those things a doctor can do.”10. Building your Network
For a successful career in dentistry, it is necessary to have good networking skills. The networking should be aimed at increasing the interaction of your dental practice with your future potential clients, previous patients and your local or nearby community.
The goal of the networking is to create a positive buzz around your dental practice. A dentist must never assume that once a dental practice starts lots of patients will come running from the very first day. So enter in your dental practice every day with the thought of how to increase your networking.
Some simple points on “How to build the Network for your Dental Practice?”
- The goal of any networking should be to first target your local community. Also, networking can be on a personal basis or via online media. Both are different. By far in-person networking is most effective for dentists.
- Attend social functions in & around your community. Give oral health awareness lectures in the nearby NGO. Arrange with schools to provide dental health education to school children.
- Attend social events in & around your community where you can interact with the influencers in your community.
- Give inspiring advertising on dental health and services at your dental clinic in local newspapers and magazines.
- Use online mode of promotions by building a website for your dental practice.
- Use social media platforms for your dental practice like facebook, twitter, LinkedIn to connect with the people in your local community.
As stated by Dr.Zyl Otago University: “They say sometimes it is not what you know but who you know and that is very true in dentistry. Networking like in all career fields is just as significant in dentistry for creating new opportunities and help in times of need.”
11. Stay focused on your plan
As a dentist, it is sometimes very hectic managing so many multiple tasks. Amidst all the works it is easy to lose track of your goal. So every day before entering your dental practice, keep reminding yourself your goal. Stay true to your goal of having a dental practice that you will be proud of.
Dr. William W. Oakes, a successful practitioner, in one of his articles for DentalEconomics says: “One of the greatest problems I had in my 24-year career as a dentist was not staying focused on my plan. My practice would be doing great. Then, I would attend a weekend course and come back on Monday and try to change everything. “My weary staff finally learned, ‘Just ignore him … he’ll forget about it by Friday. And they were right! I usually did. Oh, I incorporated a few good ideas, but I never really implemented the entire package and thus I never got the desired results.”
12. Be Ethical & Practice Ethical
We are dentists and it’s our job to help people with dental and oral problems. Finance and social recognition is the by-product of our good work as a dentist.
So, we must always try to be ethical and provide the best possible service to the patients who visit our dental practice. We must also try to give back to our community whenever we can by providing free dental services and awareness programs.
Dr. Richa Singhania from India says in her Quora post:
“Remember that you can save lives and improve the quality of life of your patients. Practice ethically and genuinely. Treat the patients nicely and provide them all the explanation they deserve regarding their treatment. They have the right to know why and what treatment they need to have. Have regular follow-ups [as] needed. Complete the treatment procedures as they should end. This would be enough to achieve your goal.”
