Every dental hygiene team member should have a productivity goal or target within the practice. What does this production goal represent? Is it a random number you come up with based on what your colleagues have suggested?
Your hygiene productivity goals need to be relatable, or they will have zero impact on your hygiene team!
Your daily revenue goal or production per hour goal should be designed to help you meet your profitability goals. In other words, your daily goal should be three times the pay and benefits that you provide to your dental hygienist. The national standard for benefits is conservatively estimated at 20% of an individual’s compensation.
What makes up hygiene revenue? Hygiene revenue is calculated by everything that’s completed in the hygiene chair except for the doctor exam. That means that radiographs, a prophy, scaling/root planing, fluoride, sealants, any of those procedures that the hygienist is doing in their chair, is credited to hygiene production.
You also want to be sure you are looking at the adjusted revenue when figuring out your hygiene revenue goals. (AGR = Gross Revenue – All adjustments and allowances.)
Next, you need to look at what your hygienists are paid. Here’s an example for you. If you have a hygienist in your office that is paid $40 an hour and works 8.5 hours a day, that equals $340 that you’re paying them. You add in their benefits at the estimated 20%, equaling $68. The estimated expense of this hygienist working each day is $408. In order for the practice to see a profitable return, this hygienist needs to produce a minimum of $1,224 a day.
Using this formula, you can easily see when your hygiene team is meeting your “target” revenue, which then directly translates to profitability.
Last, you need to communicate this goal with your hygiene team. Be clear about how the number was calculated, as every hygienist should understand the “3x” rule.
If your hygiene team is unsure of how they will obtain their daily production goal, then show them how they can achieve this by having them design what they believe is an ideal day. In other words, have them map out an 8-hour work day with the patients they would like to see within that day. Then have them add in the adjusted fees for each one of those patients. Remember to have them add in the fees for X-rays, fluoride, etc. More often than not they will create a day that is far more productive than they expect. You want them to see how a mix of realistic services will garner strong revenue. This exercise makes it completely relatable!
Many offices will set arbitrary numbers that have no meaning. Make sure every goal has a meaning, and is something your hygiene team can easily relate to. Arbitrary hygiene goals carry no weight at all.
Last, reward and celebrate your team when the goals are achieved. After all, when your entire team meets the goal you should feel confident knowing you are running a profitable business.
Hi.
I am a hygienist currently working in Chicago, Illinois. My monthly goals seem almost impossible to reach. The manager tries to explain how she calculates goals and how I benefit from these goals. I get paid $38/hr and my monthly goals change every month. One month is 30k and the next is 35k, depending how good I do.
My manager says that they change depending on the amount of days I work, which makes no sense , since some months I work less and the goal still goes up.
One month, i went up $6,000 over my goal and my manager said I get paid 5% of that as a bonus. My question is why and how?!?! why can’t it be 20+ since I already exceeded their goals and the office did good in hygiene that month.