Resolve to Revitalize Your Dental Practice Operations in 2024
Dear dental practice office managers, have we told you how amazing you are? You’re the ones greasing the wheels, remembering the details, keeping everything and everyone on track. And we know you are always thinking of ways to improve things. In this new year, let us help you with five steps to setting and achieving goals for your dental practice in 2024.
Reflect on your practice.
What does success look like for your practice? Are you trying to improve patient retention and treatment acceptance rates? Are you trying to grow your practice by attracting new patients and adding more services? Are you trying to improve work/life balance for employees and retention of staff? Try to isolate one important mission for your year ahead.
Take an honest look at how you are currently doing in this area. What are your biggest gaps? What are your pain points? For example, is success for your practice having an efficient, happy, and retained workforce with good work-life balance, but in reality you are understaffed with high turnover? This is where you can set a goal that will make a difference for your practice.
Establish your goal(s) for the year.
Once you isolate something you want to achieve this year, think about how you can set a goal that is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (or SMART). For example, your goal could be to fully staff your office by March and retain 90% of employees throughout the year.
Create a “treatment plan” for your practice.
Once you make your goal, create a plan with as much thought, care, and thoroughness as you use to create a long-term treatment plan for patients. Let’s say you want a fully staffed office with retained employees. What changes could be made to get there? Do you need new software to improve workflow and employee satisfaction? Consider asking for input from employees and fellow office managers to see what ideas they have.
Determine how you will measure success.
Next determine your KPIs (key performance indicators) for your goal and how you will measure them. This is how you will keep track of your progress and whether you are making headway on your goal. For example, you could develop employee satisfaction surveys and distribute the same survey each quarter to see if employee satisfaction is improving.
Check in on your progress.
While it’s important to have a time-bound goal, it’s also important to have set times throughout the year to check in on your goal progress. It’s also important to find ways to stay accountable when things inevitably get busy and old habits start to take over. Perhaps you can find support with fellow AADOM members by sharing your goals, plans, and progress at set times throughout the year.
Celebrate your success.
If you set a SMART goal, determine KPIs, create a thorough plan, and keep yourself accountable, there is no doubt you will make progress on your goal. If anyone can do it, it’s you!
We wish you all the success in this New Year!
Read more about determining, setting, and achieving dental practice goals here: https://www.pattersondental.com/resources/dental-software/software-treatment-plan-white-paper
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