How to create a positive work environment for your dental practice?

As per US News and World Reports, dentistry is the best job with many cogs. They go through hard days to ensure the team performs the task efficiently and treats patients better. A positive culture doesn't happen overnight, and you feel like struggling to book patients, drowning in dental billing, and staff morale. Simple fixes are an incredible way to improve the office culture without losing patients, money, and team members. 

Here are a few strategies to exemplify a dream team. 

Servant Leadership

Are you ordering or leading, are you willing to help or just dentistry, are you transparent and confident? It might be time to think about what goes on within those four walls to understand where the improvement needs to start. 

While it may sound paradoxical, the hard truth is servant leadership embodies the pragmatic and practical application of traditional practices and helps you become persuasive to the team. 

• Hear out to the employees or an open-door policy for suggestions with new changes and growth happening daily. 
• Ask the team for improvements or help them with tasks instead of ordering-why isn't this done? That helps create a productive conversation and victory toward financial goals. 
• To demonstrate your support, allow your employees to make you understand what they need from you on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis growing towards business or personal goals. 
• A collaborative and exciting environment comes when they see you as an individual, not just their boss. 

Shrinking financial burden

A successful dental office runs clockwork in its operational processes, but the stressors have been the dental insurance billing on the list. Starting with hours on the phone with insurers isn't an exciting job, as it will take you away from patient care and focus only on the cash flow. 

It might be the right time to ask for help and outsource insurance claims to open up for other tasks like appointments and scheduling patients, social media strategies, reviewing treatment plans, and converting same-day patients. Revenue cycle management needs to align with your expenses so that you put profit in your pockets. 

Value your team

Speaking of positive culture, no one needs negativity stirring in their work environment. The real secret to long-term success for everyone lies in the personalized appreciation that goes a long way to accomplish more for your practice. 

The recognition path concludes: 

• Plan fun meetings and lunches to spend time with your co-workers. 
• Offer training options for positive reinforcement to reassure them that you support them in their personal and professional growth. 
• Build communication through sending an email on a busy day thanking them for their work. 
• Offer incentives based on positive results and keep this channel open so that they can reach out to you anytime.

Seeing the value in your team not only motivates them as well as cultivates a positive work culture. Running a dental office is tough, and none of these tips work if your practice is not profitable. For seeing cash flow, you have to have a winning team, which will result in patient retention.