How To Set And Track Your Practice Performance Goals

The dental industry keeps evolving, and so does dental practice. It is essential to track performance measurements to stay ahead in terms of long-term growth and profitability. A dentist’s vision lays the foundation of the practice.

This article dives deep into setting and tracking practice performance goals that result in patient satisfaction and continually growing profitability.

Initiate the Meeting with Doctors and Set Realistic Goals:

Every dental practice wants to increase its revenue. As a busy practice, it is even more crucial to set aside time for meetings to discuss goals.

Here are a few points for brainstorming:

• Where is the focus: on retaining patients or growing more patients?Where can we find doors of opportunity?
• How can the dental practice accommodate more patients?
• What promotions can the practice offer?
• What procedures to focus on according to the patient’s needs?
• Does the dental practice need to recruit more team members for the goal?
• How was the last term of the practice in terms of collections, existing and new patients, reappointments, etc.?
• All these specific pointers can establish clear objectives and align the practice’s strategies and activities accordingly.

Goal setting always revolves around the patient so that they receive the best quality care. Using SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound) helps the dental practice make more confident decisions.

For instance, if the current case acceptance rate is 50%, it is unrealistic to set a goal of 85% right away. It will demoralize the team and lead to burnout. Instead, aim for gradual and sustainable improvement over time. The dental practice has established a clear objective to increase its new patient count by 80% in the next 12 months, adhering to the SMART framework.

Collaborate with the Rest of the Team to Act on the Performance Measurement:

Once the doctors are aligned, it is necessary to meet the rest of the team to highlight the areas within a dental practice that need improvement. Here are a few pointers to start with:

• What is going well in the practice?
• What are the areas of improvement?
• What issues is the team facing?
• Do they have any solutions?
• What campaigns to work on?

Creating space for the team to communicate and be actively involved in the targeted strategies enhances the patient experience that drives growth. Additionally, it gives them a sense of ownership and makes work more meaningful.

Campaigns for Performance Measurement:

The goal is to reach and help clients through relevant content. This shows that the dental practice cares about their patients, and it becomes easier to communicate when approaching from a patient perspective.

A combination of different channels such as social media, newsletters, videos, and emails can help educate and advocate for patients. It is efficient to divide tasks over time through the channels and automate wherever necessary to remain fully engaged with patients.

Partnering with a third party like Capline Dental Services can help the dental clinic design a customizable campaign that includes templates, filtering, advanced triggers, and reports to identify the effectiveness of the engagement and satisfaction strategies.

Goal Tracking for Performance Measurement:

Goal tracking provides valuable insights that help identify areas of strength, areas for improvement, and data-driven decisions to achieve performance goals. It’s time to delve into the monitoring process through PMS or PRM to measure performance goals and identify areas of improvement to discuss what’s not working and adjust expectations.

Collections ratio, case acceptance rate, patient retention rate, etc., help measure the percentage of revenue collected, evaluate the clinic’s treatment, how well the team communicates with the patient, and patient loyalty.

Also, calculating production per hour & average treatment time reflects the efficiency of the dental team and how optimally resources are utilized. Cut down on repetitive tasks if the current marketing plan is not working. There is nothing wrong with outsourcing if that leads to cost savings and avoids disruptions in patient care.