It is rare to find someone in dentistry who is a self-professed “numbers person”.  

Dentistry is a relationship-based industry focused on taking care of the needs of patients. However, that doesn’t mean that the numbers should be ignored. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.  

Employee Actions Directly Impact Profitability

As dental organizations, we have come to learn that what gets measured improves.

Daily actions by team members in caring for patients directly affect the profitability of the organization. The numbers are merely a measurement of the efficiency of that care, and there is so much power in being able to measure, track, and reward based on the numbers.  

Every role in the organization performs actions that can be measured, though some are clearly easier to identify, aggregate, and communicate than others.

Actions of Dentists and Hygienists

Dentist and hygienist performance can easily be measured from a production and collection basis because of their roles as providers. But, merely measuring a total collections number would be an oversimplification of the end result. Successful dental entrepreneurs have learned to drive into the micro level detail.

What is the case average and acceptance, or same day percentage of a dentist?

What is the perio diagnosis percentage or number of sealants done by a hygienist?

These results, as for any metric, should not be measured in a vacuum, but should be a starting point for asking questions to help identify the root cause or symptom behind the numbers.

Actions of Dental Assistants

Dental assistants are harder to measure specifically, but their effectiveness as a group can be measured by calculating total production divided by the number of dental assistants. This is also true for front desk team members, as there are many tasks performed and the collective efforts should be measured. Lastly, those in charge of certain tasks, whether it is oversight of staffing and hours or ordering dental supplies, can very much be measured as a resulting expense relative to collections.

How to Find Specific, Meaningful Numbers

The key is to identify the measurables that are specific to each role in your organization, as overly vague or general measurements do not drive behaviors.

For example, is it effective to set a single collection goal of the same amount for every month? Probably not, as some months you might have 18 working days and other months 22 working days, so it is too easily attainable some months and much more difficult others.

What about focusing and incentivizing on profitability of 15% when you’ve always achieved that easily and you’re actually budgeting 18% profitability? Are these targets driving behaviors? Probably not.

How to Set Your Targets

Once you identify the measurement, you must identify the target for that measurement. Realistically, the target should be set at a level such that achievement is worthy of an incentive. The incentive can be in the form a fixed dollar amount, a percentage of the financial result of a behavior, a percentage of the improvement of a measurable, or a combination of the above.

The key is to balance the incentive to where it is lucrative enough to influence behavior, but also reasonable enough in that the improved performance adequately covers the cost of the incentive.

How to Motivate the Team

More important than the actual incentive measurements, is the education for each role on how they can best influence the metrics. Numbers are just that, numbers, if you cannot correlate a team member’s actions or decisions to that end number.

Simply telling someone to spend less on dental supplies or focus on perio diagnosis is not effective unless you motivate them to understand the why, educate them on the how, as well as listen to them to work through any blockages they are encountering to achieving that success. Incentive programs will fail if you put a bunch of numbers on the board without translation, education, communication, and celebration.

Many people will gravitate to and obsess over the numbers while others will struggle to get the context.

Therefore, it is crucial to over-communicate on a regular basis what the incentive is, the target to get that incentive, and how to break down the walls they are encountering. Find ways to celebrate the successes and create a competitive environment, while using shortcomings as educational opportunities.

Revisit Your Incentives Every Year

Lastly, be prepared to evaluate incentives annually. Parameters and financials of dental organizations change regularly, so it is critical to  assess the effectiveness of your incentive programs at least annually. The best incentive programs are developed with the input of the teams, so that the team members can help to support what they create.

At Spark, we’ve seen great incentive plans, and not so great incentive plans.

The important thing is to start somewhere.

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