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One of the big factors paramount to creating and achieving a higher income than “the average dentist” is the use of time.

We all on this earth are given the same amount of time.

Twenty four hours.

It’s the same amount for us all.

Twenty four only of them, per day.

Seven days only, per week.

The difference between Richard Branson and me, is how we spend, or utilise our time.

He utilises his time much better than I do mine.

And the only difference between me, averaging $1352.00 of collections per chairside hour and you, is the way we utilise our time.

This week I’ve had three instances, or reminders, of how easy it is to surrender valuable time, valuable chairside time, and therefore valuable income, simply by allowing someone to steal your time.

Firstly, my ceramicist dropped around eight units to be seated this week with a cursory, “Oh by the way, I haven’t etched these. You’ll need to do it”

Well that just stole twenty minutes out of my life and put it straight into his!

Stolen!

Apparently, some docs are re-etching their crowns after try –in and before seating, which is something I’ve never done.

And this process of re-etching chairside is now thought to cause a dramatic reduction in porcelain strength.

So by my ceramicist *NOT* etching, he’s now hitting every one of his clients in the time wallet for something only some of his clients do.

I’ve got a mantra that states:

“Don’t punish the ninety-eight percent for something that the two percent do.”

And this is what he’s done.

I see Dental Offices and other businesses all the time all over the world with signs, policies, and rules saying things that punish the ninety-eight percent.

Last time I looked we were not at school.

And we certainly were not in prison….

My ceramicist, through his actions, added another serious length of time unnecessarily to my day. And unplanned.

And nearly enough, unannounced…

The second and third things I’ve had this week that’s been stealing my time is the re-educating of new team members to the ways of an Ultimate Patient Experience practice.

And it’s surprising how highly qualified, long-term career Dental Assistants can come from a place where the theft of the Doctor’s time is acceptable.

And that’s not because she’s thought it up…. it’s because the previous dentists have been unaware and oblivious to the opportunity of leveraging their team to save time.

Example two involves the simple process of unwrapping and exposing your instruments to be used.

We’ve always had the dental assistants unwrap and arrange all instruments in front of the patient once they are seated in the dental chair, but before the doctor enters the room, so that when he does enter, this procedure is already done and completed.

Well, no, not this time…

So add that up, eighteen times per day at forty five to sixty seconds per time, there’s an average fifteen minutes per day, multiplied by four days that becomes an hour per week.

Multiply that out to a year and all of a sudden doctors you’re spending fifty hours

just unwrapping instruments….

And how much do you normally bill in an average week??

Thirdly, and finally for this week, the same goes to local anaesthetic…the protocol in my office has been subject recently to a time suck change for some reason…

I’ve noticed that now our LA syringes are being assembled chairside while the patient is there in the chair.

And that’s sucking away valuable time, because for some reason each individual carpule of LA is now coming in its own individual blister pack? For what?

And we know ahead of time that Mr. Smith is having three fillings replaced and decay removed from three teeth in the upper left quadrant, so he’s going to need to be given three syringes of LA.

So why on earth are we watching those syringes be assembled chairside in front of us, when we know in advance how many will be needed?

And that can be assembled prior to the appointment, so that they’re ready to go when needed?

That probably works out again as another good minute per patient wasted…. and do the math….

Like above, it’s fifty hours per year, or a week of your life spent annually, just watching someone assemble syringes.

A task that can easily be done ahead of time.

So if you’d like an extra two hours per week of chairside time, just fix up these last two time sucks.

At my hourly rate, that works out at an extra $135,000.00 per year of income.

And that’s significant.

If your hourly rate is $600.00 per hour, fixing these last two time sucks will add $60,000.00 to your annual collections.

And, you can do a lot with an extra $60K…

The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.

Email me at david@theupe.com

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