UK Dentists: Collect your verifiable CPD for this episode here >>> https://courses.dentistswhoinvest.com/smart-money-members-club
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Your diary can look busy while your practice quietly leaks patients, underprices key treatments, and runs on a profit margin you never meant to accept. We sit down with Derek Turner and Alon Preiskel from Collaborate Dental to pin down the metrics that actually move the needle for dental practice profitability, whether you’re a principal, an associate, or planning to buy a practice soon.
We start with a counter-intuitive truth: the biggest growth lever is often not new patient acquisition but how well you manage existing patients. We talk active vs lapsed patients, recalls, forward bookings, and why the front-of-house team is the engine room for retention. From there we move into production per hour and chair value, including how diary utilisation and appointment mix can stabilise cash flow instead of creating a revenue rollercoaster.
Then we get blunt about treatment profitability. Competitor pricing is a weak compass if your operating costs differ. We unpack the real cost stack behind each treatment, how to protect operating profit, and the crucial difference between a measured loss leader and an accidental loss maker. We also discuss why pulling data from your PMS is only the start, and how combining clinical, finance, HR, and marketing numbers in a clear dashboard helps you make faster, calmer decisions.
If you want more control over your numbers and more confidence in your next move, listen now, then subscribe, share the episode with a practice owner friend, and leave a review with the one KPI you’re going to track first.
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Disclaimer: All content on this channel is for education purposes only and does not constitute an investment recommendation or individual financial advice. For that, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional. The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invest. The views expressed on this channel may no longer be current. The information provided is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and all tax rules may change in the future. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional. Investment figures quoted refer to simulated past performance and that past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results/performance.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr James (01:43):
Today we're here to talk about the metrics that
matter which is exactly thetitle of this podcast and we're
gonna say that what we mean isobviously profitability both for
principles and associates ofcourse.
I'm joined today by Mr DerekTurner and Alon Preiskel and
both of them have a wealth ofexperience running dental
practices and they work togetheron an extending project called
(02:04):
Collaborate Dental whichinvestigates exactly that.
We're here today to talk aboutwhat numbers we need to monitor
to be the best version of ourstyles when it comes to the
business of dentistry, give youthe hot facts and what Alon and
Derek have learned over theyears in order that we all might
benefit and become betterdentists connected to, of
course.
Looking forward to thisepisode.
As ever, you can claim your CPDfor this episode within the
(02:27):
official Dentists Who InvestSmart Money Members Club.
Smart Money Members Club alsoincludes multiple mini courses
and webinar series on financefor dentists, including how to
become as tax efficient aspossible, as well as
understanding investing.
All of this content counts asverifiable CPD, and you can
download your certificates thereand then upon completion of
each lesson.
(02:47):
In addition to this, we alsoinclude a whopping 10% discount
on your dental indemnity and a5% discount on lab bills for
dental principals, amongst otherperks and discounts for
members.
Please use the link in thedescription to claim your
verifiable CPD for this episode.
Alon and Derek, welcome toDentists Who Invest Podcast, the
(03:09):
metrics that matter.
And I suppose to set the scene,it is important to say that you
both own a company togetherwhich monitors KPIs for
principles, but also this is thestuff that the associates can
use as well.
And over the years of doingthis, you find that there are
some very high-leverage KPIsthat just matter above and
beyond everything else, andthat's what's gonna be the topic
(03:33):
of conversation in today'spodcast because that's the gold
dust, and you've seen this inthe field.
Hi James, great to uh join you.
Nice one.
And would you say that that's afairly apt description what I
just said?
Alon (03:48):
Absolutely.
Um and so it's uh having uhyeah, it's all about
understanding your business.
Dr James (03:59):
You can only manage what you measure and you master
what you measure, a wise manonce said as well.
I've never actually heard thatyou can only manage what you
measure, but I guess it makessense too.
And the number of times I'vebothered to investigate uh
what's going on on a deeperlevel and get the actual
metrics, and I'm like, right,bang, that's what we fix right
(04:21):
there, is just crazy.
But you kind of have to gothrough that to experience it
really, and that is that is yourkey philosophy at collaborate
dental, of course.
So, Derek, Alon, we werecatching up just before the
podcast started, and I said toyou guys, what are the three
give me, give me three of thebiggies that when dentists get
(04:43):
clarity on these KPIs, thesethree specific KPIs, three of
the biggest ones, they tend tobe the ones that are most
pivotal to their business, orthey really help the business
move forwards and become moreprofitable.
So we talked about the three,and you know what?
I'm not gonna spoil them.
I think that we should justreveal them as they come up
during this podcast, and we canwe can have some fun that way.
(05:05):
But yeah, let's let's jumpstraight in with those because I
think that could be a goodplace to start.
Derek (05:11):
Excellent.
Well, let's jump in with thefirst one, maybe.
I mean, um, we have a a numberof um potential clients um come
and talk to us, and um theinitial conversation
predominantly is about uh theneed for for more patients.
So that the the first keymetric for us is actually is how
you manage your existingpatients, not funnily enough, uh
(05:31):
the measurement of newpatients.
Um, and how it is along thelines of how you invest your
time and your processes uh andmonitoring your KPIs linked to
your existing patients.
Um, our viewpoint on it reallyis about measuring um such
elements as your forwardbookings, um, dire utilization,
(05:52):
etc., um, which we'll come on toin a little bit more detail
shortly, um, to ensure thatyou're engaging the correct way
uh with your existing patientsand maximizing uh your touch
points and patient journeys withthose individuals uh rather
than chasing the ever-endingdream of um acquiring new
patients all the time.
(06:13):
So that's number one.
Dr James (06:15):
Sure.
And I guess um I guess withthat sort of stuff, you know,
it's kind of like anothermanifestation of the grass is
always greener that we alwaysthink that we need to get more
and more more and move aroundand have more patients.
We actually don't need somemarketing terminology.
New patients are always gonnabe cold leads, whereas the
people that you have are gonnabe the warm leads, and the
amount of people who I see whoare just not doing follow-up
(06:36):
properly is crazy.
And just on that, what wouldyou guys suggest as some useful?
I guess, I guess, whenever itcomes to actually remedying
that, how can dentists follow upbetter to get those patients
back in the dental chair?
Derek (06:53):
Um I mean, I guess as we started this sort of podcast
sort of revealing like um youyou need to measure um where
your current state is, first ofall.
So the first thing isunderstanding where you
currently are.
Um that may be looking at keymetrics like um your occupancy
rate uh within the diary, it maybe like looking at your forward
(07:14):
bookings rate or your recallsrate, and actually understanding
whether or not you've got a uhan avid um follower of the
practice to return.
I always compare it really tosort of a leaky bucket, really.
Um if if you're imagining sortof new patients coming in the
top, if the leak at the bottom,which is your existing patients,
far outweighs the rate thatyou're filling it at the top,
(07:36):
your your practice is actuallyin decline rather than in
growth.
So it's about trying tominimize uh those that are
actually leaving.
And in real terms, you'realways going to have people
leave, whether they move away,pass away unfortunately, choose
another practice for whateverreason, or may even be a
financial um choice that theyjust can't afford to come to the
practice.
Uh, there are a multitude ofreasons why people won't return,
(07:58):
but it's about minimising thatas much as possible, keeping the
leak as small as possible, sothat when you are in filling it
at the top, your practice is ingrowth, in a healthy state, and
you're projecting obviously yourexpansion into the future.
So it's about looking at thosemetrics, understanding where you
are, and then aboutunderstanding what levers you
need to push and pull toactually maximise uh the results
(08:22):
of those actions, uh, as I'vesort of said, um, regarding the
likes of recalls, how successfulare you there, how often do you
actually change the process ofrecalls?
I mean, we all get into verymuch a sort of safe space of um,
well, we send out an email onceor twice, um, we we we might
send out a couple of SMSs, andthen we might get round to
(08:44):
ringing the patient if we weresort of really desperate and
nobody really likes doing thesort of ringing part, but it's
about understanding what is whatis success for your practice
and how do you measure thatsuccess and how is it visible,
and how do you then lean intothat, and as I say, pull or push
the right lever to maximize theresult uh on that one element
of all.
And there's lots of tools outthere uh that we can assist with
(09:06):
uh in regard to making surethat you have the best results
you possibly can do withrecalls, um, and likewise with
um such things um as remindersand forward bookings.
And again, key aspect of usfunneling this down and asking a
question to everybody out therewould be how much time, money,
(09:26):
and investment do you put inyour front of house team
compared to maybe the clinicalteam and your nursing team?
And in very many situationsthat we come across, actually,
the reception team, thefront-of-house team are probably
the least invested in.
Um, and yet they are the oils,if you like that.
Um, oils, the cogs thatactually makes your business
work.
Dr James (09:46):
Excellent.
So that's very valuable toknow.
So these are, I know what youwere saying, you have to really
get into the actually, you know,this the specifics to figure
out what's going on.
But even that in and of itselfis super valuable because these
will be some places thatdentists can look.
And even having the clarity toknow, okay, cool, uh, what are
the most common things thatother dentists struggle with?
(10:06):
Because there's a good chancethat we can implement this into
their practice whenever theyknow that stuff, and knowing
where to look is extremelyvaluable.
Alon, anything to add?
Alon (10:15):
Yeah, I mean the peric sort of uh sums up very nicely.
Um, yeah, one of the KPIs whichwe look at, uh which is kind of
touched upon, was looking atyour sort of active patients.
Uh, and so that's somethingthat a lot of practices don't
keep updated.
So looking at who's active,who's lapsed, uh, who's who
(10:36):
should be archived, uh andthat's kind of gives you that
information around the leakybucket or the potential leak in
the bucket that Derek wastalking about.
So, as you know, so because asdentists, we kind of just look
at the diary and see, you know,are we busy or not?
But actually, that doesn'treally give the whole picture
(10:58):
because it might be that we'regetting lots of new patients,
but it might be also that awhole bunch of patients are
disappearing.
Uh and that and those arereally valuable.
So you know, that metric isreally important uh to give an
understanding of what's going onin the business.
Um and then again, yeah, again,the other thing that was you
(11:20):
know, just something to thinkabout is you know that concept
of lifetime value.
Uh and I think it's somethingthat's very very relevant for
dentistry because you know veryoften you kind of particularly
if you spend a lot of money inmarketing, you people just want
to sort of get in there and dolots of complex dentistry, but
(11:42):
but dentistry is around trust.
And so having really good, areally good team, a well-trained
team that helps build thattrust is so important to
building the value, you know,both in terms of your personal
connection, in terms of thetreatment that you do, and you
(12:02):
know, then so that that that allended up filtering down to the
bottom line.
Dr James (12:07):
Excellent.
Hey, everything that we have tosay on that topic, round it
off.
I think I guess probably we canprobably make a whole podcast
about that, right?
We've we've covered itsufficiently for today, I feel,
right?
Yeah.
Okay.
In that case, moving on.
What is the next biggest KPI, Iguess, or area that dentists
(12:31):
should look at in order to boosttheir profitability, in your
opinion, from having done thishundreds of times with lots of
different dental practices?
Derek (12:39):
So we've sort of touched on sort of dire utilization, and
Alon just mentioned it there.
So I'm actually gonna sort ofwe and we we sort of talked
about dire utilization um beforewe sort of jumped into the
podcast um here, but I'm gonnaactually skip that one as well.
We sort of touched on it, butI'm I'm gonna move on to sort of
um um production rate per hour,um, and and again about
(13:02):
assessing um what the value ofeach chair is per hour in your
business to actually umdetermine on whether or not
you're actually um, first ofall, obviously bringing in the
right revenue per hour thatyou're you're expecting, but
also, and we'll this will comeinto the third one, whether or
not that drops down intooperating profit as well.
So, really, I'd focus on umexactly that.
(13:25):
So your production rate perhour, if you know how many hours
you're working, or in effect,in a simple calculation, you
know how many hours you'reavailable, you know how many
hours you've worked, that'sobviously giving you your
occupancy per chair, but thenthose those worked hours
multiplied by your productionrate per hour is obviously
giving you what your income isuh per hour, then multiplied up
per day, etc.
(13:46):
like that.
So it's about understandingwhat your production rate is per
hour and also what productionrate per hour you need to
achieve to actually ascertainthe the um profitability that
you're looking uh to achieve inthe practice uh long term.
Dr James (14:03):
Excellent.
So production rate is uh a bigpoint of leverage, and what
about uh if we were to just goone layer deeper on that still,
specifically uh about how we canimprove production?
Derek (14:18):
So, and Alon might want to jump in on this one as well.
For my side, is it in theoperating side of the business,
really, it's about making surethat the um chairs are efficient
um and that they're filled.
Uh similarly, there's not muchsort of more to that, and and
there's a blend of treatmentthroughout the working day, the
(14:38):
working week, the working month.
And um, many people have sortof heard analogies sort of out
there, maybe about sort of umrocks, pebbles, and sand, being
the fact that when you'relooking at your clinical diary
in the day, that what we want todo is find make sure that
there's the right balance oflarge treatments, your rocks,
then you're infilling with yoursmaller treatments, your
pebbles, and then you sort ofthe the smaller gaps, the exams,
(15:01):
et cetera, the emergencies isthe sand where you sort of
infill to make sure there's verylittle gaps.
If you look at that big thatglass jar of the three different
types of uh sizes of stones,we've got as few little gaps in
it as possible.
So it's about sort of ensuringthat the diary is efficient as
possible so that you'remaximising the revenue.
You can predict your hourlyrate in a in a much greater way
(15:24):
and over a much greater periodof time, rather than having this
sort of um up and down rollercoaster effect where some days
are crowned of treatment andit's a large income day, and
other days are just full ofexams, and in effect you you
make no money on those days.
It's about trying to have asmooth road, a smooth pathway,
so that you can um align whatyour income is in effect with
(15:47):
what what your um outgoing costsare going to be uh as well.
And Alon, you may want to jumpin on the treatment side of
things, really.
Alon (15:55):
Yeah, I think there's I think there's a a balance to be
had.
So there's but what Derek saysis really true is that if you
can get a good mix in yourpractice, then keeping that that
really helps to keep the cashflow stable.
Of course, as clinicians, somepeople like to have lots of
(16:19):
variation in their day.
Some people actually like tohave you know, okay, you know,
Monday, Monday morning is a daylike 50 so um but the yeah, so
from my my perspective and whatwe do with collaborating, it's
about understanding what thatmeans.
(16:41):
So you know, if you change X,this is actually what's going to
happen to the business.
And that might be somethingthat you think is good, or it
might be something that um youthink is bad, and therefore you
do something different.
But the important thing, whichso many dentists don't do, is
have actually any implication orunderstanding of how you run
your how you how you structureyour day actually impacts your
(17:03):
bottom line.
Uh, and so you need to it'sabout having your you know
having your eyes open tounderstand to understand what
you know what is driving thebusiness, uh, and that's why you
know what comes out of it is isa is as a result of the way
that the business is being runwith with very specific things
that we can measure.
Dr James (17:25):
Nice.
All right, brilliant.
Well, that's the productionside of things dealt with.
And I know there was we wantedto go for the hat trick today,
we wanted to have three becausethree three is a magic number,
it's always nice to have three,but we kind of covered have we
covered three?
Alon (17:39):
Well, I wanted to talk about treatment profitability.
Oh you beat me to it.
Ah, okay.
So great minds think alike.
Let's do that.
Dr James (17:46):
Let's do that, let's do that.
Treatment profitability it is,and then we can go on to three.
Alon (17:51):
Yeah, I'm Derek.
Oh, you're gonna be a littlebit.
Okay, thank you.
Derek (17:57):
Almost obviously sort of leading on to production rate
per hour.
And and someone wiser than meonce sort of said, like, look,
um, income is for show andprofit is for dull.
It's one thing sort of earningthe money on your top line and
seeing what your income is, butit's whether or not you can
actually protect that income asmuch as possible so that as much
of it falls down onto youroperating profit um as possible.
(18:17):
So it's really fundamentallyabout understanding what the
costs are for your treatments uhthat you undertake, taking
everything into account, whetheror not that be your sort of um
uh the cost of your associates,your labs, your all your um uh
cost of sales, your lab costmaterials, um uh, etc.
And then all your admin costsas well that fall off your team
(18:38):
costs of your nurses andeverything else that it costs to
keep uh the doors open, uh,rent rates, light, power, water,
insurances, and everything thatgoes with it.
So it's about understandingwhat all those costs are, how
they add up into each treatment,and therefore what what and
also of course what profitmargin you want uh for each
(18:59):
treatment, and therefore whatyou should charge uh for each
individual treatment, with thesort of caveat that obviously
you've got to understand whatthe market forces are in your
locality, what you can actuallyafford to pay, and whether or
not you'd make yourself anoutlier.
But it's about having a balanceabout knowing what your local
area can take, but truly whatyour and I must stress your
(19:20):
operating cost, because when uhwhen um a lot of principals look
at what they should charge, thefirst thing they do is go and
have a look at the competitorsnearby and say, well, they're
charging £100 for this treatmentor £1,000 for this treatment,
I'm going to charge the same ora shade over or a shade under.
Um, what they don't maybecomprehend is the fact that that
other competitor might havecompletely different operating
(19:43):
costs from start to finish.
The lease might be higher orlower, the what they pay the
associates might be up 5%, down10%, their staff costs might be
different per hour, andeverything else that that comes
together to get your total coststo run your business.
So it's a good sort of pointerfor 10 if you like, looking at
(20:04):
what the competitors are, andyou certainly need to be in that
sort of market unless youreally are standing out at one
edge or the other.
Um, but fundamentally you needto do the hard yards, which is
understanding what it costs todeliver each treatment line uh
within your business, um, addingon your profit margin to
actually truly get where youshould be at treatment cost.
(20:26):
So fundamentally, um that'swhere like we need to be in
understanding that you're makingmoney on all the treatments
that you actually um conduct,and that that conversation might
also be around well, actually,how much are you making as a
principal doing the sametreatment compared to actually
if you pass that work on to anassociate to do it and take into
(20:48):
the of course the theconsideration the associate's
fees, what does that do to theprofitability for that
treatment?
And which treatments should youdo yourself as a principal,
which should you pass on, etc.
So uh fundamentallyprofitability of treatments is
definitely the sort of thenumber three for the hat trick.
Alon?
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of this podcast.
Alon (22:56):
Yeah, totally agree.
Uh I think again from uh yeah,as the way I sort of started off
in Dentistry, you know, youjust looked at the your your
good, you were looking at youraccounts at the end of the
month, or very often it was justat the end of the year, and you
just see kind of how much moneywas made, and no real
(23:16):
understanding of what it is thatyou did on a day-to-day basis
that sort of made an impact intothat.
Um and so when we look atpractices, very often we'll find
that there are a whole bunch oftreatments that don't really
make any profit.
And then there's a bunch oftreatment that do.
And then quite frankly, thereason why a practice is is
(23:39):
possible or not is therelationship between those and
very often that's very just adyou know pretty ad hoc and not
very well planned.
And so the fundamental is tounderstand you know what every
treatment does to the businessfrom a financial perspective.
And a way one of the things Ilike to look at is is the phrase
(24:05):
of understanding the differencebetween a lost leader and a
loss maker.
So as I was alluding to a lotof times a lot of things we do
is about building trust,building relationships.
And that's fine.
And it's fine to have a lostleader as long as it's being
measured and it's being tracked.
(24:25):
But if it's not being measurednot being tracked and you don't
understand the balance betweenyour loss making treatments and
your profit making treatments,you then become loss makers.
And so it's being able tounderstand that in the first
instance is super important toplanning what you should be
charging.
(24:45):
And then and then as Derek wasalluding to we can then look at
say okay actually this area wethink there's we think there's
scope to change the fees so wecan make sure we're making some
profit in those treatments maybewe're limited by the market and
we can say okay we might not bemaking much profit on these
treatments but at least we knowwe need to monitor the number of
(25:05):
patients that are comingthrough and making sure that
we're maximizing on the goodwillthat we're generating by seeing
the patients.
And so it's really I say it'slike everything we do it's about
providing information andunderstanding so that we can
look after practices better andultimately look after the team
(25:27):
and our patients better.
Dr James (25:30):
Hell yeah awesome brilliant well I think what just
to reiterate what we weresaying earlier um you know the
reason why I wanted to ask youguys specifically this is these
are just not three KPIs orfactors that we're just pulling
out of the air and thinking toourselves right okay these sound
about right I think it's thesethree things this actually comes
(25:52):
from hard data this comes fromyou helping Dennis with this
stuff over many many years andyou're able to say right
actually these three specificthings are the biggest common
trends we've noticed amongst allthe possible ways there are to
make more profit in a businessthese are the most common ones
that we've picked up on so Ijust wanted to reiterate that
(26:13):
for the audience's benefit.
So basically in essence there'sa good chance that if you're a
principal or you are anassociate as well of course or
you're going to be a principalone day as well that if your
business is not quite hittingthe numbers that it would like
you'd like it to or you justwant it to be even more
profitable there's a good chanceit's going to be one of these
three things or it's going to bea factor within these three
things and I just think that's areally cool thing to highlight
(26:36):
and it is also important tomention that you can actually
get all of this data it'sactually buried in your PMS but
it's just that people don't knowhow or they don't have a very
good interface by way ofsoftware dashboard to be able to
extract the info which is kindof the thinking behind what you
guys do.
Derek (26:56):
Yeah yeah so so a lot rather rather than all uh James
a lot of the information is isthere in your PMS and it's about
understanding what parametersto use to extract it and analyze
it and and and get what actionsare needed.
But um the benefit if you likeof the dashboards that we create
for our members is we don'tjust stop at PMS.
(27:17):
We've talked about sort of umoperating profit here and
treatment profitability.
Now obviously we can we can getthe sort of um income levels
out of the PMS but when it comesto the profitability what we
need to do then is obviouslymerge all the costs together as
well to find out what theprofitability is.
So our dashboards actuallybring together really all the
(27:38):
key metrics needed to run asuccessful dental practice.
So now whether that's actuallyyour your profit and loss
accounts that come from youryour bookkeeper or accountant
that we look at and take thecosts out to look at your
treatment profitabilities.
It may well be HR platformsthat you have to look at um both
the volume and cost of your umteam members and equate that to
(27:59):
a ratio with your clinical teamto make sure that we're uh
you're staffed at the optimumlevel um it may well be a
compliance elements um or umsome other function that we we
sort of pull together yourmarketing functions for instance
um when it comes to your yourgems etc that you may well be
(28:21):
using we pull all of this datainto a very clear and concise um
Microsoft Power BI dashboard umwhich enables us really to
build a picture analyze uh yourbusiness and communicate in a
very structured way withyourselves as business owners on
where you currently are umwhere you want to be and how you
(28:41):
actually get there looking atthe numbers um now we find this
is key not only is obviously umall decisions is backed by um
analytics and and and numbers inthe practice but also we're
very conscious of the fact thatlook time is precious if you
yourself go away and try andpull this data from your PMS and
your management accounts andyour your your um marketing
(29:03):
platforms and HR platforms it'sgoing to take you hours hours
that takes you away from beingsort of face to face with your
patients etc now we do all thehard work for you and all the
heavy lifting bring it alltogether into a nice readable
format as I've said and reallycan sit down with you every week
give you a picture of where umyour business is what needs to
(29:24):
be done using our experience andknowledge of your business and
many other businesses out thereas well which gives us a great
wide picture of what's happeningout there in the wider dental
world rather than just your sortof silo dental practice so we
can sort of help you with thatand then we sort of support you
in actually delivering thoseactions um to maximise the
(29:45):
benefit for your business.
I think um I left a dramaticpause there I actually think you
might jump in James but Ireally I was just going to reel
off as well just we've talkedabout a couple of KPIs actually
but um just sort of leading onto that as just an example of
what we've done and if I wasgoing to sort of pull out a a
number of examples um obviouslyone of the key metrics is work
(30:08):
hours.
I mean we we've helped uh oneof our members over the last
couple of years who's increasedtheir clinical work hours by
184%.
Now when you multiply that upby the um hourly production rate
increase um um all of a suddenyou start to see large numbers
um and again it's it's very muchthe sort of sky sports uh sky
(30:29):
cycling analogy here which ismarginal gains you're not
necessarily going to get oneclear answer out of one KPI it's
about looking at a metric offtens if not hundreds of KPIs and
looking for marginal gains outof each of them and actually
added together gives you theperformance that you're looking
for.
But um yeah so work dollarsincrease 184% um with increased
(30:52):
income actually um at the samepractice by 198% um over the
same sort of period um so thatobviously is is is a massive win
for the practice owner givesthem security of life and then
you can talk about your worklife balance as well and it
brings in a lot more decisionsabout what you want to do with
your future knowing the factthat your business is looked
(31:13):
after and taken care of andthere's no surprises going
forward.
Well it's interesting becausethat was actually one thing I
was going to ask as well whichwas can you give us any worked
examples of when this has yeahabsolutely I mean many I mean
I'm not going to sort of sithere and sort of reel off but
sort of just sort of practicesabout I mean again I mean things
(31:34):
that we focus on I mean we'vetaken one practice again that
again we look at each individualbusiness as exactly that as
individual and have a look andsee what needs to be done.
But another example maybe umwould be on the lines of um
forward bookings which weincreased um by 176%.
So again taking away the stressout of reception and actually
(31:57):
putting in processes in placethat actually we book patients
when leaving rather than on therecall process um so that
encouraged patients to come backmore regularly enabled our
reception team to actually havemuch more of a um face-to-face
interaction with patients asthey walked through the door and
then left etc um and madepayment so again it's it's it's
(32:18):
smoothened out um the processesin that practice um again we can
have a look at sort of thengross profit um increasing by um
174% uh practices I'm gonnastop there instead of reel them
off as well but uh maybe what Ishould do as I mentioned profit
I should reel off one last oneon operating profit again I'd
say that operating profits aresort of um up 128% uh another
(32:42):
practice I'm sort of justlooking at the list here so all
of our practices different sizesdifferent shapes etc sort of
thing so we range from sort ofmixed practices up to sort of
Harley Street sort of practicesreally so um really we we cover
all different types shapes andsizes of practices and depending
on what the metrics areobviously depends what we we
need to sort of look at and whatwhat they're looking to strive
(33:05):
for um as for goals in thefuture and how we can help them.
Dr James (33:10):
Excellent and it's obviously really good to be able
to put some figures on there asyou have done just there
because it kind of shows peoplewhat is possible and just how
much this can mean for someoneand the key thing is we want to
emphasize you know the dentistsare not working harder for this
they're really not it's justthat the machine that they've
(33:31):
created is in their business isjust more efficiently giving
them returns for the exact sameamount of effort effectively
because of how they've set it upand that's a really good way to
think about it.
We're thinking like ourbusiness like a system and we're
like okay where can I I've gotthis WD40 or oil if you will and
there's all these cogs okay andI'm trying to find out where I
need to put the oil on the cogswhich cogs I need to put the oil
(33:54):
on and then all of a sudden forthe exact same amount of effort
on the crankshaft so to speakthere's so much more coming
through by way of production byway of profit and I think that's
a really nice analogy.
Alon (34:04):
Alon anything to add um Derek said lots um and I I would
just yeah just to add for meit's about opening people's eyes
up it's uh under it's asdentists we spend most of our
day in patients' mouths sort ofhead down working away and so we
(34:25):
just don't have the time in theday to really see what was
going on in the business.
And so having all theinformation in one place is
absolutely valuable tounderstand what's going on in
the business.
Having someone like Derek whocan really look at those numbers
in detail and give you someprofessional analysis on it
(34:47):
again isn't valuable.
And yeah we enjoy being part ofthat journey for our practices
and if anybody wants to reachout to find out about anything
that we talked about today fromthe podcast where they're best
off finding you can find ourwebsite uh collaboratedental.com
(35:07):
or reach out to myself orcollaboratental.
com or dedicate collaboratedental dot com.
Today we're here to talk about the metrics that
matter which is exactly thetitle of this podcast and we're
gonna say that what we mean isobviously profitability both for
principles and associates ofcourse.
I'm joined today by Mr DerekTurner and Alon Preiskel and
both of them have a wealth ofexperience running dental
practices and they work togetheron an extending project called
(02:04):
Collaborate Dental whichinvestigates exactly that.
We're here today to talk aboutwhat numbers we need to monitor
to be the best version of ourstyles when it comes to the
business of dentistry, give youthe hot facts and what Alon and
Derek have learned over theyears in order that we all might
benefit and become betterdentists connected to, of
course.
Looking forward to thisepisode.
As ever, you can claim your CPDfor this episode within the
(02:27):
official Dentists Who InvestSmart Money Members Club.
Smart Money Members Club alsoincludes multiple mini courses
and webinar series on financefor dentists, including how to
become as tax efficient aspossible, as well as
understanding investing.
All of this content counts asverifiable CPD, and you can
download your certificates thereand then upon completion of
each lesson.
(02:47):
In addition to this, we alsoinclude a whopping 10% discount
on your dental indemnity and a5% discount on lab bills for
dental principals, amongst otherperks and discounts for
members.
Please use the link in thedescription to claim your
verifiable CPD for this episode.
Alon and Derek, welcome toDentists Who Invest Podcast, the
(03:09):
metrics that matter.
And I suppose to set the scene,it is important to say that you
both own a company togetherwhich monitors KPIs for
principles, but also this is thestuff that the associates can
use as well.
And over the years of doingthis, you find that there are
some very high-leverage KPIsthat just matter above and
beyond everything else, andthat's what's gonna be the topic
(03:33):
of conversation in today'spodcast because that's the gold
dust, and you've seen this inthe field.
Hi James, great to uh join you.
Nice one.
And would you say that that's afairly apt description what I
just said?
Alon (03:48):
Absolutely.
Um and so it's uh having uhyeah, it's all about
understanding your business.
Dr James (03:59):
You can only manage what you measure and you master
what you measure, a wise manonce said as well.
I've never actually heard thatyou can only manage what you
measure, but I guess it makessense too.
And the number of times I'vebothered to investigate uh
what's going on on a deeperlevel and get the actual
metrics, and I'm like, right,bang, that's what we fix right
(04:21):
there, is just crazy.
But you kind of have to gothrough that to experience it
really, and that is that is yourkey philosophy at collaborate
dental, of course.
So, Derek, Alon, we werecatching up just before the
podcast started, and I said toyou guys, what are the three
give me, give me three of thebiggies that when dentists get
(04:43):
clarity on these KPIs, thesethree specific KPIs, three of
the biggest ones, they tend tobe the ones that are most
pivotal to their business, orthey really help the business
move forwards and become moreprofitable.
So we talked about the three,and you know what?
I'm not gonna spoil them.
I think that we should justreveal them as they come up
during this podcast, and we canwe can have some fun that way.
(05:05):
But yeah, let's let's jumpstraight in with those because I
think that could be a goodplace to start.
Derek (05:11):
Excellent.
Well, let's jump in with thefirst one, maybe.
I mean, um, we have a a numberof um potential clients um come
and talk to us, and um theinitial conversation
predominantly is about uh theneed for for more patients.
So that the the first keymetric for us is actually is how
you manage your existingpatients, not funnily enough, uh
(05:31):
the measurement of newpatients.
Um, and how it is along thelines of how you invest your
time and your processes uh andmonitoring your KPIs linked to
your existing patients.
Um, our viewpoint on it reallyis about measuring um such
elements as your forwardbookings, um, dire utilization,
(05:52):
etc., um, which we'll come on toin a little bit more detail
shortly, um, to ensure thatyou're engaging the correct way
uh with your existing patientsand maximizing uh your touch
points and patient journeys withthose individuals uh rather
than chasing the ever-endingdream of um acquiring new
patients all the time.
(06:13):
So that's number one.
Dr James (06:15):
Sure.
And I guess um I guess withthat sort of stuff, you know,
it's kind of like anothermanifestation of the grass is
always greener that we alwaysthink that we need to get more
and more more and move aroundand have more patients.
We actually don't need somemarketing terminology.
New patients are always gonnabe cold leads, whereas the
people that you have are gonnabe the warm leads, and the
amount of people who I see whoare just not doing follow-up
(06:36):
properly is crazy.
And just on that, what wouldyou guys suggest as some useful?
I guess, I guess, whenever itcomes to actually remedying
that, how can dentists follow upbetter to get those patients
back in the dental chair?
Derek (06:53):
Um I mean, I guess as we started this sort of podcast
sort of revealing like um youyou need to measure um where
your current state is, first ofall.
So the first thing isunderstanding where you
currently are.
Um that may be looking at keymetrics like um your occupancy
rate uh within the diary, it maybe like looking at your forward
(07:14):
bookings rate or your recallsrate, and actually understanding
whether or not you've got a uhan avid um follower of the
practice to return.
I always compare it really tosort of a leaky bucket, really.
Um if if you're imagining sortof new patients coming in the
top, if the leak at the bottom,which is your existing patients,
far outweighs the rate thatyou're filling it at the top,
(07:36):
your your practice is actuallyin decline rather than in
growth.
So it's about trying tominimize uh those that are
actually leaving.
And in real terms, you'realways going to have people
leave, whether they move away,pass away unfortunately, choose
another practice for whateverreason, or may even be a
financial um choice that theyjust can't afford to come to the
practice.
Uh, there are a multitude ofreasons why people won't return,
(07:58):
but it's about minimising thatas much as possible, keeping the
leak as small as possible, sothat when you are in filling it
at the top, your practice is ingrowth, in a healthy state, and
you're projecting obviously yourexpansion into the future.
So it's about looking at thosemetrics, understanding where you
are, and then aboutunderstanding what levers you
need to push and pull toactually maximise uh the results
(08:22):
of those actions, uh, as I'vesort of said, um, regarding the
likes of recalls, how successfulare you there, how often do you
actually change the process ofrecalls?
I mean, we all get into verymuch a sort of safe space of um,
well, we send out an email onceor twice, um, we we we might
send out a couple of SMSs, andthen we might get round to
(08:44):
ringing the patient if we weresort of really desperate and
nobody really likes doing thesort of ringing part, but it's
about understanding what is whatis success for your practice
and how do you measure thatsuccess and how is it visible,
and how do you then lean intothat, and as I say, pull or push
the right lever to maximize theresult uh on that one element
of all.
And there's lots of tools outthere uh that we can assist with
(09:06):
uh in regard to making surethat you have the best results
you possibly can do withrecalls, um, and likewise with
um such things um as remindersand forward bookings.
And again, key aspect of usfunneling this down and asking a
question to everybody out therewould be how much time, money,
(09:26):
and investment do you put inyour front of house team
compared to maybe the clinicalteam and your nursing team?
And in very many situationsthat we come across, actually,
the reception team, thefront-of-house team are probably
the least invested in.
Um, and yet they are the oils,if you like that.
Um, oils, the cogs thatactually makes your business
work.
Dr James (09:46):
Excellent.
So that's very valuable toknow.
So these are, I know what youwere saying, you have to really
get into the actually, you know,this the specifics to figure
out what's going on.
But even that in and of itselfis super valuable because these
will be some places thatdentists can look.
And even having the clarity toknow, okay, cool, uh, what are
the most common things thatother dentists struggle with?
(10:06):
Because there's a good chancethat we can implement this into
their practice whenever theyknow that stuff, and knowing
where to look is extremelyvaluable.
Alon, anything to add?
Alon (10:15):
Yeah, I mean the peric sort of uh sums up very nicely.
Um, yeah, one of the KPIs whichwe look at, uh which is kind of
touched upon, was looking atyour sort of active patients.
Uh, and so that's somethingthat a lot of practices don't
keep updated.
So looking at who's active,who's lapsed, uh, who's who
(10:36):
should be archived, uh andthat's kind of gives you that
information around the leakybucket or the potential leak in
the bucket that Derek wastalking about.
So, as you know, so because asdentists, we kind of just look
at the diary and see, you know,are we busy or not?
But actually, that doesn'treally give the whole picture
(10:58):
because it might be that we'regetting lots of new patients,
but it might be also that awhole bunch of patients are
disappearing.
Uh and that and those arereally valuable.
So you know, that metric isreally important uh to give an
understanding of what's going onin the business.
Um and then again, yeah, again,the other thing that was you
(11:20):
know, just something to thinkabout is you know that concept
of lifetime value.
Uh and I think it's somethingthat's very very relevant for
dentistry because you know veryoften you kind of particularly
if you spend a lot of money inmarketing, you people just want
to sort of get in there and dolots of complex dentistry, but
(11:42):
but dentistry is around trust.
And so having really good, areally good team, a well-trained
team that helps build thattrust is so important to
building the value, you know,both in terms of your personal
connection, in terms of thetreatment that you do, and you
(12:02):
know, then so that that that allended up filtering down to the
bottom line.
Dr James (12:07):
Excellent.
Hey, everything that we have tosay on that topic, round it
off.
I think I guess probably we canprobably make a whole podcast
about that, right?
We've we've covered itsufficiently for today, I feel,
right?
Yeah.
Okay.
In that case, moving on.
What is the next biggest KPI, Iguess, or area that dentists
(12:31):
should look at in order to boosttheir profitability, in your
opinion, from having done thishundreds of times with lots of
different dental practices?
Derek (12:39):
So we've sort of touched on sort of dire utilization, and
Alon just mentioned it there.
So I'm actually gonna sort ofwe and we we sort of talked
about dire utilization um beforewe sort of jumped into the
podcast um here, but I'm gonnaactually skip that one as well.
We sort of touched on it, butI'm I'm gonna move on to sort of
um um production rate per hour,um, and and again about
(13:02):
assessing um what the value ofeach chair is per hour in your
business to actually umdetermine on whether or not
you're actually um, first ofall, obviously bringing in the
right revenue per hour thatyou're you're expecting, but
also, and we'll this will comeinto the third one, whether or
not that drops down intooperating profit as well.
So, really, I'd focus on umexactly that.
(13:25):
So your production rate perhour, if you know how many hours
you're working, or in effect,in a simple calculation, you
know how many hours you'reavailable, you know how many
hours you've worked, that'sobviously giving you your
occupancy per chair, but thenthose those worked hours
multiplied by your productionrate per hour is obviously
giving you what your income isuh per hour, then multiplied up
per day, etc.
(13:46):
like that.
So it's about understandingwhat your production rate is per
hour and also what productionrate per hour you need to
achieve to actually ascertainthe the um profitability that
you're looking uh to achieve inthe practice uh long term.
Dr James (14:03):
Excellent.
So production rate is uh a bigpoint of leverage, and what
about uh if we were to just goone layer deeper on that still,
specifically uh about how we canimprove production?
Derek (14:18):
So, and Alon might want to jump in on this one as well.
For my side, is it in theoperating side of the business,
really, it's about making surethat the um chairs are efficient
um and that they're filled.
Uh similarly, there's not muchsort of more to that, and and
there's a blend of treatmentthroughout the working day, the
(14:38):
working week, the working month.
And um, many people have sortof heard analogies sort of out
there, maybe about sort of umrocks, pebbles, and sand, being
the fact that when you'relooking at your clinical diary
in the day, that what we want todo is find make sure that
there's the right balance oflarge treatments, your rocks,
then you're infilling with yoursmaller treatments, your
pebbles, and then you sort ofthe the smaller gaps, the exams,
(15:01):
et cetera, the emergencies isthe sand where you sort of
infill to make sure there's verylittle gaps.
If you look at that big thatglass jar of the three different
types of uh sizes of stones,we've got as few little gaps in
it as possible.
So it's about sort of ensuringthat the diary is efficient as
possible so that you'remaximising the revenue.
You can predict your hourlyrate in a in a much greater way
(15:24):
and over a much greater periodof time, rather than having this
sort of um up and down rollercoaster effect where some days
are crowned of treatment andit's a large income day, and
other days are just full ofexams, and in effect you you
make no money on those days.
It's about trying to have asmooth road, a smooth pathway,
so that you can um align whatyour income is in effect with
(15:47):
what what your um outgoing costsare going to be uh as well.
And Alon, you may want to jumpin on the treatment side of
things, really.
Alon (15:55):
Yeah, I think there's I think there's a a balance to be
had.
So there's but what Derek saysis really true is that if you
can get a good mix in yourpractice, then keeping that that
really helps to keep the cashflow stable.
Of course, as clinicians, somepeople like to have lots of
(16:19):
variation in their day.
Some people actually like tohave you know, okay, you know,
Monday, Monday morning is a daylike 50 so um but the yeah, so
from my my perspective and whatwe do with collaborating, it's
about understanding what thatmeans.
(16:41):
So you know, if you change X,this is actually what's going to
happen to the business.
And that might be somethingthat you think is good, or it
might be something that um youthink is bad, and therefore you
do something different.
But the important thing, whichso many dentists don't do, is
have actually any implication orunderstanding of how you run
your how you how you structureyour day actually impacts your
(17:03):
bottom line.
Uh, and so you need to it'sabout having your you know
having your eyes open tounderstand to understand what
you know what is driving thebusiness, uh, and that's why you
know what comes out of it is isa is as a result of the way
that the business is being runwith with very specific things
that we can measure.
Dr James (17:25):
Nice.
All right, brilliant.
Well, that's the productionside of things dealt with.
And I know there was we wantedto go for the hat trick today,
we wanted to have three becausethree three is a magic number,
it's always nice to have three,but we kind of covered have we
covered three?
Alon (17:39):
Well, I wanted to talk about treatment profitability.
Oh you beat me to it.
Ah, okay.
So great minds think alike.
Let's do that.
Dr James (17:46):
Let's do that, let's do that.
Treatment profitability it is,and then we can go on to three.
Alon (17:51):
Yeah, I'm Derek.
Oh, you're gonna be a littlebit.
Okay, thank you.
Derek (17:57):
Almost obviously sort of leading on to production rate
per hour.
And and someone wiser than meonce sort of said, like, look,
um, income is for show andprofit is for dull.
It's one thing sort of earningthe money on your top line and
seeing what your income is, butit's whether or not you can
actually protect that income asmuch as possible so that as much
of it falls down onto youroperating profit um as possible.
(18:17):
So it's really fundamentallyabout understanding what the
costs are for your treatments uhthat you undertake, taking
everything into account, whetheror not that be your sort of um
uh the cost of your associates,your labs, your all your um uh
cost of sales, your lab costmaterials, um uh, etc.
And then all your admin costsas well that fall off your team
(18:38):
costs of your nurses andeverything else that it costs to
keep uh the doors open, uh,rent rates, light, power, water,
insurances, and everything thatgoes with it.
So it's about understandingwhat all those costs are, how
they add up into each treatment,and therefore what what and
also of course what profitmargin you want uh for each
(18:59):
treatment, and therefore whatyou should charge uh for each
individual treatment, with thesort of caveat that obviously
you've got to understand whatthe market forces are in your
locality, what you can actuallyafford to pay, and whether or
not you'd make yourself anoutlier.
But it's about having a balanceabout knowing what your local
area can take, but truly whatyour and I must stress your
(19:20):
operating cost, because when uhwhen um a lot of principals look
at what they should charge, thefirst thing they do is go and
have a look at the competitorsnearby and say, well, they're
charging £100 for this treatmentor £1,000 for this treatment,
I'm going to charge the same ora shade over or a shade under.
Um, what they don't maybecomprehend is the fact that that
other competitor might havecompletely different operating
(19:43):
costs from start to finish.
The lease might be higher orlower, the what they pay the
associates might be up 5%, down10%, their staff costs might be
different per hour, andeverything else that that comes
together to get your total coststo run your business.
So it's a good sort of pointerfor 10 if you like, looking at
(20:04):
what the competitors are, andyou certainly need to be in that
sort of market unless youreally are standing out at one
edge or the other.
Um, but fundamentally you needto do the hard yards, which is
understanding what it costs todeliver each treatment line uh
within your business, um, addingon your profit margin to
actually truly get where youshould be at treatment cost.
(20:26):
So fundamentally, um that'swhere like we need to be in
understanding that you're makingmoney on all the treatments
that you actually um conduct,and that that conversation might
also be around well, actually,how much are you making as a
principal doing the sametreatment compared to actually
if you pass that work on to anassociate to do it and take into
(20:48):
the of course the theconsideration the associate's
fees, what does that do to theprofitability for that
treatment?
And which treatments should youdo yourself as a principal,
which should you pass on, etc.
So uh fundamentallyprofitability of treatments is
definitely the sort of thenumber three for the hat trick.
Alon?
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of this podcast.
Alon (22:56):
Yeah, totally agree.
Uh I think again from uh yeah,as the way I sort of started off
in Dentistry, you know, youjust looked at the your your
good, you were looking at youraccounts at the end of the
month, or very often it was justat the end of the year, and you
just see kind of how much moneywas made, and no real
(23:16):
understanding of what it is thatyou did on a day-to-day basis
that sort of made an impact intothat.
Um and so when we look atpractices, very often we'll find
that there are a whole bunch oftreatments that don't really
make any profit.
And then there's a bunch oftreatment that do.
And then quite frankly, thereason why a practice is is
(23:39):
possible or not is therelationship between those and
very often that's very just adyou know pretty ad hoc and not
very well planned.
And so the fundamental is tounderstand you know what every
treatment does to the businessfrom a financial perspective.
And a way one of the things Ilike to look at is is the phrase
(24:05):
of understanding the differencebetween a lost leader and a
loss maker.
So as I was alluding to a lotof times a lot of things we do
is about building trust,building relationships.
And that's fine.
And it's fine to have a lostleader as long as it's being
measured and it's being tracked.
(24:25):
But if it's not being measurednot being tracked and you don't
understand the balance betweenyour loss making treatments and
your profit making treatments,you then become loss makers.
And so it's being able tounderstand that in the first
instance is super important toplanning what you should be
charging.
(24:45):
And then and then as Derek wasalluding to we can then look at
say okay actually this area wethink there's we think there's
scope to change the fees so wecan make sure we're making some
profit in those treatments maybewe're limited by the market and
we can say okay we might not bemaking much profit on these
treatments but at least we knowwe need to monitor the number of
(25:05):
patients that are comingthrough and making sure that
we're maximizing on the goodwillthat we're generating by seeing
the patients.
And so it's really I say it'slike everything we do it's about
providing information andunderstanding so that we can
look after practices better andultimately look after the team
(25:27):
and our patients better.
Dr James (25:30):
Hell yeah awesome brilliant well I think what just
to reiterate what we weresaying earlier um you know the
reason why I wanted to ask youguys specifically this is these
are just not three KPIs orfactors that we're just pulling
out of the air and thinking toourselves right okay these sound
about right I think it's thesethree things this actually comes
(25:52):
from hard data this comes fromyou helping Dennis with this
stuff over many many years andyou're able to say right
actually these three specificthings are the biggest common
trends we've noticed amongst allthe possible ways there are to
make more profit in a businessthese are the most common ones
that we've picked up on so Ijust wanted to reiterate that
(26:13):
for the audience's benefit.
So basically in essence there'sa good chance that if you're a
principal or you are anassociate as well of course or
you're going to be a principalone day as well that if your
business is not quite hittingthe numbers that it would like
you'd like it to or you justwant it to be even more
profitable there's a good chanceit's going to be one of these
three things or it's going to bea factor within these three
things and I just think that's areally cool thing to highlight
(26:36):
and it is also important tomention that you can actually
get all of this data it'sactually buried in your PMS but
it's just that people don't knowhow or they don't have a very
good interface by way ofsoftware dashboard to be able to
extract the info which is kindof the thinking behind what you
guys do.
Derek (26:56):
Yeah yeah so so a lot rather rather than all uh James
a lot of the information is isthere in your PMS and it's about
understanding what parametersto use to extract it and analyze
it and and and get what actionsare needed.
But um the benefit if you likeof the dashboards that we create
for our members is we don'tjust stop at PMS.
(27:17):
We've talked about sort of umoperating profit here and
treatment profitability.
Now obviously we can we can getthe sort of um income levels
out of the PMS but when it comesto the profitability what we
need to do then is obviouslymerge all the costs together as
well to find out what theprofitability is.
So our dashboards actuallybring together really all the
(27:38):
key metrics needed to run asuccessful dental practice.
So now whether that's actuallyyour your profit and loss
accounts that come from youryour bookkeeper or accountant
that we look at and take thecosts out to look at your
treatment profitabilities.
It may well be HR platformsthat you have to look at um both
the volume and cost of your umteam members and equate that to
(27:59):
a ratio with your clinical teamto make sure that we're uh
you're staffed at the optimumlevel um it may well be a
compliance elements um or umsome other function that we we
sort of pull together yourmarketing functions for instance
um when it comes to your yourgems etc that you may well be
(28:21):
using we pull all of this datainto a very clear and concise um
Microsoft Power BI dashboard umwhich enables us really to
build a picture analyze uh yourbusiness and communicate in a
very structured way withyourselves as business owners on
where you currently are umwhere you want to be and how you
(28:41):
actually get there looking atthe numbers um now we find this
is key not only is obviously umall decisions is backed by um
analytics and and and numbers inthe practice but also we're
very conscious of the fact thatlook time is precious if you
yourself go away and try andpull this data from your PMS and
your management accounts andyour your your um marketing
(29:03):
platforms and HR platforms it'sgoing to take you hours hours
that takes you away from beingsort of face to face with your
patients etc now we do all thehard work for you and all the
heavy lifting bring it alltogether into a nice readable
format as I've said and reallycan sit down with you every week
give you a picture of where umyour business is what needs to
(29:24):
be done using our experience andknowledge of your business and
many other businesses out thereas well which gives us a great
wide picture of what's happeningout there in the wider dental
world rather than just your sortof silo dental practice so we
can sort of help you with thatand then we sort of support you
in actually delivering thoseactions um to maximise the
(29:45):
benefit for your business.
I think um I left a dramaticpause there I actually think you
might jump in James but Ireally I was just going to reel
off as well just we've talkedabout a couple of KPIs actually
but um just sort of leading onto that as just an example of
what we've done and if I wasgoing to sort of pull out a a
number of examples um obviouslyone of the key metrics is work
(30:08):
hours.
I mean we we've helped uh oneof our members over the last
couple of years who's increasedtheir clinical work hours by
184%.
Now when you multiply that upby the um hourly production rate
increase um um all of a suddenyou start to see large numbers
um and again it's it's very muchthe sort of sky sports uh sky
(30:29):
cycling analogy here which ismarginal gains you're not
necessarily going to get oneclear answer out of one KPI it's
about looking at a metric offtens if not hundreds of KPIs and
looking for marginal gains outof each of them and actually
added together gives you theperformance that you're looking
for.
But um yeah so work dollarsincrease 184% um with increased
(30:52):
income actually um at the samepractice by 198% um over the
same sort of period um so thatobviously is is is a massive win
for the practice owner givesthem security of life and then
you can talk about your worklife balance as well and it
brings in a lot more decisionsabout what you want to do with
your future knowing the factthat your business is looked
(31:13):
after and taken care of andthere's no surprises going
forward.
Well it's interesting becausethat was actually one thing I
was going to ask as well whichwas can you give us any worked
examples of when this has yeahabsolutely I mean many I mean
I'm not going to sort of sithere and sort of reel off but
sort of just sort of practicesabout I mean again I mean things
(31:34):
that we focus on I mean we'vetaken one practice again that
again we look at each individualbusiness as exactly that as
individual and have a look andsee what needs to be done.
But another example maybe umwould be on the lines of um
forward bookings which weincreased um by 176%.
So again taking away the stressout of reception and actually
(31:57):
putting in processes in placethat actually we book patients
when leaving rather than on therecall process um so that
encouraged patients to come backmore regularly enabled our
reception team to actually havemuch more of a um face-to-face
interaction with patients asthey walked through the door and
then left etc um and madepayment so again it's it's it's
(32:18):
smoothened out um the processesin that practice um again we can
have a look at sort of thengross profit um increasing by um
174% uh practices I'm gonnastop there instead of reel them
off as well but uh maybe what Ishould do as I mentioned profit
I should reel off one last oneon operating profit again I'd
say that operating profits aresort of um up 128% uh another
(32:42):
practice I'm sort of justlooking at the list here so all
of our practices different sizesdifferent shapes etc sort of
thing so we range from sort ofmixed practices up to sort of
Harley Street sort of practicesreally so um really we we cover
all different types shapes andsizes of practices and depending
on what the metrics areobviously depends what we we
need to sort of look at and whatwhat they're looking to strive
(33:05):
for um as for goals in thefuture and how we can help them.
Dr James (33:10):
Excellent and it's obviously really good to be able
to put some figures on there asyou have done just there
because it kind of shows peoplewhat is possible and just how
much this can mean for someoneand the key thing is we want to
emphasize you know the dentistsare not working harder for this
they're really not it's justthat the machine that they've
(33:31):
created is in their business isjust more efficiently giving
them returns for the exact sameamount of effort effectively
because of how they've set it upand that's a really good way to
think about it.
We're thinking like ourbusiness like a system and we're
like okay where can I I've gotthis WD40 or oil if you will and
there's all these cogs okay andI'm trying to find out where I
need to put the oil on the cogswhich cogs I need to put the oil
(33:54):
on and then all of a sudden forthe exact same amount of effort
on the crankshaft so to speakthere's so much more coming
through by way of production byway of profit and I think that's
a really nice analogy.
Alon (34:04):
Alon anything to add um Derek said lots um and I I would
just yeah just to add for meit's about opening people's eyes
up it's uh under it's asdentists we spend most of our
day in patients' mouths sort ofhead down working away and so we
(34:25):
just don't have the time in theday to really see what was
going on in the business.
And so having all theinformation in one place is
absolutely valuable tounderstand what's going on in
the business.
Having someone like Derek whocan really look at those numbers
in detail and give you someprofessional analysis on it
(34:47):
again isn't valuable.
And yeah we enjoy being part ofthat journey for our practices
and if anybody wants to reachout to find out about anything
that we talked about today fromthe podcast where they're best
off finding you can find ourwebsite uh collaboratedental.com
(35:07):
or reach out to myself orcollaboratental.
com or dedicate collaboratedental dot com.
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