Hi guys, and welcome to another episode of The Delivering WOW Dental Podcast. I am super excited to be here with you today. So today I'm actually going to be discussing automation and how you can create an automated dental practice. Now, the reason why we want to create automation in our practice is that automation adds accountability in our business. And oftentimes where we really fall short is that we're very busy, right? As owners of a dental practice, we are doing the dentistry. We are managing patients' expectations. We are leading a team. We have families at home at the same time, right?
And so, many times what happens is, of course, we are putting a lot of things on our plate. Things slip through the cracks and at the end of the month, we're like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't get that done. And I really wanted to get that done." And so the faster you can automate your systems, automate your processes, that now can be even managed and handed over to a member of your team, you actually will have the ability to actually scale your practice and grow your practice and be more predictable. So super excited about that.
Now, I'll talk today about a few tools that you can use to automate your dental practice. And these are tools that I actually use in my own practice and tools that we also use for members of our Platinum Mastermind and our online virtual coaching and training program that we have for doctors and teams through our Platinum Gold Program. Okay?
And so what we're looking at here are utilizing tools like number one, utilizing whiteboards, right? Whiteboards allow us to automate the process of looking at how many new patients that we're getting day to day or even week to week. Right? It also allows us to look at the number of testimonials that we're getting. It allows us to look at how many crowns we're doing, or if our team is actually having conversations with our patients about services that we are starting to implement. So say, for example, you make a decision, "I am going to start implementing Perio Protect in my practice." Right?
And Perio Protect, for those of you who don't know is a great service that you can have for your patients where you're creating custom-fitted trays, similar to a bleaching tray. It delivers a gel solution where they can actually do this at home. And once they are using it, it will decrease bleeding, inflammation, pocket depth, decrease their chances of needing to have surgery. And this is a procedure that actually can bring in significant additional revenue for your practice.
And so say, for example, you take the course to become certified in Perio Protect, your team does your training. And all of a sudden, many times, if there's no accountability, then what will happen is that now it's the end of the month. And you're like, "Oh my gosh, we planned on starting, but we actually didn't start." And so if you can use a whiteboard as a tool for an automated process, then now what happens is that you will not have that goal slip through the cracks, right? You will know if you're not hitting the goal, that the team is not having the conversations, and now you can go back to the team and say, "I see, we're not hitting the goal. What can we do to hit the goal? Do we need additional training? Is anyone stuck? Do we have any issues with getting the cases to the lab?"
Because sometimes there are things like that, that as the owner, we may not be aware of. Maybe our dental assistant is still trying to get the lab set up and get everything put in place with the scanner, right? So these are things that we will want to know. And when you have an automated process for accountability, then now you will be able to quickly get to results. Okay? So, that's one of the things that we want to look at.
Another thing that we want to look at is how can we automate communication in our practice? And one of the tools that we teach, and one of the tools that we utilize again in my practice is actually a tool called Asana. And how it works is it is actually a software that you can use to number one, to be able to automate the process of having a place to put down all of the gaps in your practice, all of the issues, all of your wishlist items of things that you want to implement, right? And then from there, you can actually utilize a system such as a level 10 meeting so that every week now you can go into Asana and you can go ahead and have at the very top where are people at the beginning of the meeting.
If you're having this once a week meeting where your team members can come together and say what is their personal and professional best? What is the thing that they're proud of for that week that they've done in the business and personally? And again, having a level 10 meeting and even utilizing Asana now allows you to automate the process of doing this check-in with your team every single week. Some other things that you're doing on this level 10 or in this level 10 meeting that you're having once a week. And again, we use Asana templates so that we have this format where we just follow it so that nothing slips through the cracks. But we also have that opportunity to look at our practice performance.
And so weekly, we're looking at our scorecard numbers and scorecards are something that we have built into our Platinum Coaching Platform where practices can log in and now we can actually track their new patient numbers, their doctor, and hygiene production per visit. We can look at the accounts receivable week to week. We can look at how many unscheduled patients were rescheduled. We can look at the hygiene reappointment rate. So there are specific metrics that we can have the doctor team leader of the team go in and set goals for and we can see for that week, if you've hit the goal, right? If you've hit the goal, then it's an opportunity to celebrate your team for a job well done.
And if you've not hit the goal, then now we know where the opportunities are to have a discussion as a team and say, "Well, why did we not hit the goal?" And start looking at, "Okay, well, what can we do to get back on?" Which is where inside of our programs, we actually provide the coaching to now be able to get you back on to get those numbers up so that now, hopefully in the next week, you can go ahead and hit or surpass your goal. Okay?
So having this automated process to now have you hold yourself accountable to looking at your numbers is going to be very powerful. Also, inside of your level 10 meeting, you can look at previous to-dos. So say, for example, you had someone on the team that you had assigned to send out an email. Maybe it's an email that is stating that you're going to start doing Invisalign in your practice, or this month, you're going to be doing a special marketing campaign where you will actually be giving away gift cards for local businesses, and you want to have your patients to participate, right?
And so within this meeting, again, you can go ahead and look at previous to-dos. And now you can ask that team member, "Did that email get sent out?" Right? If not, why? Really, really powerful stuff. And then also, as you have things coming up, maybe that week, you had a lot of broken appointments. Maybe that week, you had insurance that did not pay on particular claims and you want to have a discussion about maybe your system or your process for following up with insurance. Or maybe you had made a decision to go ahead and for example, collect a copay for PPE, right? And it was not collected. And so now there's a time within that meeting that you can actually have that discussion and find out what happened, what was the real issue, right? So that you can not blame or create excuses, but actually just discuss it so that you can create a solution so that in the future, you won't have that issue again. Right? So that's extremely powerful again when you can automate the process of actually having these discussions.
And what's really cool within these level 10 meetings, is that typically, at least in my practice, and what we recommend for practices is that these meetings are held once a week on a Tuesday morning, perhaps before you start seeing patients so that you don't have any reason why you can't do the meeting if you're running late with patients. I don't recommend having it right before lunch, but if you have it in the morning before you get started, then now you have everyone's focused attention. And then the day before on Monday is when the team can go ahead and fill in the scorecards. Okay? So, that's typically how you can look at automating.
What's really cool about Asana as well, is that you don't actually have to even wait until this weekly meeting. What you can do is within the actual task, so say, for example, you have made a decision that you're going to treat 100 kids for free, right? So you're going to do a special drive where you're going to help and do something special in your community. Well, with that drive that you're going to do you have a particular team member that will own that task. Now it doesn't mean they're going to be doing all of the tasks, but they will own making sure that it gets done. And so they will perhaps collaborate with other team members and say, "Okay, who can call a company to get items donated? Who can go ahead and print out coloring sheets for the kids so that when they arrive, they'll have coloring sheets? Who can..." Right? And then you just start going from there. Right?
And so what can happen is that throughout the week, there's actually conversations within the actual card, within Asana. You can actually go ahead and tag any individual collaborators. That means any of these other people on the team that are working on that particular project. And now people can communicate about that specific project within the card, which is really powerful. Because again, now you can get stuff done throughout the week and you don't have to actually wait until the next time that you're having a level 10. And what's really cool as well is that the doctor can be included in these conversations so that now the doctor, you don't have to necessarily even do anything as it relates to the test. But now you are aware of what your team is working on. And if they need your specific feedback, they can tag you and say, "Doc, what do you think?" So this is some really powerful stuff.
We also use in my practice, Asana to be able to, and we have a separate board from our level 10, to look at our bills, right? And so we have a private board between myself and my office manager, where she actually enters in all of the bills that come in, that needs to be paid. She actually scans a copy of the bill, which can be scanned directly into that card, or it can be imported in, in linked In from a Google Drive. So if you're using Google Drive, as we do in my practice and what we teach in our programs, then now you have really good organization of your bills that that link could actually be shared with your accountant or an external person that's going to help to audit all of the things that are happening in your practice.
But what you can do again in Asana is now you can have that, so that even if you're not in your practice, maybe you have an admin day when you're working from home, then now you can go ahead and go in, see what bills that need to be paid. You can see the physical bill. She can go ahead and even type in where there's a tab or field in there, the amount of the bills. So now very quickly, if you're paying your bills from home, you can also do that. And again, now this is a great automation process so that you don't have bills slipping through the cracks. I can tell you, it actually happened in my practice multiple times, where I'm just so busy, where all of a sudden the power bill hasn't been paid. And we even had one time, the power company show up to turn off our electricity. And it wasn't that I didn't have money to pay my power bill, I just didn't have a system. And so now we don't have those issues, because we have that automation already built-in. Okay?
So I really love automation. It's a great way to be able to get accountability, to be able to scale. There are so many other ways that you can automate your practice. We also put automation into our marketing. And so, one of the things that we do within our marketing, which is really cool, is we've built out marketing funnels. And so how that works is, say, for example, we're having a coloring contest. We've actually built out automation where we can issue out a coloring sheet. And when people download the coloring sheet, we actually collect their email address so that we can send them the coloring sheet. That's all automated, right? And then once that happens, then now we can get their email address so that we can start sending out automated email addresses, letting them know about the practice.
And we can even include in an online scheduling link, such as LocalMed or one of the other online schedulers, or we could put in our practice contact us page from our website, for example, if you don't have the online scheduling link. And so now again, it's automated where people can actually make appointments. We've done the same thing for implants. We've done the same thing for Invisalign. So we could do, for example, a Tooth Talk Thursday video, where we're discussing different ways to be able to straighten teeth. Maybe we're talking about Invisalign. And then we can say, "If you'd like to learn more and see if you're a candidate, go ahead and take the quick quiz," right? And then from there, again, it's automated where they're answering questions to a quiz and where at the end of taking the quiz, we can offer them an opportunity to come in and there would be an opportunity there for them to go ahead and schedule online.
So I absolutely love automation. Automation with creating systems is amazing. Again, using whiteboards, utilizing your scorecards, where you can automate the process of having a system where you know week to week, how many patients rescheduled, how many patients last week left without an actual appointment. It's really, really powerful stuff. I absolutely love having this automation in my practice and it's helping the practices that we serve grow really, really fast.
So hopefully this helps you and serves you. If you're looking to put in more automation into your practice, if you're looking to be able to utilize the scorecards and whiteboards and even understand how to automate your marketing, we'd love to be able to help you with that. This is what we love to do. This is what Delivering WOW is known for, helping you to grow your practice faster. And if so, we'd love for you to reach out to us. Once you go into our website, deliveringwow.com, you'll see our programs, you see how we can help you to be able to take your practice to the next level. All right?
So again, hopefully, this helps you and has inspired you to think about how can you automate more systems and processes to take things off of your plate. Once you start automating, then what will happen is that you will grow. You will scale. You will have opportunities to be able to do more, to be able to delegate more to your team and to allow your practice to be able to get to the next level. Again, I look forward to chatting with you. If there's anything I can do for you, again, feel free to reach out to our website, send me a Facebook message. And we look forward to helping you get to the next level.
Thanks again for listening to another episode of The Delivering WOW Dental Podcasts.
Now, the next step is for you to join us inside of our Dental Boss Movement Facebook Group, where dentists are coming together for support and action-taking tips and motivation. To join us in the group, head on over to http://dentalbossmovement.com. And if you're looking to grow your practice faster, make sure you join us inside of our next Marketing and Practice Growth Challenge. And to learn more, go to http://www.deliveringwowchallenge.com. Take care, and we'll see you inside of our next episode.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Delivering WOW Podcast with Dr. Anissa Holmes. We'll catch you next time.