For 14 years I was like many hygienists. I didn’t know about business nor did I care. My focus has always been about taking care of people, helping patients progress from infection and disease into health and wellness. That element has never changed but the costs connected with doing our businesses have changed drastically.
Through teaching business courses to hygienist and dental offices for so many years, I have discovered that many hygienist/dentist do not truly comprehend why their hygiene department needs to be as profitable as possible.
In order for us to provide the excellence to which hygienists are all committed, we need to be fully aware of the costs associated with the daily operations of running this department, such as all the materials, products and supplies we want, along with the help and support and time that is needed.
There is an old adage that says, “If it has been done, then it must be possible.” Because I am known in the dental world as an ever changing, top producing and highly compensated hygienist, my programs bring in offices. Dentists and hygienists come to learn how I was able to produce so much revenue and promote and sell so much dentistry and how they can do it too.
I have to discuss my favorite and most controversial program, The Business of Dental Hygiene. The title makes many think it’s all about production dollars because dental hygiene is the second largest production center in the practice, and one that is still underutilized in many offices. But there is so much more to dental hygiene that mere production numbers, giving OHI and cleaning patient’s teeth.
In fact the reasons I named my company ‘The Business of Dental Hygiene’ is because that is how I viewed and operated my hygiene department… as a business within the business. That is not to say that patient care will suffer or the hygienist, by paying attention to the business side will sacrifice any quality in work output. Sacrificing quality care is not the way to increase profitability, not in today’s savvy health care marketplace. What I am saying is that the dental and dental hygiene professions, the dental office, the patients and yes even we hygienists will suffer if we do not view our hygiene departments as businesses.
In order to survive and excel in today’s changing health-care market, we must constantly be defining and re-defining, educating and re-educating, focusing and re-focusing on our job descriptions, business strategies and, plain and simply, how we do our jobs.
I am living proof that if your hygiene department were allowed to do what it is capable to do, the results would astound you!
The Business of Dental Hygiene
A thriving hygiene department can have a major influence on the overall success of a dental practice. Not only are hygiene services important to the overall patient’s health, they are important for the practice in terms of referral generating opportunity, pure sales power, patient retention and practice growth.
Being both a service provider and profit producer from the business aspect makes the time hygienists spend with their patients most valuable. Not being able to provide and produce to our fullest potential could be extraordinarily expensive to the hygienist and the business in ways we have not thought of before.
To get the most out of the time a hygienist has with a patient, it is important to have a focused agenda, clearly defined goals and a realistic workable system. Underutilization of hygiene expertise and education and especially our time does not make good business sense.
In all my programs we examine specific strategies protocols for achieving results that create and reflect on what should be the foundation of any successful hygiene department.
The first thing this branch of the business needs is a ‘modus operandi’ that is realistic to work clinically. It is not about cramming more work responsibilities into less time during an appointment just for profitability sake, but getting the best use of the hygienist’s time with the patients.
Next would be a sound set of obtainable goals with the necessary help and support to obtain the goals and how to be appropriately remunerated for your time.
My hygiene department has generated net profits from direct hygiene production alone of more than $125,000 per year for over 15 years. We also directly influenced a substantial portion of my doctor’s production — SALES– totaling more than $400,000 in direct revenues. My compensation package was tied into my goals. As we exceeded our goals we increased our rewards.
The participants learn how to define their own goals, use their time and how to realistically achieve and control their compensation. All the audience needs to do is be open to new thoughts and decide what they truly want from their hygiene department and I’ll teach them how to get it.
Leadership styles
I have found that the differences in the results that people produce comes down to what they’ve done differently from others in the same situations. Different actions produce different results. It’s not what you do once in a while that shapes your life, it’s what you do consistently and who and what you become in the end.
I am a presenter whose programs are controversial by nature. Discussing money and selling are some topics that make some people uncomfortable. I believe that the unpopular subject of business is realistic and necessary changes must be addressed. The good news is most reviews have been positive and I am getting invited back.
My personality is geared towards informing and influencing whether it is from my hygiene chair or on stage. I want people to know what I know. I never teach something I have never done myself.
As my friend and speaking coach Dr. Paul Homoly says, “the best thing about success in dentistry is who we have to become to accomplish it!”
Or, my advice is: “decide what it is you really want from your work/life, what you want to be paid and want you are willing to do to achieve it.”
Ms. Dopson-Hartley is the ‘real thing’ of dental hygiene because what she teaches is what she actually did everyday for 28 years as a full time RDH. She is widely known as one of the most profitable hygienists ever. She founded The Business of Dental Hygiene to teach others how to fully utilize their own hygiene department as a business within a business. For more information visit www.DeborahHartley.com or call 813-541-6225.
