Why Should They Try?

Got a great message from someone who sounds really dedicated to her profession and the practice but….feels there is a huge speed bump in her way.  Guess who?  You guessed it, it’s the Doctor!

This reminds me of a series of blog posts that Linda Zdanowicz with a blog (must-read) called Exceptional Dental Practice Management posted some time ago.  It was a series of posts that invited the reader to look at the practice through each person’s eyes.  The best one was the one from the “Doctor’s Chair”.   As someone who has heard practices described by the doctor as well as the administrative team in completely different ways, I see that when there is a definite difference in perceptions and goals, there is dysfunction.   The first sign of dysfunction is blame.  Who is to blame for all of this unscheduled treatment anyway?

That’s such a loaded question, but answering it (honestly) for yourself will identify whether there is dysfunction and possibly, how to turn it around.  The person who messaged me clearly felt she was doing everything she could possibly do to help set the stage for success for her doctor, but management issues were undermining her effort.  So…why should she even try?  If your team feels that moving forward will prompt a banging of their head into a wall, they won’t do it.  Then they won’t move forward even if they normally would have.  The focus will be on what they won’t do, not what they will do.  “Fire them all!” is a common response.  That may in fact be the answer but it rarely is.  If it feels like they’ve dug their heels in, they may have.  If it feels like they’ve got attitude problems, that might be true as well.

If your Treatment Coordinator knows that they are collecting at a high percentage, getting incredible treatment acceptance, and nothing seems to change….why should she even try?  By that I’m not even talking about a pay raise or bonus.  I’m talking about the feeling that she’s always putting out fires.  Lab calling because the bill wasn’t paid!  An unexpected vacation by the doctor during a slow month which closed the practice for a week with little notice.  If she feels that things completely out of her control are undermining her ability to do good work for you, and that even if she does, it doesn’t seem to be making the practice financially sound….why should she even try?

This is where opening up the practice so that everyone has an opportunity to see what’s going on from the other person’s chair is so important.  The most important one, of course, is the doctor’s chair.  They’ve done the training, invested the money and stomach lining, and if the practice goes under, they will as well.  Many have tied their home equity to the credit attached to the practice.  Their practice is personal and sometimes we don’t see what’s right in front of us- they don’t either.  When a team has lost respect for the doctor and talks about them in a tone where it is clear they feel they are the problem…it’s a problem.  It should be the most important problem on the table.  If it’s not addressed, it doesn’t matter what else you do, it will not be sustainable.  Unscheduled treatment can build up for many reasons, but if it’s because of dysfuntion in the Doctor/Team communication it’s alot harder to fix the longer you wait.

I thank one of my readers for bringing up this very important topic.  Since she brought it up, she clearly still cares.  Hang in there and maybe you can get your doctor to see things from your side of the chair.  It might be a surprise for both of you.