Pride Institute

Click here for Laura J Nadler's APRIL article on using videos to market your practice. https://www.prideinstitute.com//2019-Video-Article-3_26_19

Practicing Kaizen with Candy!!!!

Click here for Laura J Nadler's APRIL article on using videos to market your practice. https://www.prideinstitute.com//2019-Video-Article-3_26_19

Click here for Amy Morgan's MARCH article on setting new paradigms and using a Treatment Coordinator in your practice. https://www.prideinstitute.com//2019/03/2019-ParadigmV2.pdf

Click here for Jim Clark's FEBRUARY article on Personal Financial Plans: https://www.prideinstitute.com//2019-Personal-Financial-Pl

Our graduating leaders from Tufts!!! I love what we do!!!

Tuesday Tip by Ross Vera - Consultant and Trainer Work Your Scheduled Days This topic has arisen with several clients this year as we reviewed year-end numbers. As you all know, when we develop our annual plans, we make every attempt to anticipate our precise monthly schedule for each provider. This allows us to create appropriately-sized shares of daily production, which are the building blocks for our monthly and yearly production. ... Inevitably, best laid plans collide with real life throughout the course of the year, and if we are not careful, we may suffer consequences. Case in point, I had an ongoing conversation during last year with a particular awesome Pride Alumni client who had been trailing goal by single digit percentage points throughout 2018. He also trailed days worked by single digits as well. To his point, they were dealing with cancellations and generally working under capacity throughout the year as well. We periodically debated the cause of the underproductivity as the year progressed. By the end of 2018, not by coincidence, he was short of goal by 7% and short in days worked by 8%. Yes, he was operating under capacity on a daily basis. But 85% of a well scheduled day is a lot better than 100% of no day worked at all. So to clarify this week’s Tuesday Tip: Whenever you take a scheduled day out of the practice, make sure you replace it. Furthermore, use your Trends as they are intended to be used. Watch your days worked relative to days planned for all providers and give yourself the best possible shot at exceeding your goals in 2019!

Tuesday Tip by Dr. Maria Ashley - Consultant and Trainer What is your New Year Dental Resolution? For those of us who are sucked into the tradition of Making New for the start of each new year, here are some ideas from the Consulting Front!... 1. Every day my team and I will ASK FOR REFERRALS! 2. I will re-evaluate my Social Media presence, take action if needed, and then monitor on a regular basis to make sure my practice stays relevant and is in the eye of the patients I want to attract. 3. I will encourage my team to embrace new ideas and changes recommended by our esteemed consultant. I will be the leader of this change and present a positive and supportive attitude every day. 4. I will embrace my numbers and use them to help make important decisions that will affect our practice growth and everyday life balance. 5. I am going to have the best team meetings every! Because, I now know how important this communication time is and how it allows for all of us to be held accountable for our places in the practice. I will allow my team to do their part and not micro-manage or hi-jack the meeting. 6. I promise going forward this year and the many years to come, not to yell, scream, or throw things at my team, my patients, my consultant or the eager sales people that show up at the most in appropriate times!!! 7. I will be a better active listener to all. I will not be the drive by dentist and run out of the operatory without asking my patients what other questions do you have for me? 8. I will make sure we are all using our intraoral cameras to help with better diagnosis and treatment presentations to our patients. 9. I will review and increase my fees on a yearly basis. And most of all ... 10. I promise this year and all the years to follow, to commit to honoring the Vision of my practice in all that I do and say! Wishing you all the best for the year to come in all that you desire and dream. Remember how blessed you are to be a part of such a noble, respectable, and relevant profession. May you have a prosperous and loving 2019!

Pride Thoughts for the New Year! Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming. Richard Branson Business opportunities may be like buses, there may be another one coming so. just get on the bus (preferably in the driver’s seat), not underneath it.! Amy Morgan

Whatever is beautiful. Whatever is meaningful. Whatever brings you happiness. May it be yours this holiday season and throughout the coming year! Much Love from the Pride Team

Tuesday Tip by Paul W. Callahan, D.D.S. - Consultant/Trainer Got PHI? I recently had a client tell me every time they focus on a system, another system takes a step backwards. So how are you doing with your cybersecurity and HIPAA protocols? You can’t let your patients' Protected Health Information (PHI) and cybersecurity take a step back as you focus on other systems.... Imagine walking into your office on a busy Monday morning to discover your system was hacked and you are being held hostage by ransomware. Then imagine federal law enforcement authorities telling you there is nothing they can do and advise you to wire the equivalent of two months of your salary to an untraceable bank account to obtain the key to unlock your software. Can’t happen to me? I’m too small a business for anyone to take the time to hack into? The story I just told is the third time in two years I’ve heard it happening in the Northern Virginia area where I live. None were Pride Institute clients but that doesn’t make you immune. Are you backing up your system remotely and offsite daily, making ransomware far less effective? Is your spouse’s brother’s cousin’s nephew’s son-in-law handling your IT? It might be time to change. We have all had credit card information hacked in one form or another. No big deal, right? You get a new card and you are not responsible for fraudulent charges. Can you imagine if your office computer system was hacked and patients’ PHI stolen? Read the HIPAA Breach Protocol. It's not good for business to inform all your patients their social security numbers and medical information are now floating around on the internet. It’s time to go back to your office and evaluate your entire cybersecurity system from top to bottom. Evaluate your firewalls and IT provider. Your hygienist’s password to log into your dental software should not be hygienist. If your office is ever broken into, the first thing they will steal is that shiny new iPad you use to bring up patient radiographs and other personal information. Lock it up every night. Examples are endless. There are so many things in the dental industry we don’t have control over. Don’t fall victim to a system you do have control over and for which the consequences can be devastating to your career and business.

Pride Pearls Persistence matters most dentists will announce that they want a certain process to be handled a certain way and then get upset when it doesn’t happen right away. Team members respond to change like orders given to a tankership. It takes miles to complete the turn. Persist and coach as needed. [Repost from August 16, 2018]

Tuesday Tip - ML Wheaton, RDH, MA - Director of Consulting People Are NOT Pets: Science Confirms It! Reading an article in the New York Times (Sunday, October 28) by Alfie Kohn, author of Punished by Rewards, was reinforcing to me to see that our concepts at Pride are on-point when it comes to the WHY of team members’ good performance. Most team members in dental practices (and other health care related professions) have an intrinsic motivation to treat people well. They... care for their patients and the outcomes and, in general, want to do a good job. We often see that extrinsic motivators can actually undermine this desire to do well. And science confirms it! Many studies since the 1980s have proven that rewards don’t actually motivate people. The problem is an outdated theory of motivation underlying the whole idea of treating people like pets that is, saying: Do this, and you’ll get that. The best that carrots - or sticks - can do is change people’s behavior temporarily. They can never create a lasting commitment to an action or a value, and often they have exactly the opposite effect, contrary to the continued prevalent practice of giving bonuses, whether planned or unexpected. As many clients have experienced, if you give a monetary reward it is likely that another reward is expected and is often met with resentment if it isn’t repeated. Can you say entitlement? Various researchers over the last half-century have admitted to being surprised by the ineffectiveness or actual destructiveness of reward when money was offered to adults for succeeding at a task, when merit pay failed to improve teachers’ performance, and when incentives didn’t increase seatbelt use or help people lose weight and keep it off. What are you to do? Leadership!!! Ken Blanchard in Situational Leadership says leadership is something you do WITH people, not TO people. Doing things TO people, such as offering them a reward, is relatively undemanding for the rewarder (you) which may explain why those carrots and sticks remain stubbornly popular despite decades of research demonstrating their failure. Working WITH people to help them do a job better, learn more effectively, or acquire good values takes time, thought, effort and courage. Having a vision and sharing and using it effectively to communicate the WHY to your team members is the perfect choice for getting your team to WANT to do what your NEED them to do. An important P.S.: this is NOT to say that excellent compensation isn’t needed. On the contrary, Pride’s three principles of compensation apply: 1) the practice must be able to pay for employee’s talent, 2) compensation should be competitive with the market rate and 3) increases should be based on performance. Conversations surrounding the growth of individual team members, as they relate to their compensation, are a much better way, saving those treats for your fur children!