What You Can Do Today When You Have No Open Time for Hygiene Patients In the Future?

What You Can Do Now When You Have No Open Time for Hygiene Patients?

Most of the offices I talk to have no place for hygiene patient appointments until October.

Either their hygienist(s) have not returned to work and if they have there are not enough openings for more patients to schedule today.

As I look over your practice reports, I see there are over 500 patients who need a hygiene appointment ASAP.

What do you do?

The picture above is a short list of patients on a report of perio patients who need an appointment today until back 6 months ago (these patients completed a 4000 ADA/CDT code which also could include gingivitis - D4346).

As you look at this picture above, notice all the red. These are patients with an unscheduled hygiene appointment (perio maintenance or perio therapy. Could also be a gingivitis patient because this CDT/ADA code is D4346) AND........many of these patients have unscheduled restorative care (Ex: Tx and the numbers in red on the right inside the picture above).

Please make note, the original restorative care was diagnosed approximately six + months ago.

How will you answer these questions?

1. What is the harm if your patient is not contacted to schedule an appointment asap?
2. What is the effect on the patient who needs perio maintenance, perio therapy and also has restorative needs?
3. What is the effect on your dental practice productivity and your recovery plan in 2020, when you can get the perio and restorative care scheduled?

BTW: The picture above does not show patient names. I blocked these patient names because of HIPAA. The report I share above is for all patients who as of today until six months ago need a service in the 4000 ADA/ CDT codes. The category I am showing is for overdue "Perio Patients."

These are the patients you must contact this week.

These are your patients who may have:

1. Active gum disease.

They had a diagnosis of periodontitis or at the least gingivitis (D4346) in the past so the possibility that they have active disease again is probable.

2. Many of these patients also have outstanding restorative care needs.

What do you do today?

First step, run your recare report of the 4000 codes who are due from today until 6 months ago.

Second, look at the patients who are due for a 4000 code and also have unscheduled restorative care.

As you look at the above picture you should notice that many patients have outstanding treatment over $1,000.

Please note: Only a small portion of patients on this list are shown in the above picture. There is over $100,000 in unscheduled treatment if you could look at this complete report above.

Third, know "why" the diagnosis for the specific restorative care is needed.

• Does the patient have an open margin, a fracture, a hole in their tooth?
• Do they have an infection, inflammation, bleeding gums or a cavity?

You need to know the exact reason and be able to explain in layman's terms (words your patient will understand. Use words that paint a picture). When you contact the patient you will use these exact words.

Next, you will designate one person to call the patients and you will block out time each day to call these patients.

Set a goal for one person to call and each day they call, the goal is to schedule 5 patients. This is an attainable goal each day!

The secret to your scheduling success and the reason you will achieve this goal, is because you must "work your plan."

What do you do if the patient does not answer your call?

Not many people actually answer their phone if they don't know who is calling so when you don't get a live person on the phone call do leave a short voice message when possible.

When you leave a voice message, make it short and sweet. "Hi Patient Name, this is Your name calling from Name of your office and Dr. Name of your doctor asked me to call because She/He is concerned about your dental care. We miss you and it's time to schedule your appointment. Please return my call at leave your office phone #."

Use your patient engagement tools and text the patient when they don't answer your phone call.

Your text message will say something like, Hi Patient Name, we miss you! Dr. ______ is concerned about your overall health and asks that you call to schedule your dental appointment.

Your name and office phone # should be at the end of the text message.

Make your text message short and sweet. Your goal is exactly what the text messages says:

1. you miss them.
2. doctor wants to see them and
3. it's time to schedule their dental care appointment
4. let them know how to schedule their appt. Call or schedule online?

That's it!

If you have an online scheduling link also include this in your text message. Many patients in our world today want to schedule online.

What will you do if a phone call and text message don't work?

I suggest that you also send an email with information about their condition. If you have information to add in an email about the patients oral condition this can be helpful to share in the email.

Use your patient engagement company to get this info. For example: Solution Reach has templates that will address gum disease, implants, a crown, etc.

We also teach our clients how to create short video messages to text message patients. These video messages appear as if you are speaking to one individual patient but can be used for each patient depending upon their oral condition, disease, etc.

Where do you put these patients when the hygiene schedule is full?

Since your hygiene schedule is full and since these patients have restorative care to be completed you will be looking to add these patients on doctors schedule.

What good is the hygiene patient on doctors schedule?

Remember, we are looking at patients who need a 4000 code and they also have restorative care.

It's likely these patients need updated radiographs and they need an up-to-date exam. It's been approximately 6 months since the original diagnosis was completed and many patients will need an updated diagnosis.

Doctor only needs about 30 minutes on their schedule to see these patients.

The purpose of getting these patients on doctors schedule is to:

1. Get patients back on your schedule
2. Get patients proper care they need: Reassess their oral condition: carious lesions, implant previously diagnosed,etc.
3.  Re-assess perio maintenance appts.

• Does the patient have active disease or do they remain a perio maintenance appointment?

Once the patient is scheduled to see doctor, the assistant will update their health history, take blood pressure and any necessary radiographs (BWX, PAs or FMX).

Doctor will complete the exam (Periodic or Comprehensive) and update the treatment plan and update the perio chart or at least spot probe and reassess the patient perio condition. 

Are carious lesions stable or have they progress to more tooth surfaces? 

Is the patients perio status stable or do they have re-infection and active disease that requires more than a maintenance appointment with the hygienist?

1. Does the patient need a crown versus the filling since you last examined the patient?
2. If the patient has active gum disease doctor will diagnose perio treatment: 1-3 teeth SRP or quadrants; whatever is necessary.

Before patients leave the office they will schedule their necessary restorative care and hygiene appointment(s).

You will also need to BLOCK SCHEDULE so you don't have this situation where there are no hygiene appointments available. More about this in another article.

I'm happy to share more about this with you if you will drop me a line.

If you are not sure where to begin getting all these patients back on your schedule please do schedule 30 mins so I can walk you through this.

I am here as your guide. I really care about your success.

Learn more about the Revenue Recovery Session and how you will benefit from this when you click this LINK.

I am very happy you are here!

Debbie

P.S. Be sure to read more emails with videos and messages about "Block Scheduling" your patients. If you don't have openings in your schedule for the next 6+ weeks, and if you want to meet your production goals, you must have a BLOCK SCHEDULE STRATEGY. I will be back again with a video message on this topic.ABOUT DEBBIE

Debbie Seidel-Bittke, RDH, BS, has been an industry leader since 2000.

She graduated from USC with a bachelor’s degree in dental hygiene and soon after graduation worked as a clinical assistant professor in the hygiene clinic and co-taught the senior dental students Practice Management course for many years.

Since 2000, Dental Practice Solutions has served dental practices around the world to optimize their hygiene department. Dental Practice Solutions creates highly productive hygiene departments because they take a holistic approach when working with each dental practice. They work with doctor and the entire team to create a highly productive hygiene department. TEAM is an important piece of every productive hygiene department.

Grab a free resource or schedule a No-Cost Revenue Recovery Call to Optimize Productivity in Your Dental Hygiene Department: https://bit.ly/R2RAssessmentCall