Are you being hurt or harmed.

Are you being hurt or harmed?

When one of your patients come into your practice one of the most common things you will do is to restore a carious lesion. During the procedure however gentle you are, or however much local you use, the chances are your patient will experience discomfort, it may be as you  place a rubber dam, tighten a matrix band or place a wedge. In the process of making them better, it may hurt.

In the previous months, was your patient hurt by the sugary food and drinks? No, of course not, however they were being harmed by a comfortable, pleasant experience.

So how does this relate to your practice as a business?

Some of the common activities that dentists do or don't do that harm dental practices include,

• Not collating and reviewing your financial situation
• Avoiding speaking to a team member about unacceptable behaviours or attitudes
• Not learning the skills you need to run the business as well as you deliver your clinical skills
• Not committing enough time to talk to, train and transform your team
• Not considering what your patients really want from you.

You may be like many dentists that want more patients, more money, more time a significant better quality of life and want to see results within 3 to 6 months. And if you do it may hurt.

• You will have to find the time and develop the skills to really understand your financials
• You will need to clarify, decide and enforce the standards of behaviour and attitude you expect in your practice.
• You will need to learn and hone new business skills
• You will need to reorganise you time personally and professionally.
• You will need to develop leadership and communication skills and meet regularly with your team, to talk, train and transform.
• You will need you clarify what your patients want and what you offer to serve their desires and needs.

Consider for a moment you and your practice are you hurting or harming.

Have you got patients that deny they have a problem, wait until the caries is extensive and they have severe pain. They put off treatment, fearing the short term pain, and the consequences are more costly in time, complexity,physically and financially. That's frustrating isn't it? We want our patients to come in early so the solution is simple and inexpensive.

So what about your practice are you burying your head, denying that there are problems?

As a great friend of mine says "You can make money or make excuses,. You can't make both"

What are you making.