Should I open my practice on a Saturday?

I have been having conversations with dentists recently about whether or not they should open on Saturdays. There is no right or wrong answer to whether you should open on a Saturday or not, for some it will work really well, with patients coming in for high value more elective style treatment, and for others it will not work at all, with high levels of FTA, and feeling like the weekend has been wasted.

My style of dental business coaching is to recognise that your practice is unique and any decisions that the decisions you make, about your practice, should be based on you, your patients and  your practice and not what is happening in other practices locally or in other areas around the country.

Stepping back from the detail opening hours and looking at the bigger outcome, Saturday opening is a tactic for removing one of the obstacles that may prevent your patients and prospective patients from accessing your services. If your patients find it difficult to get in your books could be empty and you will certainly not be generating as much revenue as you could be.

Obstacles that prevent patients from accessing your services fall into three major categories,

• Time
• Money
• Motivation

If you are considering changing your opening hours, it would probably be useful do some market research to discover whether  your patients actually want Saturday opening, and this could be done by several methods ranging from patient questionnaires to opening on Saturdays and testing the response, to coin a marketing term, test and measure. (CQC outcomes 1 c ii, 1f & ig, tick :-)) 

Whether you chose to open on Saturdays or not, will depend on many things that would include,

• Your patient demographics
• Your practice values
• Your practice mission, vision and purpose
• Your positioning in the market
• Your perfect patient atavar
• Your pricing structures
• Your HR structure
• The treatments you offer
• How your appointment book is zoned
• Your customer service standards.

I share with you what have become known as Jane’s magic questions which are a phenomenally powerful tool in decision making.

• What does Saturday opening mean?
• What is essential about Saturday opening?
• What is important about Saturday opening?
• What is the value / usefulness of Saturday opening?
• What is the purpose of Saturday opening?

I would suggest that you and your team discuss these questions from the following four perspectives

• The patients
• The team
• The practice
• Emotional stake holders

It may or may not be that you recognise that you have patients that are choosing elective or private dentistry that may wish to be seen outside normal working hours, in which case a mixture of one or all of, early mornings, late nights, Saturdays or even Sundays ( I know practices for whom this works really well) may be something you consider would be useful to your practice, provided it delivers your desired outcomes and provides ROTI and ROMI. For many practices Saturday is a very convenient way they can offer a  service to patients who want treatment and can afford it, and for who taking time off work is difficult. I have found that many dentists, understandably, do not want to close their practices, and yet they do want me to deliver in house staff training to help them make their good practice great, so Saturday workshops prove very popular.  

An remember what is right today may not be right tomorrow and our practices need to evolve, and we need to be flexible in our decisions, so we don’t become like the dinosaurs.

What are your thoughts on Saturday opening? comment using the button below.

If you would like some help with;

More patients

More money 

More time

A more reliable team

A better quality of life

Sustainable results quickly

If you would like to more about the coaching, training and workshops we provide for dentists and their teams, E mail me at Jane@iodb.co.uk or call me on 07989 757 884