In the second article in our blog series to help you future proof your practice and prepare for an increase in patients seeking dental care as the COVID-19 restrictions ease, we look at how you can start to prepare your appointment book.
At SOE, we have spent 30 years working with thousands of dental practices and helping them to optimise their appointment books for effective practice management and growth.
Diary management is of course an essential element of any dental practice daily workflow and processes, for a number of reasons including:
At SOE we can help you use EXACT to ensure that you have the optimal patient numbers booked into your diary, that you can see in a manageable way for your practice - while keeping your patients and staff safe. We recommend that you set up four zones in your diary for the following treatment types:
Filling your appointment book allows you to prepare for the increased capacity, protect your average hourly rate and provides allowances for those unexpected patient needs for emergency dental care. It is essential to make space for pre-booked recalls, fallow times, emergency appointments and treatments. You also need a short notice list, as you get closer to the day, if you haven’t filled one of your four zones then you can use this list to fill any gaps. Plus, if you have wasted space we can help you identify the patients that can be contacted to fill those gaps to avoid any financial issues and optimise your diary
Next week in our blog series focused on preparing your practice for the future, we look at the importance of patient commitment and how you can use recalls. In the meantime, do please talk to our Customer Success Consultants team at any time for any advice.