In Episode Two of the Best of Cash is King, AADGP President Dr. Brent Barta, Vince Cardillo, Founder & CEO of Maeva Dental Advisors and George Radigan, Former Vice President of North American Dental Group discuss the merits of budgeting the income side of a Practice.
Transcription
Dr. Brent Barta
Could you guys speak at all to having something in a way of a budget related to the income side practices often have budgeting on the expense side Can you speak particularly as the group grows?
And you have more locations what is the importance of budgeting on the income side?
Vince Cardillo
I mean, I think a budget is imperative, right? it gives you an indication of what your next year is going to look like. And from the income side of things, you know, we really work with our clients on their provider productivity levels.
So we kind of get a base point of what their production is on a per hour basis, and we’ll sit down with the doctor owners sit down with their providers and get commitment from both the provider and the owner on how they’re going to grow that our productivity. And you know, that’s incumbent upon the owner, doctors to be delivering, some mentoring that includes certain areas that are identified based on procedure code analysis.
So we might do a procedure code analysis. of the prior year and find the differences of owner doctors versus associate docs and identify areas where hey look, you know, I’m going to spend time with the doc on Endo or you know, you should go out to a course this year or Dawson one next year to really build that productivity for them. Along with obviously patient care is number one and patient satisfaction and then the same thing on the hygiene side.
So we like to see our clients working on building that budget through through number of providers number of hours. they work in the productivity levels.
George Radigan
Yeah, I would agree with everything Vinnie just said there. I mean, and also I mean, it’s easy to it’s easy to let the hygiene side slip because most of the focus is on the doctor and just keeping a really keen eye on on hygiene, right?
Make sure that they’re given clear clear obtainable goals from, you know, operating out of their chairs and making sure that when they have a cancellation or no show that they’re working on backfilling that or doing something the to be proactive productive, call lists and things like that to make sure that their schedule doesn’t fall apart the next day or subsequent weeks.
Dr. Brent Barta
Absolutely, is this an area that you see becomes a problem as a group scales? Typically you both have it experience watching Drew Pro.
My limited experience is that this can be an area where a group fails to really be super accountable.
Thoughts on that.
George Radigan
Yeah.
I think it’s easy. I think it’s easy to look at, you know, most most small groups. don’t even bother with budgeting to be honest with you.
there’s more of a management by feel if you will. And they’ll just you know, open up another column for hygiene and add another hygienist and there’s no, there’s no metrics or accountability to making sure that the full team is productive. It’s very, it’s actually more common than not to have an office, that’s overstaffed in hygiene than understaffing hygiene. And when you think about it, they’re you know, there’s some of if not your highest paid team in to have them sitting around not producing dentistry that’s a real drag on, on the ultimate cash flow of the business.
Vince Cardillo
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s real important for I mean, I we see a lot as as doctors add locations. You know how I feel on our team is really, you know in the same agreement that you know, it’s a big part of the success of these practices is the commitment to grow the providers, you know, the operational metrics. And and you know, systems and procedures and tracking that. I mean, that’s blocking and tackling on in your typical operations, but the trick of the business is You know, the quality of your providers, the productivity of their providers, how they communicate with patients, and how they work with their teams.
And you know, we see a lot of docs that are getting to the multi-site business that really don’t like being dentists and prefer to be a business owner and don’t spend time with the associates and it just gets more difficult because Traditionally across-the-board Associates produce, 50% of what the doctor owners produce for the most by 80 – 60 but you know, if doctor owners can get that 50 percent to 75. It’s a pretty big boost.
Dr. Brent Barta
Excellent spot on again.