Dental Business and Management Education

 In today’s complex dental environment, owners and managers need excellent business training to remain viable and competitive. Practices rarely succeed or fail for minor or trivial reasons.

At The Center, we have specifically designed our offerings to provide excellent continuing education opportunities for the dentist and team who are seeking to improve their practice management skills in all areas of the business of dentistry: profitability, time management, organization, sales, marketing, and team development.

Our courses include coaching and training that has been specifically designed for dentists who have advanced technical training (Pankey, Dawson, Spear, Kois, OBI) and are struggling to get these skills off the shelf and accepted by their patients.

Our proven practice management strategies create these results:

• Increased net profit through our proprietary Model for Spending overhead control theory

• Decreased stress and anxiety as the practice becomes more predictable and more successful financially

• Increased quality of care accepted through our New Patient Process training intensives

• Increased quality of patients in the practice through targeted marketing initiatives

Our recommendation is, to begin with, a webinar available on our Youtube, here, or sign up to be invited to our monthly live webinars. If you like what you hear, and if the philosophy is a fit for you, we invite you to have a phone call with us to discuss your specific practice and what you are seeking to achieve.

The New Practice Program

New Dental Office Business Consultation and Training

In today’s complex health care environment, it’s especially important for a new owner of a dental practice (created from scratch or purchased as an existing practice) to become well-versed in the intricacies of owning and operating your practice (business). We know that dental school has not prepared you for this new business venture, which is why we created this program.

Designed specifically for the dentist who has or is about to undertake ownership, this powerful 2 Day course will set you on the right path for a viable, profitable even successful dental ownership future.

Our goal in this 2-day program is to help you think strategically and create a solid Business Plan which includes:

Financial Projections
Production and Collection Goal Setting
Getting to Break Even
Statistics Every Business Owner Needs to Monitor
Analyzing Your Market
Appropriate External and Internal Marketing Strategies
Planning for a Team
Position Descriptions
Recruiting, Hiring, and Team Reviews

If you are in the process of planning for a new practice, we have the resources and expertise to help you get started on the right path.

Practice Health Evaluation

Dental Office Business Consultation and Training

Imagine diagnosing a patient without knowing what a healthy mouth looks like. How would you treatment plan? How could you confidently know where to start?

Unless you know what a healthy mouth looks like, you can’t diagnose it. Without a proper diagnosis, you can’t treat. And without treatment, the situation gets worse. It’s the same with your practice. How can you make decisions without a plan? How can you plan without knowing where the practice is in the most need of help?

You can’t. Yet few dentists have a business plan based upon proven models. Some may know what they should have but don’t understand why or how to do it. Very few have a business model that is functional. The result? It’s impossible to make good business decisions for the practice.

This could explain why the average dentist retires with approximately $249,000 (ADA statistic) for retirement when most have been able to produce well over $20 million during their practice lifetime. Accumulating at least 10% of that net production (at least $2 million) seems like it would be entirely possible, right?

You don’t have to be a statistic. We can show you what a healthy practice should look like.

With a Practice Health Evaluation, our experienced Practice Health Analysts can show you what a healthy practice looks like and how your practice compares to this standard.

We measure and objectively evaluate the level of health in your practice in these Key Practice Divisions: 

Finance – The Economic Indicators in the Practice
Time & Organization – Scheduling Doctor and Hygiene Effectively
Sales & Marketing – Internal Marketing and External Marketing Effectiveness
People & Purpose – Vision and Values, Management and Leadership Style
Treatment Acceptance – Technical Capacity Utilization Analysis

We will help you diagnose your situation while showing you what it can and should be like for an optimally healthy practice. We will guide you, step by step, through a diagnosis process to know where you stand and how to start moving toward a healthier practice.

The Management Program

New Dental Office Business Consultation and Training

The Center Management Method powerfully combines proven principles of money, time, organization, people, vision, sales, and marketing in a step-by-step process whereby the dentist learns to be the C.E.O. of his/her practice.

The Management Program brings all of these elements together, in an organized and unique curriculum to provide management training that is not provided in dental school. We are the first business school created specifically for dentists in private practice. This program aligns the day-to-day operations of the practice with the unique vision the doctor wants to create. Regardless of where you are in your journey of being a dentist, new or experienced, we can help you.

Our Coaches and Trainers provide intensive, hands-on, personalized feedback while supporting the entire team as the changes that are taught in the classroom and online are implemented carefully and thoughtfully into the practice. It is a process that is based upon sound principles and then individualized to fit each practice.

Module I: Business Fundamentals & Fiscal Control via a 2-Day Live Training Course
Vision
Values
Cash Flow Management
Budgeting and Tracking
Setting Production and Collection Goals

Module II: Life Planning for the Dentist & Spouse
The Home Budget
Planning for children’s education
Understanding saving and investing

Module II: Time and Organization via The Schuster Center Online Classroom
Practice Systems
Managing the Doctor’s Time
Hygiene as a Health Center
Patient Retention
Enhancing Verbal Skills
Practice Image and Developing the Practice Brand

Module III: The New Patient Process 3 Day Live Training Experiences with Dr. Michael Schuster
The New Patient Experience
Trust-Based Selling
Interviewing Skills with Patients
Increasing Capacity of Advanced Technical Training
Marketing the Exceptional Practice
Internal and External Marketing

Module IV: Team Development available in the Online Classroom or in a Live Training Course
Communication Skills
Effective Leadership Skills
Team Building
Team Agreements

Each module is presented with very specific policy and system assignments that the doctor and team create with the help of their Practice Development Coach. Each module is designed to build understanding and skills around your core philosophy, values, and vision.

The new learning is implemented into the practice in a step-by-step method with the advice and guidance of the Practice Development Coach assigned to work with you.

Our most successful clients complete the entire curriculum in the order we recommend. Each doctor’s prescribed course work is determined after a thorough Practice Health Evaluation where we have an opportunity to learn about the needs, goals, and current fiscal state of the practice. From this evaluation, together with you, we create a Master Plan for your practice development including the courses that are most appropriate for you to achieve your goals.

The Center for Professional Development Practice Management Education

In a dental practice, there are 7 key areas that must be thoughtfully designed and made to work in harmony with one another:

• MONEY – how it flows in and out of the practice; how to make it, keep it and save it.

• TIME – the most important resource we have; how you handle your time determines the quality of your life.

• ORGANIZATION – the structure of your practice, the systems, the purpose of those systems, and the accountability to create and use them to drive your practice each day.

• SALES – the process with patients to help them make decisions that are in their own best interest; how to engage, connect and communicate the value of dentistry beyond what any plan covers.

• MARKETING – determining your offering and bringing it to your community in such a way that patients want what you have to offer.

• PEOPLE – the skills, attitude, beliefs, and motivation of the people who you bring on board to help you in this endeavor.

• PURPOSE – why your practice exists as determined by your values, skills, and training, as well as the reason you chose dentistry as your profession.

The Performance Coach Program

Dental Office Profitability and Performance Coaching

Nearing the completion of the Center’s Practice Development Program, many Doctors ask, “So what’s Next?”

The answer for many is the Center’s alumni curriculum, Performance Coach.

Performance Coach was created by Dr. Schuster in collaboration with twenty Schuster Center Alumni in 2007.  The program is a catalyst for growth, leadership, and achievement.  It combines the best of structure, curriculum, and community.

Through Performance Coach, Doctors continue to practice refinement, but with additional benefits.  Whereas the Development Program was primarily about the practice, Performance Coach is about the Doctor, as well as the practice, with positive results showing up everywhere.

Structure/Process:

A successful life at any stage is more likely to result from a well-executed plan.  Planning encourages us to consider what we want and what we must do to create it.

At PC classes, Doctors learn the structures that support goal achievement and how to leverage individual and organizational change.  The curriculum is guided by Dr. Pankey's wisdom:  Know Yourself, Know Your Patient, Know Your Work and Apply Your Knowledge.

Doctors engage with The Performance Coach Community one year at a time.

Each year includes two 3-day sessions six months apart.  Each session includes Dr. Edwards, Dr. Schuster, three Center Mentors, and a maximum of  25 Doctors.  Between sessions, Mentors host 2 monthly phone conferences with their group of 6 – 8 Doctors.  During these calls, Doctors talk about their progress and where they might welcome advice.

At Performance Coach sessions, Doctors learn together, dine together and share stories and ideas. The classes are very interactive. Through live sessions and phone conferences, Performance Coach Doctors builds true community.

Through The Red Sea Workshop

Key Objectives for this course:

• How to have a practice that is in line with your purpose, passions and goals

• How to determine the health of your practice

• Planning for change, wether it is to do more comprehensive care or move into insurance independence – managing before, during and after

• Understanding and Applying The Art of Case Presentation, the foundation of one-

  to-one relationships

Course Description:

Every decision you make affects how much you enjoy practicing dentistry and how financially successful you will ultimately become. The decision of accepting or not accepting insurance fees and insurance rules in your practice is one of the most defining decisions you will make that will affect both your fulfillment and your profitability. If you are one of the many dentists who want to know if it is possible to stand outside of this system and how to do it, you will need to lay the proper foundation to make the move away from the control insurance may already have on your practice.

Additionally, many dentists have advanced technical training that can dramatically affect their ability to help people, increase revenue, especially the type that is out of network! Many have difficulty getting new learning “off the shelf” due to existing structures within the practice. This is a major focus of this workshop — helping people transcend the effects of bacterial plaque and seek higher level dental needs.

There are strategies that a dentist can employ to increase the amount of “private care” style dentistry they are doing and it begins with what Dr. Schuster termed 1:1 dentistry. When it comes to insurance, there are strategies that can be enacted to begin this transition and come out of the system with your values, your integrity and your patient relationships stronger than ever. The process must be thoroughly planned and properly sequenced.

In his lectures, Dr. Edwards details the process that he created and used to successfully extricate himself from the insurance model. He will share with his participants why this is necessary for the high-quality practice, what needs to happen in the practice and how you can plan for your own transition without fear that your practice will collapse.

Dr. Edwards presents a hopeful and engaging presentation that allows all dentists to see that there are options and choices available for their future; options that better serve the patients, not the insurance companies. Through the Red Sea is a path to creating a patient-centered, health-focused practice that will thrive today and in the future.