Successfully Implementing SOPs in Your Dental Practice (E.238)

“SOPs are crucial to the success of your business.” ~Dr. Bruce B. Baird

They’re your game plan, your playbook. Standard operating procedures. SOPs.

I know it sounds like really boring stuff. As soon as I say the word “SOPs” I can see people’s eyes glazing over. But think about it this way: You wouldn’t expect a football team to hit the field without knowing what they’re doing. So why do you expect your team to deliver consistent excellence to you and your patients without SOPs?

Early on in my career, I was trying to explain to my team what they needed to do and then hold them accountable and it didn’t work so well. All I did was confuse and frustrate them…until I started implementing SOPs.

SOPs are a simple way to get massively productive: write down exactly how you want things done and then train your team. SOPs streamline your practice, ensure the highest standards are met, and actually reduce your and your teams’ stress.

So join me today for a conversation about the importance of SOPs and how to:

• Decide what and how to use SOPs in your practice
• Successfully implement SOPs
• Get your team on board

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Announcer: The Productive Dentist Academy Podcast Network.

[00:00:02] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: That’s why I was able to work Mondays and Tuesdays for the last 14 years of my career and still produce over 2 million a year. It was because my team knew exactly what we were doing and exactly the procedures, exactly the materials, exactly the instruments. Everything was spelled out. Hello, everyone. This is Dr. Bruce B. Baird, and you’re listening to the Productive Dentist Podcast. In this podcast, I will give you everything that I’ve learned over the last 40 years in dentistry, working with thousands of dentists. I’ll tell you, it’s not that my way is the only way, it’s just one that has worked extremely well for me and, and I’d love to share that with you so you too can enjoy the choices and lifestyle that Productivity allows more time for things you love, increased pay, better team relationships and lowered stress. Let’s get into it with this week’s episode of the Productive Dentist Podcast.

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[00:01:54] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: Today I’m going to talk about SOPs, standard operating procedures, which sounds like really boring stuff but what I’ll tell you is early on in my career. As I was trying to explain to my team what it is you need to do and to hold people accountable, they need to know exactly what it is that you’re doing. So when I look at a standard operating procedure, you know, you can buy them from people. They make them for you. That’s a waste of money and a waste, a waste of your time trying to show your team what to do but what we did, and there’s every different area in the office. I mean, from the front desk, how do they answer the phone? What is it that you want them to say? Go through scenarios with them. Okay, writing it all out because you want this to be the standard operating procedure. I remember when people would answer the phone, we first up in our office, they say, “Hi, my name’s Mary. Welcome to Granberry Dental Clinic.” I didn’t like the word clinic. I wanted it to be Granberry Dental Center. Now that seems like a little, a little thing, but it’s something that kind of irritated me every time I heard him answering the phone that way and so we wrote up a script for the front desk of exactly how they answered the phone, exactly how you greet people at the front desk. Now they’re gonna use their own twist on it, don’t get me wrong, but I want them to have a playbook. SOP is a playbook to play by a football team wouldn’t go out on a football field without having a playbook to know what plays they’re running. I’ve often talked about Disney. When you go to Disney, the characters all say the same things that, you know, they have that standard operating procedures. And so I wanted that to be that way in my office. And so early on in my career, I began to do that. Let’s say first with the front office. Second, what’s our standard operating procedure for checking hygiene patients? What do I need? How do I go about doing that?

[00:03:40] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: And so we would write out the entire process. My hygienist, when a patient was seated, they would bring me a piece of paper that would have listed on it the patient’s risk factors that we had previously gone over in their complete exam. If they had a, uh, occlusal guard, are they wearing it? You know, we went through all of these, these areas and come, you know, come check and so I would have the entire hour that that patient is in the chair to come in and check. Now, a lot of people say, “Well, why, if you go in the first part of the appointment, why are you going in that early?” You know, they haven’t cleaned their teeth yet. I’m not checking the teeth plate. I’m not going in to make sure they got all the calculus. That’s not why I’m going into hygiene. Why I’m going into hygiene is to look at their treatment plan that’s been previously done. Look at any emergency things that have happened or anything that maybe not an emergency, but something that’s come to the top of the list and so we spelled all those things out in our standard operating procedure and that really, really helps when you’re going in. My average time talk, talking to my patient in a hygiene check was probably two minutes max and the reason is, my hygienist was trained to go back to the treatment plan that has been previously done if they hadn’t had a treatment plan, if somehow they ended up in my hygiene without having a comprehensive exam with me, then we would set up a comprehensive exam at that appointment and wouldn’t set up a time so that I could go through the risk factors and all the things that I’ve shared with you guys in the past. This is it. You know, we’re going to go through perio-risk. We’re going to go through, uh, biomechanical risk. We’re going to go through aesthetic risk. We’re going to go through all of the things that we need to go through because my goal was every single patient had, had a complete treatment plan. That doesn’t mean they’d had all their work done and that’s why I go into hygiene to find out the work I recommended last year, you know, is it getting worse? Are we having a problem or go on to, uh, look at other things that may have happened during that timeframe? So, that, that was it and we wrote it out, everything in detail, what I was looking for.

[00:05:38] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: My hygienist would say, “Dr. Baird, uh, we’re ready to get going on these veneers.” You know, we talked about it and in other words, they’re looking at that treatment plan, my hygienist, and they’re using that as their guide on what to do. Now cleaning the teeth. Yeah, they’re going to clean their teeth. They’re going to do whatever it was at their appointment, but that’s not why I’m coming in to check the patient. Then let’s get back into what about the standard operating procedure and there’s, there’s SOPs for everything you do in the office, how you file insurance, how you do this, but I’m going to talk more about the clinical part of this, why would you need a standard operating procedure for clinical procedures? Well, if you’re like most dentists, uh, they may never have changed their, their protocol. They do things the same way. Well, that wasn’t me. I was constantly looking for better materials, things that would save time, things that were rated higher than other materials. I would try them if I liked them, that would become part of my SOP. But we would write down, for instance, tray setups. I want this exact tray set up, and not only would we set up a tray, this is for endo, this is for oral surgery, this is whatever, these are the things I want, but we would take photos of it. So we had pictures, we had written details, and when we’re training somebody, a new employee, a new assistant, it is the way I like to do things with me there, seeing a new patient, with this endo, this is the protocol that I use. If you have two or three docs, clinical protocol. Ours were close, but they weren’t exactly the same. So they need to write up their protocol of exactly what they want take pictures of exactly the way they want their tray set up. It sounds like, you know, a little anal retentive, but we’re a dentist. So that, that fits the, fits the mold but what I’m saying is we’ve talked in the past of how important training is, how important getting, you know, you can’t be upset when people are doing it exactly the way that you recommended it and if I’m sitting there doing endo and they go, “Oh, I forgot the C or hope. I forgot this. I forgot that.” No, we set it up the same way every single time. Now, how do you become productive? How do you become massively productive by doing that? Does it take time? Yeah, I mean, it might take you a day with your team in the back. This is how we want to do it. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam but it’s worth it. That’s why I was able to work Mondays and Tuesdays for the last 14 years of my career and still produce over 2 million a year.

[00:08:00] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: It was because my team knew exactly what we were doing and exactly the procedures, exactly the materials, exactly the instruments. Everything was spelled out and again, it sounds like a lot of work but you only have to do this work one time, and once you’ve done it and you trained your team, now it’s your responsibility. Remember, we talk about accountability, you know, looking at things and making sure it’s being done that way. You have to rarely do it, but then just check the pictures, everything else. Are we still doing, are we still following our protocol? You’ll know it because you’ll notice that something’s missing on the tray or something’s not there and that takes more time. They have to get up and go and when you’re producing, I’m not worried about seconds and minutes, but I’m worried about how long does it take me for the overall procedure? And I would very much like for everything that I use to be in that room. So I can do that standard operating procedure. It’s your game plan. It is your playbook of what you’re going to do every day. Anybody can help set up a room. If you have somebody that’s sick, that is set up. They can look at the pictures. They can set up a tray for you. Sometimes, you know, the office got behind, which was very rare but if it got behind, we’d ask a hygienist to set up a tray for us. Well, all they do is go to the playbook and open it up and by golly, there, there was exactly what we expect for the setups. When I hired people early on, I just expected them to know these things. You know, well, you’re an assistant. You should know how to set up a track. Well, that’s not fair to the assistant. It’s certainly not fair. They don’t know how you like it. They may have worked for four different dentists and four different dentists are going to do things four different ways.

[00:09:36] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: There was a study they did when I was back in the military. They sent out to prosthodontists, you know, uh, in, in, in the U. S. Army. They sent it out, a simple RPD, you know, removable partial denture design. And they said they wanted each one of the prosthodontists to do their own design of what they thought was the best design. And they had like, I don’t know, 60 prosthodontists, and all 60 of them did it differently. That’s the way we are, but I want my team to know exactly how I want it because, like it or not, as you go through the day, little things that aren’t the way you like it kind of cause stress and we’ve talked about when you’re stressed, what happens to productivity? It goes down. So this is a very, very big deal, in my opinion, is having a standard operating procedure for every single thing. How do you want insurance filed? How do we want recare taken care of? You can write this all down in all the different arenas or all the different areas in your office, you want standard operating procedure and just plan over the next year. Over the next year, I’m going to go through each one of these. I’m going to get advice from people who are specialists in the front desk. You know, when we go to seminars, when we go hear people speak, there are people out there that, you know, they’re the best at the best, you know, of how they do it may not be the way we do it but by going through this process and setting up exactly what we want to do, guess what? Our team is happier. They know what you expect of them and it’s something that may take a little time, but it’s going to be time well spent. You know, that’s my story on SOPs, but it’s something that I really challenge you to do because guess what’s going to happen at the end. There’s going to be less stress and there’s going to be more productivity and the ultimate is you’re going to take better care of people because you’re not waiting around rolling your eyes for a mirror on your exam tray.

[00:11:16] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: That’s this week’s podcast. I hope you guys have a great week and I look forward to talking to you again next week and remember, if you have any questions, please send it to bruce@productivedentist.com. So look forward to seeing you. Thank you for joining me for this episode of the Productive Dentist podcast. If you found this episode helpful, make sure you subscribe, pass it along to a friend, give us a like on iTunes and Spotify, or drop me an email at podcast@productivedentist.com. Don’t forget to check out other podcasts from the Productive Dentist Academy at productivedentistpodcast.com. Join me again next week for another episode of the Productive Dentist Podcast.