Have you ever had a patient come into your practice wanting some complex dental care completed on a shorter time frame and your schedule was full for the next 6 weeks with less productive smaller restorative treatment? Did the patient eventually go to someone else to have the work completed?
In this post I wanted to talk to all of you about taking control of your schedule. If you are interested about treating larger cases in your practice (anything from 6 to 28 units) you will need the time available in your schedule to devote to these patients without rushing. My best suggestion for you is to implement block booking.
What I would suggest is that you analyze the number of large cases you are planning to treat on a monthly basis and then reserve blocks in your schedule on a weekly or biweekly basis devoted to those cases. With this technique you will have the time available to treat these patients without feeling rushed and having to leave the room to fit in smaller procedures at the same time.
One key for success when treating large cases is to have the time to work on them without a lot of distractions.
This way you can focus in and provide the best service for that patient.
The way I do this in my practice is to have two days of the week blocked off for more complex cases. My team members know to only book multi-unit cases or implant surgery into these days and if the space is still available the week before, we will open the time up for shorter procedures and appointments.
You will need to decide the amount of time you need to block off in your own practice and if you are just starting out I would suggest trying one afternoon on the last day of your work week. That would be a great time to use for planning your cases, reviewing treatment plans and completing any model work and analysis, if the time is not scheduled with actual patient care.
Many people ask me how I find the time to treat so many complex care patients, teach, create training videos and find the time for golfing and my family, and I will tell you the best thing I have done to manage the time in my practice is to implement block booking. I hope this information is useful, please feel free to join the conversation and let me know what you think. Comments can be posted by clicking the link above.
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