Orthodontic productivity can be difficult to improve, especially as our offices get busier, issues compound, and complexity increases. When we incorporate digital work on top of normal orthodontic practices, many practices see an increase in doctor time after office hours. Growing a team leads to more time putting out fires, and more patients also offer the challenge of more issues to address each day with treatment expectations and customer service requests.
How do we move towards efforts where we work smarter and better, even amid greater productivity and practice growth?
Do less
Replace time management with life mastery. Sometimes it is beneficial to become faster at something, but it is even better to avoid it together. By doing less, an orthodontist is not skipping steps or doing shoddy work. Doing less means you only do what matters, which you are best at doing, and only do what aligns with your purpose. Avoid busyness and put all your energy into what is important. This effort will increase your productivity, effectiveness, and happiness. Start by outlining what you love to do vs. what you loathe to do. Automate, delegate and remove complexities to your office work.
Do it better
Excellence is a driver for business and professional growth. Better comes from constant and never-ending improvement. We build a more effective team by providing better care, customer service, leadership, and improve business systems. Deliberate practice helps us focus on the opportunities for improvement and help drive our strategy for a more successful orthodontic practice.
Do it only once
When you do it better, the goal is to avoid redoing ineffective work. When you do things only once, this reduces mental load and workload. With orthodontic treatment, we see clear efficiency in work done right the first time. Think of cases where bonding brackets in the right positions help progress improve. The same goes for digital workflow. When you reduce CAD work modifications, you lessen the time for revisions. Doing it right the first time reduces computer time and improves time to delivery, so patient care starts more efficiently.
Do it on time
Keep appointments timely and also keep treatment on time. Respecting time is about making and keeping a promise. So it is helpful to do the work in the right timeframe. Orthodontics is a service driven by time. Whenever I see a new patient exam, the first question is if we can address the issues with their malocclusion, and the second issue is how long it will take to get there? Of course, many factors come into play, including compliance and biological response, but we promise the treatment timeframe. Our efforts are to develop the most effective and efficient treatment modality and motivate patients to get there.
