Missed Opportunities for Growing your Dental Practice
Jun 19, 2014
There are patient statistics dental practices are not tracking and knowing these facts can assist in the growth of your practice. Here are a few types of patient tracking that should happen in a dental office.
Tracking where new patients are coming from is essential. You can include it on a new patient questionnaire or on your health history form that all new patients fill out or as a part of your new patient hygiene note.
Your front office staff should compile this information for you on a monthly basis. If most of your patients are coming from referrals, expand your referral base and start asking for referrals. If most of your new patients say that they just searched the internet, follow up that question by asking them if they visited your website. You will be surprised to hear how those two go hand in hand. People don’t just see you somewhere and decide to come to your dental office.
If you find new patients are coming from a particular source, you want to invest more time and money into that source. If you don’t know what that source is, it’s pretty hard to know where to invest more money, time, and energy.
Once you have a handle on where your new patients are coming from, you need to find out where they are going. Patients move, die, switch dentists, and it is not possible to retain100% of patients over a career. But there are some things you can do to improve your retention percentage.
Overall, with new patients:
• One-third of new patients stay in your practice and do the treatment you recommend • One-third stay and may not do the treatment that you recommend today, but they may do this treatment in six months or a year • One-third will leave, not necessarily because of you or your staff, but for whatever reason
While it is very important to increase your new patient numbers, it is more important to keep the ones you are already have. How can you increase the number of patients you keep? You need to know where your patients are going. Keep track of how many patients are leaving your office with a next appointment. If patients aren’t accepting treatment but they are making their next recall appointment, you are more likely to retain them as a patient. Track this and meet regularly with your staff to review it.
The best way to retain a patient is to get them scheduled while they are in your office. The longer that it takes for them to schedule a next appointment, the less likely are to come back. The goal with every new patient should be that they leave with a next recall appointment.
It has been shown that new patient value is significantly higher in the second and third years of being a patient. Treatment planning is a personal style, but acceptance is significantly higher if they continue seeing you as their dentist. Initially they may not trust you and may need more time before they are ready to have you do their treatment.
Dental consultants sometimes talk about a short call list or a cancellation call list. Every office has the potential to put this into place and at the same time track whether treatment recommended is actually scheduled. Keep a few spreadsheets and have your front office write down the names of patients who need treatment and whether or not they schedule.
When you have a cancellation, this is your list of patients to call and make your way down the list. Use this when there is a cancellation or when tomorrow’s schedule starts falling apart. The rule should be if by today at noon, tomorrow’s schedule is light; you can devote the afternoon to filling it. Sometimes this is a difficult concept for team members to embrace, but filling the schedule is the most important thing they can do. This becomes significantly more efficient if they have a list of patients to call. Many issues in practices could be avoided just by knowing these statistics, there is power in knowing the numbers. When you know your numbers; you can make educated decisions as to how to grow your practice.
Categories: Healthcare & Dentistry
The Evolution of Cost Accounting: What Happened?
Jun 18, 2014
Recently I was having lunch with an old friend with whom I began my professional career. In fact, it was one of my very first jobs in cost accounting and this gentleman was the cost supervisor at the company where I worked. We only worked together for a few years and in the many years that have past, we have not worked together at all. He remained at the company and went on to be the CFO. Part of our discussion at lunch was about the evolution of cost accounting in American businesses. My perspective of what had occurred was from the outside, as a Certified Public Accountant and consultant in the cost area and what I had seen transpire over the years in a broad range of industries. His perspective was from the inside which was exclusively as a businessman managing the business and organizing his accounting needs as was appropriate.
We talked for a while about the accounting department in a manufacturing company in the past. He spoke specifically about our mutual experiences while we worked together. That accounting department consisted of a number of sub-departments. Of course, one was the general ledger side, then there was a payroll side, there was a property and plant side and a cost accounting side. In addition, there was an inventory control side and, in our case, a cost estimating sub-department. Each of those sub-departments were staffed with several people who were primarily focused on the duties specific to that department. Of course, many of the operations back then were manual and reports were manually prepared as were calculations supporting those reports. Each of the sub-departments had a departmental supervisor who was quite knowledgeable in their specific area. We both agreed that was the heyday of cost accountants. There were annual cost revisions, there was constant updates of standards and rates, as well as a full range of variance reports being published daily, weekly or monthly with management’s actions were in part directed by cost information.
But today’s accounting department is significantly different. Many things have been automated to the extent that the extensive staffing required to complete them in the past is no longer necessary. In my conversation recently, the CFO explained that their accounting department now basically has the responsibility of the general ledger with some responsibilities for all of the other possible categories under their job description. As a result, much work has to be delegated to automation and many items have to be abandoned, primarily because there weren’t the resources needed to staff them. Budget cuts, cost containment and lean manufacturing, in effect, forced continued restrictions on the number of staff.
We mutually agreed that the loss, particularly in the cost area, is significant. It has been his experience that not many of todays general ledger accountants really have a full grasp of how cost accounting works, which is also my experience. Due to this cost information, which is relevant to continuing profitable operations, is harder and harder to come by. He was able to recite several recent examples where the cost information being computed was materially in error and misleading, thereby complicating management’s ability to change direction if needed because of inadequate costing information.
I intend to gathering all the information I can about the changing world of cost accounting and will certainly write future blogs on that very subject.
Categories: Cost Accounting
Tax Tips for Newly Married Couples
Jun 18, 2014
Marriage is one of the major events in your life and probably the last thing on your mind is taxes. After the big event occurs and your home from the honeymoon, it would be a good time to get organized because April 15th will be here before you know it.
The following are some important things to consider:
Changing your name – Notify the social security administration of any name change. The IRS uses the SSA records to match your name with your social security number. If the name and number do not match, the IRS will reject your return. This may cause delays in receiving any tax refund.
Filing status – There are two options – married filing jointly or married filing separate. In most cases, it works out better to file jointly since joint returns are taxed at a lower rate. If you make similar amounts and are high income earners, it could be more beneficial to file separately. This is an option your tax accountant can easily compute.
Tax withholding – Now that your married, you may want to change your withholding status and number of deductions on your paycheck. If you are self-employed and making estimates, this amount may also need to be adjusted.
Itemized deductions – When you were single, there may not of been enough to itemize and the standard deduction applied to your tax situation. Being able to combine deductions with your spouse, may create a tax savings. If you’ve just purchased a home, mortgage interest and real estates can be claimed. Other itemized deductions include charitable contributions, medical expenses and certain education expenses. The standard deduction for 2014 married filing jointly is $12,400.
With the above tips fresh in your mind, it would be a good idea to get copies of both your prior year tax returns and meet with a tax advisor before the year end. This should help to minimize any surprises come April.
Diane Cook, Accountant
Categories: Uncategorized
Summer Vacation Tax Savings
Jun 12, 2014
As many students anxiously await the end of the school year, attention is quickly turning towards the fun-filled vacations many have been planning for months. This planning has no doubt accounted for the costs of things like hotel rooms, food, and entertainment, but one cost most have likely not thought of is the cost of travel related taxes. According to a study by the National Business Travel Association, on a three day trip, vacationers spend about $100 on hotel, travel, and other extra taxes. Two of the most common travel related taxes vacationers will face are gasoline taxes and airline taxes.
While the federal gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon is the same throughout the country, state and local governments have implemented their own taxes, so the amount you pay in gas tax can vary greatly from state to state. For example, motorists here in Ohio pay 46.4 cents per gallon, compared to 60.2 cents per gallon in nearby Pennsylvania. ExxonMobil has created a mapshowing the amount each state charges for gasoline taxes. You can utilize this map in the finishing stages of your vacation planning to determine which states to fill up in to help you save the most.
The second tax, airline taxes, can also add up rather quickly. For instance, on a given flight you have to pay a 7.5% tax on the base ticket price and a domestic segment tax of $4.00 per person, which is paid each time you land and take off. There are a number of additional airline taxes as well. For example, international flights either beginning in or ending in the U.S. result in an additional tax of $17.50 per person, and for flights that either begin in or end in Hawaii or Alaska, an additional tax of $8.70 per person is assessed. Since most of these taxes are paid each time you land and take off, you can try to book non-stop flights to save on the amount of taxes you have to pay. However, you will want to keep in mind that in some cases booking non-stop flights can end up being overall more expensive than trips with multiple flights.
While these travel taxes may be unavoidable, there are a number of steps you can take to help minimize the total amount you end up paying, which can help keep a little extra money in your pocket.
By: Ruben Becerra, Staff Accountant
Categories: Uncategorized
Does Your Budget Leave A Lot To Be Desired?
Jun 11, 2014
If you have been reading my blogs for a while, then you know I am a big advocate for budgets. If this is the first blog you’ve read of mine, well I’m a big budget advocate! However, a poorly prepared budget is not often worth anything more than the paper on which it is printed. In order for a budget to be a useful tool, it is crucial that work is put into it!
I recently spoke with a manufacturer who was doing what they perceived to be a budget, but in reality, all they were doing was determining future sales. The sales team was looking at prospects and future contracts and estimating what the sales for the year would be. Do not get me wrong, that is important and often times the starting point of a budget. The problem is right where the budget began it also ended. No determination was made to integrate that budget into the overall operational plan.
Some major issues associated with this could be staffing. If you are understaffed, you may not be able to meet customer demand, which of course could lead to the loss of customers. Or, being overstaffed, you may be paying for labor you are not using. The really scary part of this is of course losing customers but also the fact that if no one walks out to the “other side of the wall” they may not realize people are just standing around. With a budget you can compare actual versus budgeted and see if a cost is higher and determine why. The same would be true for material. If you purchase poor quality material you may be using more than you should use for production. It is hard to know for certain without knowing what the standard (budget) should be.
A good budget could start with sales but then determine the staffing and materials needed to support the sales. You also can determine fixed costs and incorporate those into the overall budget. A budget is only as useful as the work you put into it in the front end. When you are in the time period of the budget, it can be too late to determine what it is supposed to be. I’m not saying doing just a sales budget is a complete waste of time, since you have standards to compare to your sales. However, it sure does leave a lot to be desired.
Categories: Cost Accounting