Me. I. I try not to use either of those words, yet here I do it again…and again. How do you turn Me and I into WE? The answer is delegation, cooperation, and training.
My business consultant made a comment to me the other day that got my attention. Afterall, I do pay him each month; Rhonda says I should at least listen to what he says with an open ear. “One great employee is worth three good ones.” My first thought was yeah, right. Then he went on, “How come I can consult two businesses that do the exact same thing; they have the same number of employees; yet one of those businesses does $8M a year and the other only does $2M?”
It’s the employees. It’s YOUR employees. Do you engage them in your DSM practice? Do you let them interact with the patients? Within the bounds of your state dental board, do you allow each of them to do as much as possible? Or are you like most dentists, micromanaging your team and constantly looking over their shoulder? I hope not!
Here’s a quote from Herb Kelleher, perhaps you’ve heard of him; he’s the guy who started Southwest Airlines. “We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.”
Strive to build a stellar team who engages a patient, each at some point along the preferred path, from the first phone call, to tracking down sleep studies, to verifying insurance benefits, to getting the Rx/LOMN, to scanning, to follow up, etc. You are only as successful as your team.
Strive to be the best you can be
Assemble the BEST team possible
Be proactive; Be smart; Be efficient
You want to make DSM an integral part of your practice. Schedule your consultation today. No pushy sales people. No hidden agendas. We just want to learn about the current role of DSM in your practice, your goals, and determine if DS3 can help. Join 1k other dentists as a DS3 Member before May 5th and get special introductory savings.
Schedule Your FREE Consultation!Wondering how DS3 can help guide you to your goal to implement Dental Sleep Medicine, do more of it, help more patients, and increase production? Well, just hear what your colleagues have to say – check out these testimonial videos!
The 2019 NADSM Symposium was held in Clearwater, Florida on February 15-16th. With hundreds of attendees, three dozen sponsors and an amazing lineup of speakers, this event was expected to be a hit.
But what a hit it was! The 2019 NADSM Symposium was another successful event full of informative presentations, valuable networking and an abundance of dental sleep medicine knowledge!
Don’t take our word for it, check out the attendee testimonials below!
Register by February 28th for the 2020 Symposium and save $100 on Dentist and Team Member tickets! This is the largest discount we will offer, so claim your seat and your savings today!
There is always excitement and some fear when the New Year is upon us. The same can be said about the medical insurance landscape as well. Medicare recently issued a development notification that will specifically affect dentists that provide Medicare DME services..
On November 28 a notification was mailed to all Medicare Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics and Supplies (DMEPOS) providers.
The big question is why does this matter and how are you affected?
Dentists must now carry a Surety Bond in order to provide DME services to Medicare beneficiaries. Below are additional important details that require your timely action:
If you are in the process of the Medicare application process you should receive an email from your Medicare Analyst requesting the need of the Surety Bond documentation. Please review the email notification to ensure that you are adhering to the time frame to produce the request.
This has been a topic of conversation on many different forums. The National Supplier Clearinghouse (NSC) issued an article outlining the change. The regulations have yet to be updated in 42 CFR § 424.57(d)(15)(i)(C). The notated reason for the update is as follows: “In recent years the NSC has seen a spike in the enrollment of Dentists for DMEPOS services. Dentists were initially allowed the exemption for the surety bond requirement”. Think about that for a moment! Dentists have impacted Medicare’s DME significantly enough to be defined as a “spike”. This means that Dental Sleep Medicine is moving the needle! That is a testament to your continued pursuit in providing options to ensure that people do not go untreated.
Medicare can be difficult to navigate. Your billing service provider will be well versed in the updates and will be a your valuable resource. They will be the GPS for your practice and get you to the correct place without re-routing. We are always available to provide assistance as needed.
Questions? Contact Lisa Herdt, Director of Billing Services, 4 Pillar Billing.
We get a lot of questions about this. Your patient has a Mandibular Advancement Device (MAD) but they need a crown. What to do?
There are some proactive decisions you can make regarding materials that are designed specifically with this issue in mind OR thanks to our good friends at Dental Prosthetic Services lab (DPS) there’s another simple technique you can employ to save time and your patient’s appliance. Click below to check out a short video explaining both options.
Me. I. I try not to use either of those words, yet here I do it again…and again. How do you turn Me and I into WE? The answer is delegation, cooperation, and training.
My business consultant made a comment to me the other day that got my attention. Afterall, I do pay him each month; Rhonda says I should at least listen to what he says with an open ear. “One great employee is worth three good ones.” My first thought was yeah, right. Then he went on, “How come I can consult two businesses that do the exact same thing; they have the same number of employees; yet one of those businesses does $8M a year and the other only does $2M?”
It’s the employees. It’s YOUR employees. Do you engage them in your DSM practice? Do you let them interact with the patients? Within the bounds of your state dental board, do you allow each of them to do as much as possible? Or are you like most dentists, micromanaging your team and constantly looking over their shoulder? I hope not!
Here’s a quote from Herb Kelleher, perhaps you’ve heard of him; he’s the guy who started Southwest Airlines. “We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.”
Strive to build a stellar team who engages a patient, each at some point along the preferred path, from the first phone call, to tracking down sleep studies, to verifying insurance benefits, to getting the Rx/LOMN, to scanning, to follow up, etc. You are only as successful as your team.
Strive to be the best you can be
Assemble the BEST team possible
Be proactive; Be smart; Be efficient
Let’s discuss the 3 primary ways you can use Home Sleep Testing (HST) in your practice:
There are pros and cons to each of these options. Whichever method you use, dentists should be screening patients, and we should be using home sleep tests as titration methods for patients that we treat with OSA.
Watch the video below to learn more about Home Sleep Test methods!
Just back from family vacation in the mountains of southern California. Cool mornings, warm afternoons. Each morning we walked up to the ski lift where, despite the 80 degree heat and barren slopes, there was a bevy of activity and workers. I ran into Jake, “El Jefe”, and he shared with me a few of the reasons the ski season goes so well for them. They work hard in the “off season”, making sure that the slopes are groomed, overgrowth is trimmed back, the lifts are serviced, chairs fixed, picnic tables made, and on and on he went. I couldn’t help but think about how this relates to what we do in Dental Sleep Medicine.
We monitor a lot of statistics around my office, and for nearly a decade now, the slowest months of the year for me have been July through September. What to do? Worry? Thumb twiddling? Take up knitting? No. Be like Jake. Get ready for the snow. Believe that it is coming.
Be proactive and productive. Instead, work on stuff like this:
Remember that success is contingent upon preparation. Don’t take up knitting in July. Follow the steps above instead. Also, remember, this will put you in a better position when the snow is falling and patients have met their deductibles. Don’t be passive. Take an active role in your the future of your practice. Make it snow!
I’d like to talk about the liners I use in my dental sleep devices.
I typically use one of three liners depending on the patient:
There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these linings – it really depends on the patinet.
Learn advantages and disadvantages for each of these liners – just click on the video below!
The bottom line is this. You must learn to collaborate with the physicians in your community if you are going to succeed in treating patients who have sleep-disordered breathing. Let’s talk about a few things to help make you more successful.
GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE: We lecture to thousands of dentists across the country, and it still amazes me that dentists think they know less than physicians. You have to remember that physicians, outside of those who are board certified in sleep, get little, if any education about sleep medicine. There is more information packed into DS3 than most Physicians get in their lifetime about sleep. Just yesterday I did a lunch and learn for three cardiologists. I started my PowerPoint presentation and started talking The Talk. I was getting a bit of that deer-in-the-headlights look. “What’s up, guys?” I asked as one of the cardiologists sheepishly said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what AHI means. I think you have assumed that we know more about this than we do.” So Walk the Line between talking the talk and not patronizing someone, but understand that you know a lot more about this than you think you do and you need to start acting like it. Put yourself in front of doctors and start talking about how you can help patients. You’ve got to get out of your comfort zone and start spreading the word.
WRITE MORE LETTERS: Correspondence is how physicians communicate. Most dentists only write a few letters a year, and that’s not enough to help you succeed in dental sleep medicine. Letter writing is hard and it’s time consuming. DS3 has tried to make this as automatic as we can but it still takes time. But it is time well spent. The best marketing tool besides meeting someone face-to-face is writing letters about the mutual patients that you share with physicians. I just checked my performance report in DS3 and it tells me that in the first three months of 2016 my office produced more than 1,000 letters! Dentists ask me all the time “How do you get so many referrals?” Well, there is your answer.
ENGAGE YOUR TEAM: Many of them have their own physicians, and most of them are married to someone who snores. We all have people at arm’s length who have snoring or sleep issues. Make dental devices for them and for their spouses. Get them to believe in what you do. That all starts with you as the leader of the team. You have to believe in what you’re doing, and you have to feel comfortable about the fee that you charge. Remember that there are hundreds of questions asked in a dental office every single day, but very few of them are asked directly to the dentist. The more knowledge your staff has the better they can answer questions about snoring and sleep and the more patients you will start seeing and the more devices you will start making. It’s really that simple.
