Dental Patient Recall Struggles: How Engaging Knowledge, Motivation, and Accountability Drives Patient Recall Success
Why Can’t We Achieve Our Patient Recall Goals?
Offices may struggle with carrying out patient recall protocols for various reasons. The most common reasons come down to a deficiency in knowledge, motivation, and accountability. Can you relate? Although the recall protocols may be structured appropriately, other office dynamics might not be sufficient to motivate teams to reduce or keep recall lists to a minimum.
What Can I Do About It?
First, start with a conversation about why your team is not achieving your recall expectations. What you might find is that their lack of action or progress comes down to a lack of knowledge – not knowing what the recall protocol is (declarative, or “knowing what”) or not knowing “how to do it” (procedural knowledge). This is a challenging, and oftentimes convicting, topic because the assumption is that the doctor or office manager hired skilled employees and/or provided training on how to do recall. If this hiring and training did not occur, who is to blame?
Owner Dentists and Dental Office Managers are responsible to ensure our teams have the required skillsets or are trained with the necessary skills and knowledge to do the jobs they are asked to do. When the “ask” and the skills or knowledge are misaligned, motivation, and thus performance, can suffer. Using the information gleaned from the conversations, determine what skills or knowledge are lacking and develop a plan to close those skills/knowledge gaps.
Second, explore the motivation side of recall. Self-efficacy is someone's belief in their capacity to do things that produce results (Bandura). When the task is too challenging for the existing skills or knowledge, for example, lack of declarative or procedural knowledge, the task does not appear to provide any value to the person, is strictly performance-based, or doesn’t require any buy-in or input from the employee, it will tend to be avoided. What we want is for people to value and approach their tasks with confidence.
Doctors and office managers, and other leaders for that matter, signal what is important by what they measure and talk about. Value in the case of recall can be increased through the use and socialization of key performance indicators (KPIs), recognition, huddle topics, breakroom visuals (graphs, charts, performance targets, etc.), or even potential performance-based bonuses. Through these activities, dentists and office managers signal to their teams the value of recall and can nudge their teams to act on their own to improve the team’s recall numbers. Increased performance can drive increases in self-efficacy, a win-win for the individual employee and the team.
Side note… for those office managers and dentists who are micromanagers, stop; just stop! Micromanaging people stifles productivity, motivation, and morale, and will likely bring you more stress, anxiety, and fatigue in the process. Instead, activate self-determination by hiring talented people, and empowering and equipping them to do high-quality work for the practice you are running together.
Lastly, let’s address accountability. Accountability can be challenging and complex because it requires effort and attention from the dental office team and dental office leadership. It is important to remember that people should not be held accountable for things they cannot do or control. Remember our discussion on knowledge earlier? Office dynamics such as the structure of the recall system, recall software, workload, recall KPIs, noise, unrealistic goals or physical space can hinder or undermine effective accountability systems.
Accountability requires that someone defines a goal, and someone is responsible for accomplishing that goal; a typical “director-provider” relationship. Effective communication and metrics play critical roles in an accountability framework and are at the core of accountability systems. It should go without saying that communication is important and that expectations are communicated with clarity and fidelity. Both the “director” and the “provider” need to be clear on what the expectations are. Metrics or KPIs should be detailed enough to support the accountability relationship and goals and ensure dentists and office managers can track progress or lack thereof. Be patient, small achievements add up to big ones, celebrate wins, and keep things positive.
Wrap-up
Dental offices struggle with patient recall for various reasons, with the most common ones being a lack of knowledge, motivation, and/or accountability. To address these challenges, owner dentists and dental office managers need to ensure their teams have the necessary skills and knowledge to execute recall protocols. Recall protocols must be effectively designed. Key performance indicators, recognition, and other activities can be used to motivate dental teams. Additionally, accountability should be established with clear communication, defined goals, and metrics to track progress. By addressing these three factors, dental offices can improve their recall efforts, reduce patient attrition, and activate growth.
To learn more about solutions to help your dental office improve performance, please contact us.
About the Author: Dr. Jared Sinclair is the Founder of PerformanceDDS™, where he provides elite dental office performance coaching for next-level dental teams.
