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Dental Practice Management Articles Fear Factors; Dispelling Myths about Independent Hygiene, Part 1 Written by: LeeAnn Shipowick, RDH © Copyright. ADEI. All rights reserved. |
I must admit that I'm somewhat amazed with the panic shown toward independent hygiene clinics. Whenever something new and different comes along in our small dental world, there is fear - fear of change and fear of how the new change will affect our business. Throughout the history of dentistry there has been change and those changes will continue. We need to embrace the changes and acknowledge that if we have our house in order - a practice up to impeccable standards - our patients will be happy and well cared for
The questions we need to ask are: Do we have impeccable systems in place? In our hygiene department, does our hygiene team practice consistency, communication and care?
There have been independent hygiene clinics in BC for 12 years and there seems to have been little impact on the traditional dental practice. In fact, there have been benefits; one of which would be that clients who are drawn to the independent hygiene clinic usually do not have a dentist of their own. So in essence, the hygiene clinics can and will direct patients to a dentist for needed services.
There is a fear that the changes in legislature will affect dental practices. However, dental practices need only be fearful if their practices are not in order. It's not necessarily the hygienists that the dentist needs to be concerned about. It's the entrepreneurs in the dental community who will prey on this change: The "trident" movement; the businessmen who look at the changes as an opportunity. The percentage of hygienists who want to be independent, who have the finances and the luxury to wait for the patients to come in is very small. It takes a good deal of capital to set up hygiene clinic and absorb the costs- waiting to build a practice.
Independent hygiene clinics are not a threat. If patients are content and understand the value and quality they are not going to jump ship for the quick fix of independent hygiene. The dentist needs to continue to promote their profession with the quality hygiene services they provide to patients. Does your whole hygiene team document, evaluate, inform patients of their periodontal disease? Do you have a perio program? If you are providing quality care in a positive setting, your patients will be loyal.
How do you know if you have an impeccable hygiene department?
It's like the great hair dresser - I'm not going to cross the street to go to a less costly Magic Cuts if I'm happy and love my hair. Like any service, most people want the full meal deal at one stop. Delivering quality means we need to have consistency. Every patient must have a similar experience. It's not good enough anymore to deliver hit and miss hygiene. Your office needs all the hygiene team working in a similar way.
Ask yourself the following:
- Do we have consistent documentation system in place? Is that documentation utilized by the whole team?
- A minimum standard of care? Does your team know what that standard is?
- Does each client know what classification of periodontal disease they have?
- Would you be nervous to have a random chart audit done by the hygiene self-governing body quality assurance?
- Do you know what you need to implement to prepare for this?
Part 2 is coming next month!