Unleashing the Team’s Impact on Practice Success

You're listening to the Phil Klein Dental Podcast The dental practice today is more complex than ever before. Each and every day from the time a dental office opens its door, every facet of the business needs to run seamlessly. And that includes scheduling, clinical dentistry, infection control and prevention, the customer experience, HR. training, new staff, and it goes on and on and on. Anyone that owns a practice or works in a practice knows that this is the case. I've talked to many practice owners about this and their response very often is the actual clinical part of their dental practice is the easiest part to do and in many cases the most enjoyable. So to keep everything else running smoothly and harmoniously is very challenging. And to be successful at it, the office must be super organized, have a team that works well together, and have really good systems in place. So today we'll be talking about the dental team and how important it is for each of the team members to work together and understand each other's roles and responsibilities. So our guest today is Ella Mullokandova. Ella has over 16 years of experience as a dental hygienist and restorative dental partner. She's the co-founder of Converge Dental, a company that helps dental practices succeed and grow, emphasizing the importance of an organized, systematic approach to improve patient care and profitability. We'll be introducing our guest in a second, but first, as an endodontist, I can tell you root canal preparation can be stressful, tedious, and exhausting. And part of the problem is that dentists typically use too many endodontic files, and they use them in somewhat of a haphazard sequence. This makes the procedure more complex, longer, and less predictable. That's exactly why Colteen developed the HyFlex EDM file system. With only four endodontic files used in sequence, you can effortlessly clean and prepare the root canal system to working length case after case. Using a simple pecking motion with the opener, glider, shaper, and finisher, you'll quickly see how much faster your endo procedures will go and how efficient you'll become in achieving exceptional canal preparation. So if you're looking to speed up and simplify your root canal procedures consistently without compromise, check out the HyFlex EDM file system from Colteen. To learn more, visit colteen.dental. Ella, thanks for joining us on our show. Thank you so much for having me. It is my pleasure to be here and share some information with our listeners. So tell us what you prioritize in your teachings and your lectures regarding getting the office to work together as a team so that the patient has the best customer experience possible across all touch points in the office. When we work with our practices, our first step with the dentist is to educate the dentist and to be the leader in the practice. That leadership takes on some responsibility of making sure that the team understands what practice vision, mission, and the core values of the practice are. The second step of laying out the foundation for the practice to make sure that the day-to-day basis are seamless and going well for everyone, it is to make sure that the systems and processes are also established in the practice. Unfortunately, a lot of practices that we work with and many more out there, they just work on daily basis as they do without really implementing much of systems and processes. And that is a very reactive type of environment because there's not much leadership happening. Not everybody understands or knows what to do when problems arise. What we call a chaos in the practice. We teach our dentists to eliminate that chaos, put in. foundational systems and processes to build upon to elevate the practice to the next level. So when that unexpected moment happens, and for many of us, it's not a particularly happy moment when a key employee, someone you really rely on that helps the office, that keeps the office running smoothly, that person informs the practice that he or she is no longer going to be working there. They're moving on to another opportunity. How do you onboard? a new team member and build confidence in that new person and the rest of the team who relies on that person quickly? How do you get that done quickly where it doesn't disrupt the flow of the practice? We offer dentists that we work with, we offer what we call a model practice. So think of it as a business in a box. The model practice provides predefined best practices. systems, processes, tools, checklists, everything and anything that the team needs to be able to execute on a daily basis and a consistent basis. No more is there a question of how do you do this process or somebody just brings in what they know and do it their way. Everything is systemized. And when you have that in place and the key person from your practice leaves, there is no time to freak out because you have things in place. This is when the new... team member comes comes in we help with that the interviewing the onboarding and the training process with the dentist and we onboard that new new individual but even if we are not involved you have this the process is already in place. You have the model practice for that particular role. All they got to do is read what that process includes or whatever their role and position is and implement it on a daily basis. They come in seamlessly and the process flow of the practice just goes in very smoothly. How does Converge Dental onboard somebody if they're not in the practice itself? How would you help with onboarding? I thought you mentioned you help onboarding. Yes. We just recently helped one of our practices on board a front office receptionist, for example. We live here in Kansas City, and they live in Ohio, and we do virtual training with them. We send all our job aides and everything that's required for that team member to be trained and up to par as soon as they start the position. So we work with them before they even get into the position and then right after to have that seamless training. into the practice. And the practice really does not see much difference of one employee leaving and the other one coming in. Okay. So that's for a front desk person. So that office would be working with Converge Dental, which is your company. And you're saying that they're already working with you and then they lose an employee. You have the ability to get this new person onboarded without the dentist getting involved particularly, right? That you're doing that. Right. But what about that person who's an incredibly valuable chair side assistant who has come from another practice who does it a certain way? And it's very typical for one hygienist or one assistant to carry their techniques and habits and experiences from the previous office into the new one. But the new one, that doesn't fit so well. So how do you help with that if you're not really working in the office itself? I could see with a front desk job. but actually clinically. How do you do that clinically? So we have, I believe I mentioned that before, we have discovery sessions that we work with the dentist. This is where we identify how does the dentist practice? What is the clinical philosophy or the treatment philosophy? This is where it's going to be us partly and then the dentist as well, letting the new employee understand the treatment philosophy so there's no misunderstandings or somebody bringing in something different from a different practice, but that doesn't really work with this one. It's a partnership between us and the dentist to get this individual. individual up to standard to start the job. We'll be getting right back to Ella in a moment. But first, when it comes to digital workflow equipment, it's important to partner with companies that provide premium products with unparalleled service, all at an affordable price. That's why you should check out Shining 3D Dental. a company that offers a complete and integrated suite of high-quality and easy-to-use digital dental equipment. Their local offices are based in California and Florida, so you get in-time comprehensive support. In fact, Shining 3D Dental can furnish your office with an entire suite of digital equipment for under $27,000. This includes their AoralScan3 wireless intraoral scanner, Metasmile 3D facial scanner, and the Acufab 3D printer with its post-price. Yeah, so you definitely take part of the load off the dental practice by priming that. employee to the point where they know what to expect. They understand the philosophy, the ideology of the office. Yes, exactly. And so they don't come in blind thinking, you know, is this a conservative practice where they strive to save as much tooth structure as possible in every possible scenario? Or are they a little bit more liberal with the drill and they do more aggressive dentistry, however that could be defined? I guess these things are important when you have an assistant and a hygienist coming in. Okay. Definitely, definitely. One thing that we, Tanya and I, are very passionate about is taking this journey of practice transformation to the next maturity level, for example, taking that journey together with the dentist. We don't want to just give them the job aids and say, here's a practice model, job aids, and just take off. We are there with the dentist going through the journey. And if the dentist is at a point where, hey, somebody just left, I really need to find something. are there to go through the interview process. We interview candidates. We give them recommendations of who to interview, and then we take over in training them and onboarding them for that position. Let the dentist do the work that they love doing, and let us take the responsibility of building the team's skill and the training and the customer experience and all of that in golf. Let us do that. We let the dentists do their job. So is it better for each team member to focus only on their area of expertise, or should everyone in the office know each other's roles and responsibilities? We stand for making sure that everybody understands what the other team members' role and responsibilities are. It's inevitable that somebody calls in sick. Right. Or somebody just doesn't show up for for work. And that has happened, unfortunately, but it does. It's very important that one person can fill in for another at any time. You know, those situations do happen. So being mindful and understanding not just how what your roles, responsibilities and expectations and what your that what success looks like in your role. Understanding what your other team members' roles and responsibilities are is key to being that restorative dental partner and helping the team be successful on a consistent basis. So if a dental office has a lot of employees, let's say they're a large practice, there's just a certain amount of turnover for every practice, and obviously if you have more employees, there's more people to manage and more things going on. Is there a limit to what your company can handle at Converge Dental? Honestly, not really, because we have worked with bigger companies and we worked with smaller private practices as well. We cater to whichever team we're working with. Customized approach to every dentist. Not every dentist has a vision of being a multi-billion company, right? They just want to make a certain amount and be done with it. So we customize our approach to bigger teams versus smaller teams. With your offering at Converge Dental, Does an office have the option of kind of selecting certain services you offer or is it a package? You get everything or can you pick and choose selective services that would be necessary for that particular dentist at that time? Yes. So we can do both. And that's why those discovery sessions are super important, because sometimes the dentist comes to us with a complaint that I'm not sure how to hire the right person. And when we do the discovery session with them, we identify that in order to hire the right person, the foundation is really not there to create that vision that they want to create. So we give them the option of what we call a roadmap so they can see the bigger picture of. OK, maybe I need to take a step back, create the foundation and then hire the right person with the right emphasis on what they're looking for versus bringing the right person into a totally wrong environment. So, yes, to answer your question, we can do separate or, you know, different packages for sure. But we always take that time to. understand the doctor coming in in front of us, and then sharing or educating them on what the bigger picture is, what could ultimately help them. Ella, it's been excellent. I mean, you've really covered a tremendous amount of material in the four podcast series that we did. And I encourage everyone who's interested in any of these topics regarding the dental team, customer service, treatment acceptance rate, patient education, the restorative dental partner. There's so many factors involved. developing and building a practice that has longevity and growth ahead of it. And these things are just, the things we talked about are just so important beyond the clinical dentistry that we're also focused on. Just to wrap up, Ella, tell us how... audience could reach out to you? Sure. You can find us at convergedental.com. Reach out and ask for a free discovery session. We're more than happy to see if we are the right fit for each other or how we can help, big or small. Check us out in our social media. We are on Instagram and Facebook and YouTube. Just little tips and bits of how we can help and what we offer. And if you want to connect with me personally, you can contact me at ella at convergedental.com. Ella, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. If you've been enjoying our podcast, we'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback by leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. whether it's Spotify, Apple, Google, or any other platform you listen on. Leaving a review is a fantastic way to support us and help others discover our show. Thanks for listening. See you next time.