Tips for practice management

SmileCon course offers guidance for human resources, finances

Managing a dental practice is difficult work, but SmileCon is here to help.

In Practice Management Skills for Team Members and New Dentists, speaker Teresa Duncan offered guidance on human resources, financial management and current challenges.

Ms. Duncan is the president of Odyssey Management Inc., which provides insurance and management training to dental offices and other clients. She herself has held several positions in the dental world, including dental assistant, sterilization technician, receptionist and manager.

“As a manager, my goal is to protect the practice, and that is going to be from threats that are internal and external,” she said.

Some of her tips for practice management included:

• Having systems in place related to finances, human resources, documentation, production management, insurance management and patient management.
• Being audit ready. 
• Basing decisions about whether or not to be in an insurance plan’s network on business considerations. Being in network needs to work for the practice.
• Getting at least two professional references for every job applicant.
• Knowing collection rates and why they are what they are.
• Offering online scheduling and billing.
• Conducting employee reviews continually.

“When it comes to running a practice, you have a lot of balls in the air, a lot of hats you have to wear,” Ms. Duncan said.