As the holiday season approaches, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by even the positive parts of your life, including your dental business. And a vital component of your dental business is your team. Where would you be without them? Here’s how to show them your appreciation for their part in supporting and building your practice.
You’re a talented dentist, but you couldn’t run your office by yourself. Your clinical and administrative team are valuable assets and people you’ve formed close relationships with—you may even be related to some of them!
For this holiday season, you may be wondering how you can thank them for their hard work.
“Running a successful dental practice is not easy, but it is only possible with the help and dedication of your dental staff. Fortunately, thanking them is easy!” - Princess Dental Staffing
There are countless ways you can thank your dental team for all they do to run your practice or group, but only a few ways will have a lasting impact and also benefit your business and your patients.
Recognizing your team’s efforts with these unique gifts can significantly boost their morale and productivity in your office while increasing patient satisfaction and lowering your stress.
3 key takeaways for showing your team your appreciation this holiday season:
- Your team deserves to feel valued and appreciated with gifts that reflect both.
- Your dental business can also benefit from gifts you give to your team.
- Billing services are a great way to relieve your team of tedious tasks that monopolize their valuable time.
Why thoughtful gifts for your dental team matter
It’s worth repeating: you couldn’t run a dental office all by yourself. You’re busy tending to patients’ oral health with the skills and knowledge you worked so hard for in dental school—the thing you do best.
And while you do this, your office is being run by amazing people who are also doing their best. They’re managing treatment planning and presentations, check-in and check-out, scheduling, billing, insurance verification, and more.
Now you might read this list of tasks and think, “Wow, I can’t thank them enough!”
That may be true, but you can try. You could take your team to a nice dinner, give out annual bonuses, or even get them some candy. Definitely do those kinds of personal things!
And our list below has the big-picture gifts that will set all of you up for success in the coming year.
These gifts are a great way to promote a healthy work culture where you’re a leader who cares about their employees—and shows it.
Gift #1: Ease and confidence through sales & treatment presentation training
One of the most empowering gifts you can offer your dental team is the gift of confidence when giving treatment presentations. Sales training is the key to enhancing patient communication and treatment acceptance—and yes, treatment presentations are a sales task!
An effective treatment presentation involves clear communication, empathy, and the ability to address patient concerns gracefully.
When talking to patients about their oral health and how costly it may be to maintain it, the conversation can become sensitive. It’s crucial that your team knows how to progress through these conversations with assurance as they encourage patients to pursue the necessary treatment.
Does your team cover all the bases when presenting a treatment plan to a patient? Do they—
- Take their time explaining why the patient needs this treatment?
- Clarify that insurance payments are only estimates—benefits are not determined until the claim is processed?
- Remind the patient they will be responsible for any amount their insurance doesn’t cover?
Invest in sales training for your team—they’ll appreciate your commitment to their professional skills, and your practice will see several benefits:
- Higher case acceptance rates, leading to higher production and collections
- Fewer billing complaints or disputes
- More satisfied patients who trust you and refer you to friends and family
It’s a win-win-win!
Read more: 3 tips to successfully communicate your patient's dental treatment plan presentation
Gift #2: Cash bonuses & extra paid time off
Let’s be real: While your dental team can feel like family—and some may even be family—they are still employees. And like any employee, they can always use more money and free time.
Recognizing your team’s hard work by rewarding them with cash bonuses, more paid time off—or both!—is a great way to show your appreciation. Days off and financial incentives are helpful for reducing burnout and increasing job satisfaction, which is great for your team and benefits your patients and your practice, too.
This quote from Florida Atlantic University sums it up:
“By investing in benefits like PTO, organizations can reduce the risk of turnover and improve employee retention, ultimately saving money in the long run.”
–LeaAnne DeRigne, Ph.D., co-author and a professor in the Phyllis and Harvey Sandler School of Social Work
Think of it this way: The happier your employees are, the more diligently they will work for you and the longer they’ll stay with you. These bonuses and incentives can be a simple gift or performance-based. Remember that if your team knows they will be rewarded generously for working harder and smarter, they’ll be more likely to do that.
You might hold competitions in the office and give the winners a cash bonus, a gift card, or an extra day off. For example, you could:
- Hold a monthly challenge for who can get the most patients scheduled for treatment.
- Incentivize the sales training we mentioned in Gift #1: Offer gifts to all team members who complete the training, plus a bigger prize for the one who scores the highest on the training assessment.
Yes, these incentives and bonuses are an expense, but they will quickly pay for themselves through higher productivity, higher retention, and the resulting higher revenue in your dental business.
Gift #3: Operational support through dental billing services
If your team is stretched thin over a wide workload, dental billing services are a great gift, whether it’s ongoing to support daily claims filing or a DCS Special Project to clear your aging report and give them a fresh start.
Dental insurance claim filing, follow-up, and appeals are tedious, time-consuming, and can often be complex. Who is managing those for your practice right now? Are there more valuable responsibilities they could spend time on?
When you partner with DCS, our team will handle:
- Insurance verification
- Claim submission
- Claims follow-up and appeals
- Dental insurance aging report
- Posting payments to your PMS
- Reporting and data analytics
Read more: 5 benefits of outsourcing dental revenue cycle management: Collect more and support your team
If your team didn’t have to worry about any of those, they could focus on:
- Getting more patients on the schedule
- Presenting treatment with more skill and intention
- Creating invaluable, lasting relationships with patients
All of these tasks are far more fulfilling than dealing with insurance claims, and they still help increase production and revenue at the dental practice. Your team will no longer have to sit on the phone with insurance for an hour or more to check the status of a claim, appeal a denied claim, or figure out where something went wrong.
What a gift that would be! And meanwhile, your dental practice gains more production and increased revenue, and your team members get more rewarding work and no longer deal with insurance. Another win-win!
Reward your dental team this holiday season and throughout the year
To recap, your hardworking, talented team deserves:
- Gift #1: Ease and confidence through sales and treatment presentation training
- Gift #2: Cash bonuses and extra paid time off
- Gift #3: Operational support through dental billing services
Your dental administrative team is the heart of your dental business. And as a business leader, you wouldn’t be where you are—or get very far—without them. Show your dental team how much you appreciate their work and dedication to the running and growth of your dental practice.
These 3 gifts are investments in your team and your practice or group, and your patients will benefit from them, too.
Give your team the partnership they deserve with DCS: Book a free 30-minute consultation today.
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Dental revenue resources from Dental Claim Support