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5 Analytics Driving Dental Analytics: Best Practices for Your DSO

By Planet DDS
January 14, 2021
dental kpis

Does your practice of DSO have dental analytics and KPIs? Every organization, including those in dentistry, should have a set of key performance indicators or KPIs.

This data, when carefully monitored, can improve production, increase profitability, and enhance your patient experience.

Dental KPIs can look good “on-paper”…but you’re gonna need something more

You probably started your dental career logging, storing, and accessing most of your vital information on paper. It’s all you had (or knew how to use). But it’s likely that valuable best-practice analytics were lost between the lines…or altogether.

These days digital and paperless technology helps eliminate data loss and improves data analytics. Innovations like cloud-based dental practice management software provide you immediate access to best-practice data.

  • Track production
  • Pull collection and AR reports
  • And much, much more…

It’s all about ease of access and measurement. Your unique dental practice goals are best achieved by tracking and innovating around accurate and useful analytics.

Five dental KPIs that drive best practices for your dental practice or dental organization

1-Long-term vision aligned with short-term goals

Vision is where you’re going. Goals are how you’ll get there.

It’s important to not confuse the two.

Goal based data requires clarity and measurability. Equally so, your vision for the future should be clear and measurable relative to the steps (goals) required to reach it.

Vision and goal analytics could include:

  • Hygiene reappointment data
  • Case acceptance data
  • Broken appointment and cancellation data
  • New patient acquisition data

Analysis of these and others can then be aligned with specific actions toward improving your dental KPIs.

2-Cash flow monitoring and improvements

Accounting based issues are typically monitored. Even so, they’re also a common challenge.

The financial health of your dental practice relies on anticipating cash flow drains and working to build healthy stop-gap measures.

  • Track monthly expenditures relative to cash flow
  • Monitor revenue stream trends
  • Tighten spending when possible (based on data analysis)

These dental KPIs might not guarantee a change but you’re more likely to see improvement due to your analysis.

3-Operations and clinical outcomes

Financial metrics (i.e., cash flow) isn’t the only practice health indicator. The overall patient experience you provide starting with engagement to acquisition to care is an essential metric.

Your operational metrics are what impact each step on a patient’s journey with your practice or organization. Clinical outcomes driven by your care standards are traceable to your operations and workflows.

Production analytics reveal much about how you’re doing.

  • Practice production per hygienist
  • Practice production per provider dentist
  • Practice production per net collections

A routine, strategic deep-dive into this data will give you insight into what’s working and how it can be sustained or improved.

4-Efficiency monitoring

No doubt reporting helps you/your team(s) know what’s firing on-all-cylinders. But it’s common for that data to have a short energy cycle.

Real-time or at least a somewhat timely analysis can provide a more accurate picture. Again, this is a benefit of a duly equipped dental practice management software platform.

In-the-moment monitoring allows for…

  • Adapting to changes or making necessary decisions
  • Improved communication across your practice(s) departments or throughout your group or DSO
  • Simplified scaling of essential changes to workflows and systems
  • Preventing costly gaps relative to insurance reimbursements, payments, and collections

5-Industry innovation comparisons

How you’re doing relative to other dental practices and/or DSOs is an informative comparison. A benchmark analysis across the industry – or if applicable – across your group or organization will reveal useful data.

  • Set or refine your dental KPIs
  • Become a competitive leader around an innovation or improvement
  • Pinpoint areas where you could make adjustments

A routine analysis of best practices inside and outside your practice(s) is a proactive process that produces essential data for growth. And while you’re compiling and analyzing the data you can also test the effectiveness of your reporting process.

Check-out the following resources to stay on-trend and on-task regarding dentistry best practices:

Future-Proof Your Dental Practice with Future-Ready Initiatives

Leverage What You’ve Learned in 2020 to Reimagine Your Dental Practice in 2021

Consider a cloud-based solution and improve your reporting processes and measurement of dental KPIs

You might find the cloud solution like Denticon to be a more efficient report gathering platform to monitor and drive your overall dental practice or dental organization’s performance.

Aside from its under-the-hood reporting horsepower, the Denticon platform also provides:

  • A predictable, monthly subscription rate
  • Data hosted in the cloud that’s remotely and securely accessible
  • Savings that compared with a “legacy” system can total an average of 40%

It makes sense to look below the surface and see the massive potential of upgrading to a cloud-based dental practice management solution with a more advanced reporting and KPI module.

Thinking about or ready to update your dental practice management software? Contact us or request a demo of Denticon…before you decide!