Month: May 2014

I’ve always enjoyed Memorial Day weekend. Here in the U.S., it’s the kick off to summer and every few years my birthday falls on Memorial Day. It’s a great time to celebrate life.

What I am reminded of, however, is that Memorial Day is a holiday to honor the dead. The true meaning of Memorial Day isn’t hamburgers and swimming pools. The true meaning is to honor those that have died in U.S. military service, protecting our freedoms.

I’ll be the first to say that I take our freedom for granted.  These are as basic as being able to go to church with out being persecuted or my kids being able to choose their own profession and educational path.

Freedom to me is also being able to learn and grow personally and professionallyand to freely apply that education to improve my life, share my opinions and grow my business. In fact, this e-zine is a real life example of one of our most deeply held freedoms…the freedom of speech.

Recently, I had the privilege to work with one of Inspired Hygiene’s ‘legacy’ clients. This was the third time I’ve worked with Dr. Phillips and his team in Asheville, NC. Over the 10 years that I’ve known Dr. Phillips, he has never stopped improving and growing. He has welcomed a fantastic partner in Dr. Schmitt and attracted a top-notch team in which his hygienists work in a unique model where they also act as high-level dental assistants with specific areas of training.  Dr. Phillips & Dr. Schmitt have the freedom to practice according to their personal philosophy and apply the thousands of hours of education they’ve invested in.

This is what freedom looks like!

I want to say a heartfelt Thank You to the soldiers over the years who have given ALL in the fight for freedom AND to their families who’ve sacrificed for all of us.

How to conduct a head and neck exam

This week it is my privilege to highlight one of our fantastic clients. I have to say that the most fun part of what we do here at IH is working with our private clients. It is SO incredibly rewarding to see them step up their game and take patient care and productivity to the next big level.

To be frank, we ask a lot of them. What they put in shows up in what they get out of the experience.

The team at Hastings Dental Health in New Hampshire has seen crazy good results. And it’s directly tied to their attitude!

In just 2 months after their 1st coaching visit they increased the number of SRPs three-fold and monthly hygiene production increased 40%!!

And this team was already doing great. They had a starting perio percentage of 36% so they are far above average. Now these results are not typical. And neither is this team.

They play full out and they had the right ATTITUDE going into the coaching experience.

Let’s look at 2 scenarios.

Team A

• Doctors that are willing to invest in their team. This is how the BEST get better
• A treatment coordinator that is totally confident that she has payment options that make it easy for patients to say yes to treatment
• A hygiene team that is willing to step out of their comfort zone and try something new
• Technology and equipment to support high level care
• A powerful assistant and admin team that firmly believe in the treatment that is being recommended

Team B

• Doctors that do not show appreciation for their team’s efforts
• A treatment coordinator that is hesitant to present treatment because she believes the patient will not want to pay for it
• A hygiene team that is stuck in their ways of doing things they learned in hygiene school 20 years ago
• Old, worn out ultrasonic tips and no cameras in hygiene ops
• Resentment and division between ‘departments’ within the practice

Which team do you think is going to be the most successful in implementing something new? Even if they had the exact same instruction, the exact same coaching, the exact same knowledge, there is no way Team B can achieve the results that Team A will achieve.

And it’s all based on attitude.

By the way…Team A IS Hastings Dental Health. They have every single one of these characteristics and MORE.