547: The Cost of Open Chair Time - Christina Byrne - a podcast by ACT Dental

The Cost of Open Chair Time

Episode #547 with Christina Byrne

An empty chair is more than just an empty chair. It will tell you the strength of your systems, where you can improve, and the true cost of each vacant seat. By tracking and understanding your open chair time, you can start making better business decisions! To help you simplify the process, Kirk Behrendt brings back Christina Byrne, ACT’s director of operations, to talk about ACT’s Capacity Tracker, where to get it, and how to get your team to use it. To start running a better, healthier practice, listen to Episode 547 of The Best Practices Show!

Episode Resources:

• Christina’s email: christina@actdental.com 
• Christina’s social media: @actdental
• Subscribe to the Best Practices Show Podcast
• Join ACT’s To The Top Study Club
• Join ACT’s Master Class
• See our Live Events Schedule here
• Get the Best Practices Magazine for Free!
• Write a Review on iTunes

Links Mentioned in This Episode:

ACT’s Capacity Tracker: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MdN96fVhau8tcP10kW2_cU-Tv91K8r7l/view?_hsmi=241651107&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-98AjmJ7LkC2HvkK9uuY8l577tbOQ_8dHgEv1V_RVjByeE1xTLRFEYlHJVqxNmOsEBjwFPH-Cjr7iCbb4p-dJiLdKWb7A 

Main Takeaways:

Help your team understand the cost of having an open chair.

Tracking numbers and a healthy culture go hand in hand.

Before anything, start tracking your open chair time.

Hiring a hygienist is not always the solution.

Filling chair time is a team effort.

Quotes:

“[Open chair time is] one of those things that people don't understand, really. Oftentimes, we’ll talk to a team, and they’ll say, ‘I can't get a patient in for six months. We’re totally booked. We need to hire a new hygienist. We need to do this.’ And what they fail to do is look backwards and see how much open time they had. And so, the why of tracking this is so important to the practice because if you don't look back and if you don't track the capacity in that way, you are going to make really bad business decisions. You're going to hire that other hygienist, and you're going to find out it’s going to be so costly to have another person in there who can't see patients because you're not filling the schedule, or patients are falling off the schedule.” (3:12—3:59)

“If you're taking PPOs, one opening and you're ruined for the day because you're really only getting about 60% of those dollars anyway. And one of the things we do know about practices is when they're calculating how much PPO is in their practice, the majority of those patients are coming into hygiene. They might not be doing all their dental work, but they're for sure coming in for that “free cleaning”...

Further episodes of The Best Practices Show with Kirk Behrendt

Further podcasts by ACT Dental

Website of ACT Dental