Dream Practice
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about Dean C. Bellavia, Ph.D., M.S. A Dream Practice For almost five decades Dr. Dean Bellavia has worked with hundreds of new and is an odyssey established practices and thousands of team members to design most of the state-of-the-art that every orthodontists takes. orthodontic systems used today. Dean has published four management books Some are more successful than others. on orthodontics and two books on personality. He has created Management Kits for all of your system needs and has written scores Doctors! of articles on practice management. Please use this information to quicken your odyssey. He has lectured to thousands of orthodontic professionals and team members just like you. Team Members! He provides you with helpful monthly Try to appreciate your doctor’s ongoing efforts to “Management Pearls” at www.DeanBellavia.com. © The Bio-Engineering Co. 2018 provide you and your patients with the best www.DeanBellavia.com Dean has also spent 35 years researching and defining human personality. possible practice–and try to support that effort. Some of my staff were much too It all started busy. when my practice grew out of control. While others had too much time on their hands. Staff just did what they wanted… nobody was accountable for anything. Staff wasted time and ignored patients. Certain staff didn’t get along. And staff gossip cultivated divisive factions! Some staff obviously didn’t like being there at all. We were a Nightmare Team! And the Scheduling… I was at my wits’ end. forget it—it was also a nightmare. My family life was going I was bored one down hill… .. minute and . frantic the next! …along with practice Working too many production. long hours/day and days/year. I didn’t have the time to make changes and yet, I knew I needed to. When I got some time to myself I visited a classmate from orthodontic school. It was eye-opening. It was all about their staff, their systems The doctor, staff and patients really and their consultants. loved being there. The team love their work, I asked every team member what they love working together did and how they felt about it. and were great at their jobs. I took as many pictures as I could. I gathered up as many forms as I could. I was on a high; I couldn’t wait to get back and improve my staffing and systems. That practice had worked with …and that I had to numerous consultants over the years; . Vaccinate against this Dismorale Virus all were helpful–some more than others. I found that I never worked with consultants before certain staff were infecting so I decided to do it myself using what I had learned here. others and needed to go. After many months, I learned that my staff But I couldn’t get rid of all of them, so: didn’t want change and 1. I got rid of the worse of them before hiring new staff, some secretly organized but even new staff were being infected. to fight any attempt I made. 2. Itied to keep the newlyhired staff awayfromthe old infected staff, but it was difficult. A “Management Pearl” I read indicated that 3. I then inform the new staff of the situation and told them to my staff was infected with the “Dismorale Virus”… ignore the infected staff who will soon be gone. During my staff reorganization The management kit was suppose to help me: I attended an AAO meeting lecture on how to create a Dream Team. ORGANIZE my team to be fully utilized But I thought; why bother, if I don’t even have the staff to work with yet. I needed a dream team to have my Dream Practice. The kit was also suppose to help me: HIRE the best people considering their: Some of my team were people I Attitude Personality could build on, but I definitely had Mental Skills Pace to replace others. Manual Dexterity It seemed like a lot of work, so I just used the So I purchased a bunch of management kits personality part since most of my successful (that included an “Organization & Hiring Kit”) colleagues told me that personality was important. and took them home to build my dream team... So, why was PERSONALITY so Important? I was told that it helps my staff to get the job done even when they are stressed! and boy, were we ever stressed! I didn’t know a thing about personality except that there were four so-called styles of personality that mattered… When stressed we can become naturally effective…or not! The receptionist also has a naturally effective pattern! Each position has a naturally effective personality pattern! Receptionist Treatment For example Coordinator the TC position. Receptionist’s Purpose: To control the TC’s Purpose: daily schedule To make sure new exam patients start treatment Socializer Style: Relator Style: Gets them excited Establishes Rapport —Ideal Pattern Relator Style: Socializer Style: —Possible Pattern Establishes Rapport Influences them —Problems (with rapport) Director Style: Analyzer Style: Closes the sale —Ideal Pattern Remembers Pt. Details —Problems (with warmth) Analyzer Style: —Possible Pattern Director Style: —Problems (with scheduling) Follows Procedure —Problems (with rapport) Follows the Schedule —Problems (with closing) The bookkeeper also has a The clinical team also has a naturally effective pattern! naturally effective pattern! Financial Clinical Team Coordinator Clinical Bookkeeper’s Team’s Purpose: Purposes: To control the DA: to assist . daily cash flow the doctor in (charges, the Pt’s. Tx collections, payables, etc.) RT: to take and process accurate records Relator Style: Analyzer Style: LT: to create . Establishes Rapport Creates accuracy necessary Analyzer Style: Relator Style: Remembers Pt. Details Establishes Rapport —Ideal Pattern —Ideal Pattern appliances, etc. Socializer Style: Socializer Style: —Possible Pattern Gets them excited —Possible Pattern Influences them —Problems (with accuracy) Director Style: —Problems (with accuracy/caring) Director Style: —Problems (with delinquency) Stays on Schedule —Problems (with staying on schedule.) Collects Past Dues The personality stuff was very helpful, Using the Hiring Program but I went through a lot of duds. Some took a long time to learn. Some couldn’t follow directions. And some did not have a very good attitude. I needed to take hiring more seriously! I more I had my We made carefully I tested and team our Screened thoroughly interview decisions the Interviewed them and and So I used the hiring program in my Applicants the check their negotiated “Organization & Hiring Kit” Applicants references their salary to hire better staff. and benefits I also evaluated their Attitude I evaluate their Mental Skills… 2013 2014 2015 2016 I evaluate their Alphabetizing Skills Which is important for filing and computer work Strong Team I evaluate their Good Work Player Mathematical Skills Ethic Self-Image Attitude (add, subtract, multiply, divide) …and they had to agree to perform ALL It was a help for hiring anyone of their tasks if they accepted the position. handling money or They don’t get to pick and choose. doing statistics & reports. Their ability to quickly learn! I evaluate their Grammatical Skills If they get an overall score of >85%… (Spelling, Grammar, Punctuation) …they can be quickly trained Important if they needed to If they get between 70% and 85%… compose letters …they will learn fairly quickly or readable emails. If they get below 70%… But even more important …they’ll take many more months to train. I needed to considered their If they get below 60%… overall mental skills score …I'd retire by the time they were trained. to know how quickly they can learn their tasks. I found this very helpful! But something was missing… I evaluated her Manual Dexterity Skills I hired a person with the perfect personality To test her small motor skills for a clinical position. and hand-eye coordination… She had a great attitude and the staff and the patients loved her. She got a 95% on her mental skills testing Side View and should have learned quickly. But we tried for nine months to train her as a chairside DA and she just couldn’t learn. End View Top View I was perplexed until someone asked me if I had ever tested her manual dexterity skills, I found out that she had poor small motor skills; so I found a wire-bending test and tested but she was a wiz at taking records–now does them all. her. To evaluate her PACE I looked her in the eyes and ask her: Something else was also missing… “What did you have for lunch last Tuesday?” Visual: Fast Then I watched her eyes move. I hired a person a person who filled all of the If her eyes Auditory: Moderate criteria for a chairside... Up Left went Left Left or Right If her eyes went Up Left or Down- She got high mental skills scores and her Up Right Right or Up Right, Left: manual dexterity was excellent. or a Blank She would Stare: be Blank Stare She would be Moderately But she couldn’t keep up with our schedule, Fast fast. although she did excellent work and the Down Left patients loved her. If her eyes went Down Right: Kinesthetic: Slow She would be S l o w and would not do well in a fast Again I was perplexed until someone Down Right paced practice. suggested that I evaluate her pace, so I The problem was that she was S l o w and we had a fast-paced practice. found the test and and gave it to her. It was very painful to let her go, but she wasn’t happy here either.