Dental Practice is like any other business that aims at making enough profits to cover the costs being incurred in the process, and also give the owner the deserving compensation in monetary terms for the efforts he/she puts into it.
This necessitates the implementation of an effective system to manage the operations. KPIs have provided a solution to this problem. However, one should not mistake the use of this Norton and Kaplan's brainchild for being limited to assessing the financial standing, as it is much more than that. It takes a holistic view towards the improvement of the workings. This is what makes it outshine itself among the other similar methods. Another reason to have such a concept is that Dental Practice is a service- based working. Thereby, one can not rely on a product to do the marketing, as is true for a manufacturing firm. This system will help both the manager (in getting the operations done at a fast pace) and the patients (in having better services).
KPIs should be formulated after a thorough analysis of the job, the industry to which it belongs, the other external forces that operate in the environment etc. The directions in which these can be done are- Financial Perspective, which takes care of the revenue generating motive. This is done with indicators like practice accounts receivable, percentage increase in operating expenses and collection percentage. Next is the customer perspective that is evaluated with number of customer complaints, number of new patients. Internal Perspective is assessed with cancellation percentage and clinician hours scheduled. Operational efficiency is known with parameters like case acceptance ratio, new patient conversion rate, etc.
Most of the dental Schools do not provide any formal training during the course. This leaves the course-takers inadequately equipped for the successful practice. This poses the largest and most commonly experienced hurdle in realizing the benefits to the maximum. Another challenge is the stressful condition the practitioners have to work in. These situations call for a method that can be incorporated in the operations and track the progress. KPIs can do this task easily as the target values are always available to compare the way the organization is heading. Scrutinizing and correction is possible with this method.
KPIs help in adopting a focused approach to the whole process of Dental Practice. This ensures effective utilization of resources. By doing the acts optimally, one can gain better insights into the job and have more revenues out of it. Continuous monitoring on the proceedings of the task is yet another issue resolved by this idea. This is because laying the appropriate indicators and giving them suitable values to aim for provides a definite direction and destination to move for. This process of quantification also eases out the job of meaningful formulation of action plans and their implementation. The results are in the form of high efficiency, management
KPIs are the measures used to ensure effective and smooth working for people who practice in the area of dentistry. This is achieved by structuring KPIs on a Balanced Scorecard along various directions which are thought crucial for the performance of the business.