GAGD Member News

Winter 2009 Newsletter Articles:
• 2010 General Dentistry Symposium • Dental School Fundraising • Supporting the Pursuit of Excellence • Editorial: Membership Has Its Privileges • Leadership and Commun That Make a Difference • Marketing Focus: Generations • Sick and Tired of Feeling Sick and Tired? • Welcome New Members!
Archives:   Winter 2009 Current Issue • Fall 2009 • Spring 2009 • Winter 2008 • Summer 2008 • Spring 2008 • Fall 2007 • Summer 2007 • Spring 2007 • Fall 2006		Download Advertising Guide

2010 General dentistry Symposium Just around the Corner!

Don’t forget to register for GAGD’s 2010 General Dentistry Symposium! To be held January 22-23, 2010 at the Marriott Century Center in Atlanta, this meeting will continue GAGD’s tradition of high-quality continuing dental education at an affordable price.

Your rave reviews from last year’s meeting have brought us back to the Marriott Century Center, which is conveniently located at the Clairmont Road exit off I-85 and has just completed a multi-million dollar renovation of the lobby, dining, and common areas. The state-of-the-art classrooms feature amphitheater-style seating and electrical outlets for your laptop.

GAGD is known for its wide variety of outstanding continuing education topics and this meeting will be no exception! Find registration materials online at www.gagd.org. We look forward to seeing you there!

Friday, January 22
Choose one of these two full-day seminars...

Building Georgia’s Future for Dental Education

Dental School Capital Fundraising Campaign Announced Fundraising efforts for the new MCG School of Dentistry building project are going strong, raising $7.5 million in private contributions from alumni, organized dentistry, and friends thus far. Now, general dentists will be able to make a considerable impact to the future of Georgia dentistry through a capital fundraising campaign supported by the Georgia Academy of General Dentistry.

Together, the general dentistry community will invest in the future of our profession. The GAGD Board of Directors has voted to join in the dental school’s fundraising efforts through a campaign to collect contributions from members and match those funds through the association.

With the support of our members and the Board of Directors, GAGD has pledged $50,000 in contributions over the next five years. This pledge represents annual contributions of $5,000 from members and $5,000 in matching funds from the GAGD.

Members who make contributions through the GAGD will be recognized individually as part of the association’s lump contribution.

Contributions can be made in one of two ways
• check payable to the “Georgia Academy of General Dentistry”
• check made payable to the “Georgia Health Sciences University Foundation,” a 501(C)3 charity.

All checks must be sent to the GAGD Executive Office. Please ensure individual member names are clearly indicated in order to receive proper recognition.

GAGD Capital Campaign
2711 Irvin Way, Suite 111
Decatur, GA 30030

Executive Office Report: Supporting the Pursuit of Excellence
By Laura Faye
Director, Education and Marketing

One of the principal goals of the GAGD is to support our members in their pursuit of lifelong learning and clinical excellence by serving as a trusted and sought-after resource for quality, affordable dental education. This year, the need for affordable CE was greater than ever. By offering courses in different regions around the state, members could provide CE for themselves and their teams without the added expenses of overnight travel. In 2009, we were proud to offer more CE to dentists and team members than we have in years.

We kicked off the year with a bang at the annual General Dentistry Symposium in Atlanta. More than 110 dentists from around the state convened for a weekend of top-notch CE and camaraderie. One big change this year was our new venue at the Marriott Century Center. Based on positive feedback from members about the location and facilities, we plan to continue our meetings there and have already contracted for the 2011 meeting. Save the dates for January 14-15, 2011! Ramping up our CE offerings for the whole dental team, we produced three different lecture courses in various regions around the state – Athens, Albany, and Columbus – that were open to dentists, hygienists, and dental assistants. A total of 40 dentists and 54 team members attended these courses and the feedback was very positive. Not only were the content and speakers rated highly, but interest was also stimulated for future course offerings. The Board and CE Committee are already busy planning more regional courses for 2010!

In November, we held an oral surgery lecture and participation course in Athens in conjunction with a University of Georgia SEC football game. While game tickets were snatched up quickly, that didn’t stop anyone from registering for the course. It filled up quickly, with 40 dentists in attendance.

This was a banner year for CE, with 40 hours of lecture credit and 10 hours of participation credit offered to dentists, hygienists, and dental assistants. We look forward to providing more opportunities for member dentists and their teams to continue their pursuit of excellence in dentistry and oral health care.

Editorial: Membership Has Its Privileges
By Mark Caceres, DMD, MAGD,
Editor

The AGD has changed. The organization we knew as the proponent of quality continuing education for general dentists has developed and expanded. While the focus on continuing education has remained intact, those who expect only the benefits of the “old” AGD are missing out on a wide variety of innovative services available to our membership.

Perhaps the most significant shift in our organization has been the emergence of a focus on advocacy for general dentistry. The AGD, in its White Paper on Access to Care, has made the most comprehensive analysis of the access to care issue and has made insightful recommendations addressing the root causes of the disparity in access to dental care among different communities.

While other organizations seem to believe that non-dentist practitioners are an appropriate solution to the access problem, the AGD continues to seek solutions utilizing fully trained dentists. In Georgia, the AGD’s advocacy efforts have centered on state sedation guidelines. The GAGD is closely monitoring those guidelines and their implications for general dentists. If you would like to get involved with the GAGD’s legislative team, contact the GAGD Executive Office at (404) 299-7987.

Other significant changes in the AGD relate to innovative member services, including marketing and practice management tools. Perhaps the most exciting practice management tool available from the AGD is AGD Patient Alerts (previously named Smilesavers), a free application available to members that integrates with your current practice management software to deliver email or text messages to your patients for appointment reminders, birthday greetings, reactivation of dormant patients, and more. Many of your colleagues are paying thousands annually for similar services, yet you can access this valuable feature at no charge as an AGD member.

Don’t have a website yet? Just go to the AGD website, www.agd.org, and fill out a simple onscreen wizard to instantly create a website your patients can access with important information about your practice. This service is available at no charge to all members.

Do your patients have questions about dental services? The AGD’s KnowYourTeeth.com consumer website (which you can link to your practice website) includes a reference guide to dental topics, quick links to the most commonly asked questions, a factoid of the week, and even links to YouTube for video footage about dentistry.

Having problems with dental insurance reimbursement? The AGD aids in contesting insurance issues, including refunds of overpayment, denial of claims due to lack of dental necessity, and downcoding.

Need help deciding whether to join a managed care plan? The AGD’s Contract Analysis Service helps in the evaluation of insurance contracts to identify potentially harmful clauses, including those that require the dentist to cover costs incurred by the insurance company, or provisions that allow the insurance company to decide whether services rendered by the dentist are necessary.

Continuing education continues to be central to the AGD, through its national annual meeting, and here in Georgia with our annual symposium in Atlanta and regional courses in Athens, Columbus, and Albany. Our offerings in Georgia are notable for the many participation courses we offer, for the inclusion of dental hygienists and assistants, and for the exceptional value of our programs. Also, the Georgia Mastertrack IV program offers a five-year comprehensive review of dentistry leading to the mastership award. Still not enough CE for you? In addition to the information available in the AGD monthly publications General Dentistry and AGD Impact, podcasts, case studies, and clinical articles are available online at www.agd.org.

As you can see, membership in the AGD has its privileges. Go to www.agd.org today and see what the AGD has to offer you. You might be surprised by what you’ve been missing.

Leadership and Communication That Make a Difference
By Alexa S. Chilcutt, PhD

How a dentist leads and communicates with his or her team determines the effectiveness of the team, the relationships of its members, and, consequently, the level of productivity or conflict experienced within the office. The dentist’s leadership results in communication practices that affect the team’s ability to work as an interdependent and cohesive unit. While every young dentist envisions a team of productive individuals that enjoy working together, it is the lucky dentist that enjoys working with his/her team. Numerous studies have found that an overwhelming majority of dentists report staff-related issues, such as handling of grievances and turnover, as the number one stressor in their practice. These factors affect the level of satisfaction a dentist experiences in the practice of dentistry.

A 2008-2009 study included ten dental practices – four located in Georgia, five in Alabama, and one in Mississippi – and investigated the current leadership behaviors and communication practices and their effects on the dental team. Findings helped to differentiate between positive and negative leadership and team communication behaviors.

The most lethal combination evident in the study was when a dentist had a hierarchical view of team leadership and engaged in autocratic decision-making processes. Here, employees felt undervalued, resulting in power struggles (in-fighting) between team members. In offices that exhibited this behavior, the rate of turnover was an issue.

While most staff were in favor of functional morning huddles, regularly scheduled meetings did not seem to be a predictor of healthy team communication. Instead, the ability of staff to communicate with each other and the dentist throughout the day affected how staff gauged the effectiveness of team communication. The office in the study that gave the dentists the highest leadership rating had no formal meetings, but stated that the communication was “open-access,” affording them the opportunity to discuss issues as they arose during the day.

The two major predictors of team culture were decision-making processes and conflict management tactics. Participative decision-making processes gave team members a voice and created a greater sense of team identity that was inclusive of the dentist as well as a sense of practice ownership and responsibility. Valuing staff input, opinions, and feedback during the decision-making process empowered employees and created a high level of reciprocal trust. Although staff felt included in the decision-making processes, they also mentioned respecting the positional power of the dentist and acknowledged that he/she had the authority to make the final decision.

Conflict-management tactics employed by members of a team may include: confrontation, collaboration, force, avoidance, or accommodation. Collaboration and confrontation are seen as healthy forms of conflict management, as the team environment is a safe one that encourages open communication. Team members feel free to voice dissenting views and to offer constructive feedback to one another, as well as to the dentist, without fear of repercussions. Healthy confrontation requires maintaining respect and consideration for teammates. Individuals are afforded appropriate channels or procedures to discuss issues as they arise.

Even the conflict-avoidant dentist can work to create an atmosphere that allows members to express concerns and give feedback openly by establishing norms and procedures that facilitate dialog and collaboration. These productive forms of conflict produce a team with a greater sense of interdependence and social closeness.

Negative tactics include force, accommodation, and avoidance. These tactics result in a greater degree of team member independence and social distance. As one senior staff member stated, “Who wants to speak out if nothing is ever going to be done about implementing it, or if you have to bring it up 3 months in a row before you find out anything? You get to the point you want to say “never mind.”

Offices that engaged in negative tactics reported increased rates of staff turnover, infighting among members of the team, and frustration with the dentist(s).

Findings suggest that a set of best practices include participative decision-making process, fostering an environment of open communication, and collaboration and confrontation as practiced methods of conflict management. These behaviors contributed positively to the team’s culture. Today’s dentists should take time to reflect upon the ways in which they currently lead and communicate with their staff. A paradigm shift in the way that leadership and team communication are viewed may be necessary in order to increase team work and productivity, and decrease the dentist’s and team’s level of staff-related stress.

Chilcutt AS. Exploring leadership and team communication within the organizational environment of a dental practice. JADA;140(10):1252-58. Copyright © 2009 American Dental Association. All rights reserved. Adapted 2009 with permission.

With a PhD in Mass Communications and a MA in Public Relations, Alexa is currently the Director of Communication Skills at The University of Alabama School of Dentistry in Birmingham. Areas of research include communication, leadership, and organizational impression management. She provides programs for and consults with dental and medical schools as well as private offices.

Marketing Focus: Generations
By Deborah Druey, MBA

A primary focus when developing a marketing plan for any business is to create a formula that will “crack the code” of communicating to your target audience and motivate consumers to buy from you.

In putting together a strategy to attract new patients to a dental practice, a number of factors are analyzed, including demographics, market opportunities, competition, and consumer buying trends and priorities. In recent years, many marketers have turned their attention to lifestyle – marketing to groups based on generational categories rather than their income or neighborhood. Quoting from Economist.com, “Consumers are thought to have more in common with people from the same generation than with any other grouping” (Hindle, 2009).

Our chart below categorizes each generation by birth year, and by the formative cultural influences of each era.

Tip: Build your own marketing focus group. The “magic” in any marketing strategy that reaches out to new patients is to first tap into the strengths we have inside our own four walls.

Have a team meeting and identify which generation each team member belongs to. (If you don’t have a broad representation, invite friends and family members from other generations to participate). Review your marketing and patient communication materials, i.e., web site, brochures, letterhead, outside signage, messages-on-hold, voicemail, patient education materials, etc., and measure the “call to action” efficacy of these items as an individual consumer from a generational perspective.

Discuss your case presentation and new patient experience and role-play each patient interaction step by step, optimizing your approach for each generational category. Consider group characteristics: for example, technology is not of high importance to Traditionalists, so you may spend 20% of your communication time on technology and 80% on relationship with these consumers (and the reverse for GenX-ers and Millenials). As the doctor, it is important to understand how each generation views you - are you an authority figure, as with Traditionalists, or a peer, as with the hard-to-impress Millenial? Will you need to approach trust-building with caution and pragmatism, as with Gen X-ers, or with a polished treatment plan presentation that “sells” the benefits of a healthy smile, as with Boomers?

The more we understand about how our patients view the world, the more effective we will be in motivating patients that know us and those that don’t (yet) to trust us with their dental health.

Deborah Druey, MBA is the President of Symphony Dental, located in Temple, Georgia. Symphony Dental provides Practice Management, Marketing and Web Design services to dental practices in Georgia and the Southeast U.S. Email Debbie at ddruey@symphonydental.com.

References:

“Generational Differences,” Dennis Gaylor, Chi Alpha Campus Ministries, USA, April 2002, http://www.reachtheu.com/

“Decoding Generational Differences: Fact, fiction ... or should we just get back to work?” W. Stanton Smith, Deloitte Development LLC, 2008, http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/cda/doc/ content/us_Talent_DecodingGenerationalDifferences.pdf

“Generationally Savvy™, Advice on Leading and Marketing to the Generations,” Anna Liotta, Resultance, Inc. Blog, 2009, http://annaliotta.typepad.com/my_weblog/

“Idea: Segmentation”, Tim Hindle, Economist.com, August 27, 2009, http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/management/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14301415

Sick and Tired of Feeling Sick and Tired?

A lot of doctors are feeling battered and bruised these days. Between the poor economy, ravaged investment portfolios, further intrusion by insurance plans, the prospect of increased taxes, and the uncertain political climate, it is no wonder! Even if their practice is doing OK (indeed, Jennifer McDonald, managing partner of a new Willeford Group company, Dental Management Advisors, LLC, reports that some dentists are having banner months), many dentists who have peered into the retirement window don’t like what they see: there isn’t one! There is no light at the end of the tunnel – unless you bring your own! How does this compare to the dream you had when you left dental school?

So, what to do – now and for the future?! You only have two primary resources: 1) doctor at work and 2) money at work. (It is too late to choose wealthier parents!)

1. DOCTOR AT WORK
Running on all cylinders? Remember, when you get down to it, the purpose of your practice is ultimately to provide the quality of life you desire and the income to support it, both now and in the future. The typical established Atlanta general practice produces between $700,000 – $900,000. And for many folks, even that is not enough - especially at the lower end of the range, or below.

If your size and style of practice is fulfilling all of your personal, professional, and financial needs, then congratulations are in order. But, if not, are you willing to dare the discomfort and risk of change to increase your production by 20-30% or more? If you are willing to invest the time, energy, and money to enhance your communications, marketing, and management systems, success is virtually assured. In the worst cases, we have never seen a practice not generate enough growth to at least cover the cost of a practice management consultant. In most cases, a dental practice would realize a return on investment of 2 to 3 times the original investment – and hopefully much more over time.

Succession/Transition Plan in Place?
There’s a business adage that says: “Plan your work and work your plan – and your plan will work!” This assumes, of course, that you have one! If not, you should develop a strategic plan for “what’s next.” Dr. David Martin Reznik, managing partner of another new Willeford Group company, Dental Transition Advisors, LLC, prefers to call that “Practice Succession;’ although it will involve some sort of transition too. This is not just due to death. It can be a disability that may force you to leave active practice. Or you may be one of the “walking dead” who can’t afford to quit but don’t want to stay!

Dr. Reznik recently noted that 6 out of 10 dental practices simply close their doors one day, never to return! While this may be a great financial loss to the dentist/owner, there are at least three other “stakeholders” who are also impacted: your patients, your staff, and your family.

In addition to having proper life and disability insurance, here are a few other things to consider

2. MONEY AT WORK
Different This Time? Whether at the top of a bubble (just before we know it is a bubble) or at the bottom of a recession (before we know the recession is over), the self-speak we use to justify either condition is, “But it’s different this time!” The specifics may be different, but the general theme generally is not. The philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who do not know the past are doomed to repeat it.” The fact is that our economy has always been cyclical, with irrational exuberance or depression at each peak and valley. If history repeats itself, and if we do not have a “going out of America” sale, then popular articles decrying the death of Modern Portfolio Theory are probably premature. We are already seeing evidence of a market rebound, although it will still be choppy for a few years.

Revisit Your Risk Tolerance Level?
After what we have been through, perhaps we need a new bumper sticker: “Risk Happens!” We discovered that we are all “long term investors” – as long as the market is going up! Then we got our mettle tested… Your investment advisor should have helped you determine your risk tolerance level in order to help him know how to invest your money. You need to know what risk assumption he is using on your behalf, and you should decide if you want to change it.

Once you know your risk tolerance level, then you should see how well your investment returns (or losses) are doing compared to the risk taken. We often see extremely risky portfolios (100% equities) that only had returns that could have been achieved with a lot less risk. So they did not get rewarded for taking that much risk. Get a “performance report” to see what your returns have been – even if negative. (This is different from the normal monthly report you get, which is more like a bank statement.)

Playing the Loser’s Game? Don’t tolerate letting your “good friend,” college roommate or brother-in-law chase his ego with your money, trying to beat the market. Research shows time and again that a widely diversified, low-cost portfolio beats the typical “active” investor.

So, with some attention to your practice operations and to your financial management, you should be able to kick things up a notch to the next level. The extra income and investment returns should begin to get you on track to enjoy the lifestyle you had in mind.

Raymond F. “Rick” Willeford, MBA, CPA/CFP is the president of Willeford Haile, CPA, PC and WillefordCPA Wealth Advisors, LLC, a Registered Investment Advisory firm. He has specialized in designing financial planning, tax, and transition strategies for dentists since 1975. He can be reached at rickw@willefordhaile.com.

Please join us in welcoming our newest members to the GAGD!