Change can be hard for people to deal with and, at times, COVID-19 has felt like a constant exercise in managing changes.
The fact that these changes have often needed to be implemented quickly and been imposed by forces outside of the practice, has not made the process any easier.
However, as Charles Darwin once said, it is those who best manage change who will survive. And among all of the enforced changes, the pandemic has also provided the opportunity to take control and transform your business in the way that you want.
Some practices have indeed seized that opportunity to create a different way of working. Two of them share their stories below…
Kevin Higgins, Partner, Higgins and Winter Dental Practice:
Lockdown was a crazy time. An almost complete shutdown was imposed on the profession and there was a void of information and support. The lack of information created worry, doubt and a lot of sleepless nights not knowing what would happen next.
Throughout lockdown we were available to see our patients 9.00 am – 7.00 pm every day, taking calls, doing what we could, caring for patients in the best way we could, forging relationships with pharmacies and hospitals, etc. At the same time, we were living with the possibility of losing our business. New regulations and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) came along with enhanced PPE and the need to invest in infrastructure, such as surgery ventilation, and to change reception and triaging systems.
Once we settled into a more routine way of working, we realised we had survived; the business model isn’t broken, and we could begin to return to our working lives and businesses. There was then this great opportunity to reflect, learn and change.
It forced us to stop what we were doing, which allowed us to pause and reflect on where we’ve been going, how we were working and imagine how we wanted to work from this point on.
We also saw how much our patients value the practice and what we do for them. When patients couldn’t see us, they really missed it and in the absence of that provision of service, we realised just what level of service we had provided before and the strength of the relationships that we had with our patient base.
We used this time to appreciate what we offered patients (a high standard of personalised dental care), work out what we had to achieve financially (sufficient income to give financial security) and what we wanted to do going forward (continue to work on providing high standards of personalised care that patients attached great value to). We needed to create a virtuous circle…
Creating the virtuous circle
All of this made us decide that the answer was not to work harder or faster. We wanted to maintain the level of personalised care we provide and this takes time, effort and dedication.
If we were to continue to provide the high levels of personalised dental care that gave us job satisfaction, we also needed to have fee levels to support the time required to do so. If our fees are good value then we would feel justified in spending more time with patients which they would then appreciate even more – the virtuous circle would be complete.
Being independent of the NHS allows us to do this. Having membership schemes like DPAS help to do this too. Without the flexibility offered by being independent, we would be in the same vicious circle that NHS providers find themselves in now – needing to work harder to hit targets in the most challenging environment ever seen in general dental practice.
Thinking about the big picture
Overall, lockdown was a bizarre and troubling time. It was beyond our control; some of the changes we were being asked to do didn’t make sense to a lot of practitioners on the front line but it was necessary to allow us to continue working. It also created an almost unique opportunity to stop, take stock and move forward in a different way.
We survived and, being an independent practice, we had the ability to change for the better. We can change the way we work. We can value ourselves more. We can define what we want to achieve with our businesses and lives in general.
If we can do that then we can then move forward to happier times in work and life and, if so, lockdown will have become an opportunity.
Amy Meier, Practice Manager, {mydentist} Warminster
We’ve dramatically changed the way we’re working, down to social distancing and the logistics of our practice; for example, we don’t have a waiting room.
We also want to keep the number of patients in the surgery low. Which means we operate a one-in/one-out policy, we meet them at the door, they sanitise their hands, we take their temperature and then they go straight to the surgery, so there’s no waiting around.
More patient communication
We’re also now making more phone calls with patients before they arrive to discuss treatment plans and let them know what to expect beforehand.
We’ve had a lot of positive feedback to say they’ve appreciated this and that they feel safe here. We have a large number of elderly patients, many of whom have been shielding for most of the year, so it is really important that they do feel safe when they come here.
We’re probably going to keep some of these changes in the long term. For example, communicating with the patients via phone more, both before and after the treatment. That’s partly because with the new levels of PPE, it is a lot harder to communicate face-to-face, especially as a few of our dentists are choosing to wear the Stealth masks, which are large, black heavy masks.
Expanding our team and services
We’ve recruited three new dentists, because two of our existing dentists retired this year. They have come in with a lot of fresh energy, new ideas and a positive mindset to clear the backlog both from those retirements and COVID-19. Which means we’re almost back to normal pre-pandemic capacity.
The new clinicians have brought some new skills and qualifications with them, so we’re now able to expand our range of treatments to include short-term orthodontics and implants, which we’ve previously had to refer out for.
We’ve been talking to our patients about these treatments via email and promoting it on our social media and we are having lots of enquiries, both from new patients and those interested in short-term orthodontics.
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