Episode 19
19: The Single Biggest Lie When it Comes to New Patient Flow - Scott Leune
Dr. Scott Leune from Breakaway Practice is here today to talk about the single biggest lie when it comes to new patient flow. Breakaway Practice has some of the best courses around for helping new and old dentists alike run profitable and successful dental practices. Since 2005, Dr. Scott Leuna has been opening, running, and building dental practices. His first practice grew into three within the first four years. He has helped build 90 startup practices, and Breakaway Support Services include over 400 practices.
Data is important to Scott and we talk about split testing and how to know if your marketing really works. Scott shares valuable insights on answer rate and conversion rate. He thinks everything needs to be tracked and that there needs to be checklists for every task. We also talk about the importance of answering the phone and understanding the capacity of your practice. This show has a lot of great information.
You can find Dr. Scott Leune here:
Show Notes
[02:19] Scott is a dentist who has built and sold practices. He now helps other dentists across the country and manages over 350 offices.
[02:54] He learns how to build and run and grow an office very fast. In turn, he started teaching people how to do that and doing it for them. He has a large team that takes care of marketing, IT, insurance verification and more.
[03:24] After graduating, Scott opened his first practice. They had so many patients that he had to find a completely different way to do everything. Four years later that practice had three locations with 10 dentist. He sold the group to Heartland because he broke his back.
[04:32] After building and growing these practices, Scott learn how to do so many things better. He then built seven new practices. He realized there was a lot more stuff he needed to learn.
[05:20] Now he teaches everything he's learned and do everything he says.
[06:01] Scott comes from a place of data. They track and audit and measure everything. Scott discovered that a lot of marketing is wishful thinking.
[07:53] We don't know how well our marketing will work until we perform an experiment. That experiment is called a split test. This is where we test different offers and messages against each other. These tests have to be performed with similar demographics.
[09:54] Scott tracks and listens to every call and then does the data analysis to see what does and doesn't work.
[11:10] Data removes all emotion.
[11:33] The most important numbers in a dental office are the answer rate and how many of those convert to an appointment. Answer rate and conversion rate.
[14:26] Poor conversion rates have to do with how the team member is trained and poor policy practices.
[16:07] If there's anything worth investing money in it's your conversion rate on the phone.
[18:00] When a patient calls take control of the call and walk the patient down a path that converts them into appointments. Turn it around and ask questions.
[20:22] Have a checklist and continue to audit to make sure things continue to be done correctly.
[21:29] People need to understand how to achieve success and how to measure it. They need the tools to have a high conversion rate and the number to know what is healthy. Scott has a checklist, so everyone remembers what they need to do and how they need to do it.
[23:21] A checklist is a reminder system that keeps us focused.
[23:37] When you own a practice someone has to be the owner and the CEO.
[24:29] The person who answers the phone of your practice needs to actually ask for the appointment.
[25:16] Your ability to do the right thing with marketing and bring in a new patient starts with the one first question and that question is what is my capacity?
[28:19] Answering more calls and doing smarter marketing because of data.
[29:43] If you have open capacity it might make sense to take Medicaid.
[31:09] As a CEO of a dental practice you should try different methods to fill holes and make your practice work.
[32:57] Howard general dentist can make a lot of money running ortho.
[33:04] This all comes down to using techniques around scheduling and capacity to drive up success.
[33:38] Evidence marketing as opposed to the traditional way of thinking about marketing with only half of the evidence.
[33:47] Phones, scheduling, capacity, and even case acceptance all affect how your marketing is performing and if it is worth doing.
[34:14] New dentists should do the marketing and the split testing. Plus the tracking and handling phones the right way. Lower all the barriers you can in your practice if you are open capacity. If you are closed capacity, raise the barriers.
[35:55] What is going on with DSOs. DSOs on 12% of all offices and represent 17 to 20% of all revenue.They are growing by leaps and bounds. There are good DSOs that focus on patient care. The dental landscape is changing.
[39:05] DSOs do so well because they brought a CEO to a dental practice. Dentist need to become CEOs as well and block their schedules to look at the numbers.
[39:38] We have to learn and be trained to make our practice a success. We have to own it and drive success.
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