PDF Version - Glidewell Dental Labs

7. Move faster and have your staff move fast, too. If they
resist or complain, fire them. A slacker with a mopey
attitude will never change. You are operating a service
business, not an employment depot for the low and
slow of our society.
8. Analyze each movement during a procedure. Is it necessary?
Is it needed? Can you do without it or change the
procedure to omit it entirely? For example, many practitioners
wipe instruments on the patient’s bib. This
takes a few seconds to do and then re-establish focus
on the tooth being treated. Instead, place some gauze
in the patient’s mouth and wipe your instrument on it
there. This positions you closer to the action, takes less
time to do, does not divert focus out of the mouth and
is probably more sterile. Saves a second — or four.
9. Have prearranged instrument setups for each procedure.
This is infinitely faster than picking a multitude of
instruments out of a chest of dental drawers with the
patient watching. When the patient is in the chair, do
dentistry. Don’t waste your time and the patient’s time
setting up to do dentistry.
10. Determine if there are simpler treatment methods. For
example, seventh-generation bonding is an all-in-one
technique that is considerably faster than a fourthgeneration
technique of separately etching, separately
priming and separately bonding a composite. Saves
two minutes.
11. Don’t spend time “making it pretty” if it doesn’t matter to
the patient. Carving secondary anatomy in a composite
or amalgam wastes significant time and will do
nothing to improve the restoration. If you want to be
an “artist,” paint or sculpt during your free time or
off hours. Does amalgam really need to be polished?
How about composites? Do you need frequent recall
appointments for an asymptomatic, healthy patient?
Do you need to do all those adjustments? Can you
place dissolvable sutures instead of using silk sutures
and scheduling an extra and time-consuming sutureremoving
appointment? Don’t waste your time doing
extra, unnecessary work.
12. Look at the treatment area (gingiva, tooth) intently, but
just once. Then treat. Don’t waste time looking, then
relooking, then cleaning off your mirror to look again.
Concentrate and don’t play.
13. Don’t do services that take more time than they are
worth. For example, if maxillary third molar endo on a
difficult patient takes too much time and energy, refer
it out to someone else. If you produce $1,000 an hour
at the chair and take two 50-minute sessions to do
a molar endo for which you are charging $900, then
you are losing big money and not helping the patient.
Refer the patient to someone who can do the job
in 30 minutes. You can’t do it all! Dump the timeconsuming
procedures.
14. Get rid of difficult patients. Difficult patients take up lots
of time. Spending time to argue, constantly reassure
and repeat slows your work and forces your other
patients to wait and possibly suffer. Send your difficult
patients a note saying, “because of our communication
problems, I cannot continue being your dentist.” You
don’t need them or the time-sucking referrals they may
bring. If a patient wastes your time by often arriving
late or breaking appointments, get rid of them. If you
can’t bear to kick them out of your practice, then
charge them double: they’ll leave. The ones who truly
love you will stay and pay the bill. Another technique
is to have them wait one hour in the reception room
before you see them. They’ll get angry and leave.
15. Prepare a series of information sheets with drawings
or photos on each procedure you will do. Personally
giving an info sheet to a patient as you are going to
another operatory and asking him to “look at this,
Speed Dentistry: Fast Is Better — Up to a Point59