When Stuff Always Goes Wrong! (a lesson in Risk Assessment)

Think of a day when everything went right.  Hard pressed to find a day when everything went as planned or the beeeep didn't hit the fan?  You're not alone. 

It's frustrating though, isn't it?  

Sometimes when things go wrong in the practice, whether it's an unhappy patient, a procedure wasn't followed or a piece of equipment breaks down, we scramble to find the fault and fix the issue quickly.

Of course we do, we don't want things to get worse and we want to get back to work as soon as possible. 

Often what happens is, we hustle to put out the fire and get on with the job.  What we fail to do is to look deeply into why it happened and how we can stop it from happening again.

This is a real problem in many practices.

Perhaps we are too busy to stop and analyse or maybe 'it's not our job'.

But as individuals and as a team, we are all accountable for ensuring the smooth running of the practice.  Everyone has a part to play to keep the practice productive and profitable. That's the only way the practice can fulfil it's responsibilities to patients, employees and the business owners. 

When things go wrong, it can disrupt the practice and team's ability to function on many levels, in particular operationally - to provide quality dentistry in a safe environment, financially - to generate and collect revenue or from a service perspective - to care and serve our customers (patients) at an exceptional level.

Anything that disrupts our ability to function and serve our purpose has to be eliminated or at least the risk minimised.

Your mission now is to shift from being reactive, to proactive and always be on the outlook for possible issues!  Learning how to perform a risk assessment is the best way to minimise or eliminate these risks.

You can start by making a list of the most common issues. 

It could be anything such as running out of eftpos paper rolls, lack of instruments, appointments not reminded or a dentist who is always running late.

Go through this process of analysing the issue:

1. What is the hazard/issue? What is happening?

2. What makes it happen?

3. How level of impact does it have on operations, finances etc

4. What is the likelihood of it happening again?

5. Risk mitigation: how will you prevent it occurring again? (Detail)

6. Which policies or processes need to be implemented or changed?

7. Who is responsible for ensuring the risk is managed?

This is a great exercise to do in team meetings. It helps to bring issues to light that otherwise may fester and cause conflict.  It also gets everyone thinking and acting proactively moving forward.

Would you like the Risk Assessment worksheets from Module 3 in the Front Desk Series I use to analyse risks to production, collection and general risks?

Email me at [email protected] with 'RISK WORKSHEETS'  in the subject line to get started today.

You can learn more about building a productive appointment book for your dental practice. Module 3 Productive Scheduling is a guide for the front desk coordinator to learn how to create a productive schedule that assists the practice to achieve it's financial goals.  Discover how FD can positively influence profitability, cash flow, improve production as well as help to create a better environment to deliver your services.