Roadside Live: Should We Outsource That? [VIDEO]

Let’s be honest.

Life gets overwhelming fast – especially when you’re trying to do everything yourself! 😓

That’s why we believe outsourcing certain services can help you and your team focus on what TRULY matters: your patients.

In this quick 20 minute video, Roadside Account Manager Bridget joins our host, Lori, to discuss:

• The six services you should outsource to
• How outsourcing certain services can lower risk and raise retention
• Why relying on one person to tackle multiple tasks can hurt your practice
• And more!

Watch the video above or read the transcript below:

Lori: Welcome to another episode of our Roadside Live. We are super excited to have you join us. Today, we have one of our own team members, Bridget, with us. She is one of our marketing Account Managers.

We are going to be talking about, “Should I outsource this?”

And that’s a very important topic. There’s a lot that she’s going to go over with us.

So, Bridget, let’s go ahead and just dive into it and tell us a little bit about yourself first so they can know you a bit better.

Bridget: Yeah! So I spent a good amount of time as an office manager in the past. I started out as an assistant and kind of worked my way up.

And then when I got to office manager, I was like, “What’s the next step?”

So I kinda found this idol, and I stalked her and her career. I eventually became her employee, actually, as a coach.

I spent a lot of time in practices and startups, especially, and it’s so great to have this platform to share our experiences with. Because you have a similar background, we talked a lot about this topic before the call even started.

Lori: It’s an interesting kind of blend that Bridget and I share of being in the dental world.

And I think this will be a really good topic for us to discuss together, because we don’t normally get to do this together. Like I was telling her beforehand, Bridget is one of those people that just makes me smile and laugh.

So we will try and keep this professional, but I cannot guarantee that.

Bridget: Exactly.

Lori: Let’s talk a little bit about the different things that an office should outsource and why you would recommend that.

Because I know there’s a number of different areas that an office can partake of that.

Bridget: Yeah. So this is going to be one of those conversations that we have where we think back, and we are like, “Why did I not know all this? If I only knew then what I know now”, right?

That’s the story of our lives. I feel like, especially in dental, before there were a lot of Facebook forums and things similar to that.

And we just didn’t know.

You know, now that I can collect on that feeling and say, “Why would you want to outsource things?”

It really comes down to what your particular office is like.

It depends on your situation, but it’s really good as a practice owner to evaluate “What is my team spending time on?”

Are they spending time on menial tasks?

For example, if you have a really busy practice and you’re insurance heavy… Most likely, you’ve got a considerable amount of new patients, or you want a considerable amount of new patients.

Let’s say that’s the potential there.

If they’re managing everything from:

• Insurance verification
• Answering the phone,
• Greeting patients
• Paperwork
• Posting payments

Then you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities.

This includes:

• Aftercare
• Marketing
• Treatment plan follow-up
• Customer service

And there are so many things that they could be doing other than these other menial things that, you know. No one loves to do that. Really.

Let’s face it. So I’ll talk about that more in a second, but you know, keep in mind that dental practices are like an all-in-one.

It’s like a big company squished down into one little building. And if you think about those big companies, they have an HR department, have an accounting department, have a legal department… I have not run across a single dental practice with a team member on their payroll that went to school for HR.

Lori: It doesn’t exist, really.

Bridget: Yeah, exactly. That’s called the office manager. That’s only one person, who probably didn’t get a lot of specific training for that.

Or, if any, training at all. Some office managers are promoted from within, and there’s just so much that they don’t know.

That’s why I recommend outsourcing.

Lori: No, I think that’s perfect.

And that’s a really good point because with HR specifically, there are so many legalities out there that you’re right.

Somebody who maybe started out in the dental field as an assistant got promoted to an office manager…they’re not going to know some of these certain legalities, forms, and things you have to have in the office.

Or different protocols, disciplinary actions, things like that. So I think it’s a really good point that you’ve touched on that. And I think maybe offices don’t really think about that.

They just think it’s not a big deal. We shouldn’t really put focus on that, but it is a big deal, you know?

So that’s a really good point. Let’s talk about more of the specifics.

We now know why we should do it so we could free up our time.

We can get more patients in the door and put our focus there in the actual practice.

But I know you’ve got about three or four things here that you recommend for outsourcing. So let’s just kind of run through those quickly and see what you think.

Bridget:

I recommend outsourcing: human resources, insurance verification, admin tasks, marketing (yeah, we’re a little biased on that), OSHA and infection control, and cleaning.

So let me just touch on cleaning real quick.

I’ve been watching some Facebook feeds in some of these forums about hiring and having a team member clean the office. And they’re always complaining about dishes left in the sink or tables covered with snacks.

Don’t do that to yourself.

Just hire somebody to come in and do it and share some of the smaller tasks in between. But my goodness, it just creates so much animosity. So I’d throw that one in as a bonus.

Lori: I think that’s important.

I remember working at a dental office, and you probably have the same thing. There’s a rotation sheet of, “oh, it’s Bridget’s week, Bridget’s on the week of the third, and she didn’t pick up the dishes.”

Just getting someone to do something as simple as that can take that burden off of the staff and the animosity away.

Bridget: Yeah. And back to the bigger ones.

I’ll start with HR because I think that is the most important one.

There is so much liability with HR – it’s just staggering.

Every time I see one of those online forums where an office manager wants to put together their own HR manual… I just cringe, and I get a little sad.

I’m a little sad inside because, first of all, with HR, even if you use a template, HR laws vary from state to state. And then you’d be really shocked by what you can’t have in an HR manual. There are things that you’re not allowed to have.

I think I heard somewhere that gossip policies are not legal or something like that. There’s so much that we don’t know that should or shouldn’t be in there.

And now, you have to consider your remote employees. Lots of things are being done outside of the office.

We’re going to talk about it in a second with admin tasks. How do you manage that? How does that work in your office, and what are the legalities of it?

So the other part of HR is mistakes during the hiring process or holes during the hiring process.

Hiring and onboarding are the biggest causes of turnover.

A lack of training in the beginning, a lack of a good orientation, and onboarding, those things are one of the highest causes of turnover in your office.

So if you can get that right in the beginning, you’re so much better off. That’s what an HR company can help you with.

All of the forms… some of them even have an online portal, so you can just send a team member something that they need to sign through the portal, and you’re done with it.

You don’t have to worry about it.

They remind you when things are due. They remind you when training is; all of those things. And, you have someone you can call and say, “Hey, what do I do.”

I wish I had that person.

Lori: That’s a good point because, with COVID and everything that’s been going on, that probably presented a whole new set of challenges in offices, on an HR level.

Having that go-to person to be like, “They don’t feel safe coming in. What do I do? How do I keep my practice running?”

You need someone like that in your corner.

So, yeah. And the conversation is not over yet.

Bridget: That is why I recommend HR. And if any of our watchers need a recommendation, we’re happy to throw some out there.

But the other big one is admin tasks: insurance verification.

There are some amazing companies out there with people that have worked in offices.

Even office managers who have left and maybe retired, part-timers, work to help with insurance verification.

That is huge.

That’s a whole other phone line that people can call your office and make an appointment with.

Somebody else is doing it.

Somebody that’s not getting interrupted, somebody that doesn’t have to worry about anything else, somebody that probably knows insurance better than some of your team members.

I even know offices that have outsourced billing phone calls. Someone else to call the patients and just say, “Hey, I’m calling with…”

There are ways to get your phone line to show your phone number. The logistics are possible.

You just have to know where to look.

That’s a big thing. And that frees up somebody to not only become a client, but a true client concierge.

You also have to have someone that can help with marketing.

I’ve talked to some practices that didn’t even have somebody in the office during COVID because patients were calling from their car.

So they call, and then someone’s remoted in, and they just say, “Hey, your patient’s ready.”

Somebody else swoops in and says, “I’m ready for you.”

Then they take their temperature and bring them back. That way, they only have contact with one person until they see the doctor.

It’s not impossible. And I really think that people should take advantage of that. Even if it’s one of your own team members working remotely, you’re going to get a higher ROI.

You’re going to make fewer mistakes with the insurance when you have someone solely for that purpose.

If you don’t have a staff or a team that’s trained well on new patient calls, there are companies out there who have amazing phone skills while you get your team trained or while you’re looking for somebody who has the right phone skills.

You can have somebody else do it and handle new patient calls. How great is that?

Don’t try and do it. It’s not that your team would be doing a bad job; they just might not have the skillset to do it.

Lori: Hire someone with the skillset to do it, especially if you’re in a multi-doctor practice.

The time suck it takes up to do in-take calls, admin calls, new patient reminders, and all that good stuff.

Bridget: I love that. I think the offices that do that are smart for doing it.

Especially if you need it. If you have the room physically and you’ve got enough phone lines to go on forever, then go for it.

You know, it’s not for everybody, but I do think that now’s a good time to say, “Is this something that I need?’

The other thing is OSHA and infection control. Another big thing right now.

This is lighting up those forums in light of what’s happening and what is still happening. I mean, offices are all over the place. Some offices are done taking temperature. Some of them will still take the temperature in the foreseeable future.

You have all kinds of different information floating out there. You need someone that knows exactly what to do. You need someone that knows what the current guidelines are. A lot of that COVID stuff is coming from the CDC and the ADA.

But hiring a third party for your OSHA is a huge benefit.

Not just because of that, but you have so much to keep track of. Like, are we doing paper?

It’s been a while since I’ve been in an office. So do we still have to have the binder, or can it be digital?

I really don’t think an hour of a recorded video once a year is enough to keep your team current, especially now. They need a safe space to ask questions and get educated.

If your team feels safe and confident, your patients will see that, and your patients will be comfortable in your office.

That ties into marketing. People talk about your office, and they say, “Those people know what they’re doing. That team knows what they’re doing. I felt very comfortable, very safe, especially during COVID.”

And if you’re getting reviews online about how comfortable people felt in your office, you should be sharing that with the world.

Like, “Hey people, you’re doing a great job.”

Lori: Yeah, that’s such a good point. You touched on something there that made me think. Whenever a patient sees that going on in the practice, as far as “Wow, they’ve got these high-level protocols and processes,” in the back of their mind, it also tells them you’re up on everything else.

You’re up on the dental technology, you’re up on your education and all of those things, and the latest trend out there in dental right now. It’s kind of a psychological thing too.

Bridget: I agree. It’s good for everybody. And again, your team feels confident.

When your team feels confident, and they’re well-trained, have time to do their job, and have time to do it efficiently and effectively, that lowers your risk and raises your retention right there.

You’re golden.

Those are some great things to consider when you’re thinking about outsourcing OSHA and infection control.

The last thing is marketing, of course.

We’re going to be biased here. Just going to warn everybody a little bit.

But honestly, it’s no secret that our most successful clients are the ones that have a dedicated team member or team members. Even just having one person part-time to work on marketing, capture those marketing moments, and meet with their marketing team.

There’s no question at all. When you consider outsourcing marketing or you consider having someone in the office do it and no one else, here’s the thing.

You’re still going to have to have someone to host your website, but what if there are changes to the website?

We’ve talked to some new clients, and there are people on the website that haven’t been there in forever, you know?

You need someone to help you with that.

If you tell an assistant, “Hey, can you do marketing part-time?”

They don’t know how to monitor keywords or website traffic.

Lori: And we don’t want them to. We want the dental assistant to be doing dental assisting. We don’t want her focused on keyword and SEO strategy.

Bridget: And they don’t want to do it.

You have to figure out exactly what marketing team members are supposed to be doing, first of all. And what is supposed to be done in general beyond that?

You need someone who can help you figure out which digital marketing efforts are working and how to promote a service beyond just posting it on social media.

There’s a lot more to it. You’re not going to get people coming to do Botox just because you posted it on Facebook. There’s a lot more that needs to be done in order to promote that service.

You could, though. I’m not saying you can’t. It’s very possible. I’ll tell you.

There are some offices that do a fantastic job with their internal marketing at the point where they don’t need a lot of help, and that’s fine. If you have those processes in place where you’re getting those patients, that is great.

Go for it. More power to you, but you still want a company that can write content, monitors your SEO, sends you reports so that you know what they’re doing.

They’re transparent about their work and are readily available to help you. If something happens to your website, they keep you in the loop on what your budget is going towards.

I’ve talked to SEO and some DSO organizations, which is the marketing person in charge of all these offices.

When they gain a new office, I will often hear that marketing person say, “Yeah, this office joined our DSO, but they have no idea what the marketing company is doing for them.”

It shouldn’t be like that.

You also need someone to come up with ideas.

I would say that marketing is a nice one to have, but if you dive deep, there are so many questions you can ask yourself to determine if that’s something that you need to outsource, especially, are you getting the right kind of patients? Are you loving the patients walking through your door?

You’re not going to love them all. But you do love most of them.

You need a marketing company that can help you to do that. I mentioned all those things because we do all that.

Lori: Who does all those things, Bridget?

Little shameless plug here for Roadside Dental Marketing.

I’ll start to wrap us up here a little bit, but that’s such good information you have laid out. You’ve mentioned these four areas. I think even if somebody started outsourcing one of them, they would start to see more time over here that they can dedicate, like you said, to the full client concierge experience, to the total package.

And you’d be surprised. With even five extra hours in the week, what a difference that can make in your overall practice.

Start with marketing and outreach. This has just been such great information. Is there anything else you want our watchers to know about?

Bridget: I think that’s it. You and I have a pretty good list of people in our heads. And so if anyone wants to know who we would recommend, we’re happy to help.

We’re happy to find someone or ask your fellow office managers and all those forums to really get some good information.

Lori: Absolutely such good advice. Well, thank you, Bridget, for joining us today. Good to be on again with you. It’s super fun. We feel like we need to have a cup of coffee where we’re just chatting.

That’s all we’ve got for today. So next time, join us on Roadside Live, and we will see you then.

Bye, everyone.