Episode summary
How to Design a Schedule That Works For Your Dental Practice
The Dentist Money Show
· · 14 min · Guests: Christine Uhen
Summary
Christine Uhen argues that a dental schedule should be built around two priorities: great patient care and hitting production goals. She says many practices get trapped in chaotic, reactive scheduling, and the fix starts with knowing the daily production target and sharing that goal with the team. The schedule should be designed from the goal backward, not filled randomly.
She recommends reviewing procedure mix and historical volume so the template reflects what the practice actually does, and what it wants to grow, whether that is crowns, implants, fillings, or new patient exams. Uhen also stresses realism: appointment lengths must account for anesthetic time, material setting time, and the real pace of clinical work. That means some white space is acceptable if the production goal is already met.
Her practical advice is to build at least two schedule templates, involve the whole team, and treat the schedule as a living document. If the day runs behind or the mix of services changes, the template should be adjusted after a few weeks rather than left in place unchanged.
Key takeaways
- Christine Uhen says the best schedule balances patient experience with daily production goals, not just packed appointment books.
- She recommends setting production goals at the annual, monthly, daily, and even hourly level so the team knows what the day must deliver.
- Uhen says practices should design blocks around actual procedure mix and growth targets, including crowns, implants, fillings, and new patient visits.
- She warns that appointment timing must reflect real clinical constraints like anesthetic and composite setting time, not wishful thinking.
- Uhen advises creating at least two schedule templates so the practice can offer flexible appointment options without losing structure.
- She says the template should be revised after three to six weeks if it is not consistently working.
Notable quotes
“there are only two things you need to do every day. Number one, take great care of your patients. Number two, reach your production goals”
“knowing what your production goal is. Whether that's taking an annual goal, breaking it down monthly, breaking it down daily”
“Once you've achieved a production goal, there's no reason from a business perspective to add more patience in the day”
“you can't think your way faster. You can't ask the laws of physics to change for you to be able to reduce the time”
“your template is not set in stone. Give it a try for, you know, three, four, 6 weeks”
How the episode opens
Hi everybody, Christine Yuan the business strategist here at Dennis Advisors and I am back with our fifth point of productivity. This is the fifth in our series of how to be more productive growing your top line. Uh we covered tip number one was about understanding your patient base and knowing where some of those numbers of patient base growth.
We did uh points two and three together about diagnostics and case acceptance. What should it be? What is good?
And tip number three was about how to be the advocate to help your patients afford the dental work that they want and need to have done. And our last one today is about scheduling to productivity. And I can assure you that probably everybody listening here can understand what I mean by that crazy roller coaster of inconsistent scheduling.
So that's what today is about. How to create a consistent, repeatable, manageable, successful, and most importantly, create a great experience for your patients with the right schedule.
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One of my mentors, Dr. Bruce Baird, had said all along for the last 20 years, there are only two things you need to do every day. Number one, take great care of your patients.
Number two, reach your production goals. It is okay to have a good business as long as you're taking great care of your patients. And a good schedule template allows and creates the opportunity for you to have the opportunity to create the greatest patient experience as well as make your production goals.
So, how do we do that? Well, in true dentist advisor fashion, it is about getting organized.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- dental practice scheduling
- productivity
- reactive vs structured scheduling
- production targets
- time blocking
Watch the episode
Watch “How to Design a Schedule That Works For Your Dental Practice” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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