Practice Production Prioritized: Score your practice results

Most practices do not have a checklist of key performance indicators (KPIs) that they use to analyze monthly performance. Nor do they have a scoring method to determine how well they're performing in each area. Here's a good list of key factors that determine practice success:

• Production

• Production per day

• Production per doctor

• Production per hygienist

• Percentage of current active patients scheduled for next appointment

• Overhead

• Collections

• Percentage of revenue adjusted for insurance write-offs

• Percentage of revenue adjusted for courtesy write-offs

• Customer service complaints documented

• Number of new positive patient reviews

• Practice punctuality relative to patient schedule

Try the "traffic light" method

It is critical to evaluate your performance every month in each of these areas and create a scoring method that is easy and useful for your team. The simple scoring method known as red-yellow-green (think traffic light) can be helpful.

Green means you are doing very well while yellow means something is not going well and needs attention. Red means things are going poorly, and immediate attention is required.

This approach is easy to understand and one that every member of the team can relate to. To implement this rubric, assign every team member to score the tasks that fall into their area of responsibility. For each factor on the list, apply a score of green, yellow, or red using the predetermined performance target as the benchmark.

Let's use an example. Levin Group recommends that you collect 98% of all money owed to the office. Sally, who hypothetically works at your front desk, is responsible for collections and is currently collecting only 91%. At the monthly KPI review, she would report collections as "yellow" because the target is not being met and action is required. Mary, the office manager, is responsible for managing the practice expenses and monitoring overhead. Levin Group recommends that general practices target an overhead percentage of 59%. 

urrently, Mary sees that the practice overhead at 58%, so she reports the score as "green."

Implementing this system

This simple scoring system accomplishes several important objectives for the team:

1. It reduces the amount of time needed during the monthly staff meeting to review KPIs.

2. It allows the doctor to focus on the areas of concern (yellow and red).

3. It simplifies data into practical measurements that everyone on the team can quickly grasp.

4. It allows for positive reinforcement opportunities when conditions improve from red to yellow or from yellow to green.

When you introduce this color-coded system, it is important to explain that no practice is perfect all the time and that everyone needs to work toward having their key responsibilities "in the green." Those KPIs that aren't green are easily identifiable, allowing the team to work together to develop ideas for improvement and suggest steps that will improve the score before next month's meeting. If any KPI is red, immediate steps should be identified, and the doctor or office manager needs to closely monitor the situation.

Many businesses have become more complex, and dentistry has as well. One way to simplify your practice is to adopt the red-yellow-green KPI scoring approach. Doing so will allow team members to better understand their responsibilities and expectations, which will advance your practice performance very quickly.

Editor's note: This article appeared in the September 2025 print edition of Dental Economics magazine. Dentists in North America are eligible for a complimentary print subscription. Sign up here.