7 Proven Time-Saving Strategies Every Principal Dentist Needs to Know

The Pearl Dental Team

7 Proven Time-Saving Strategies Every Principal Dentist Needs to Know

7 Proven Time-Saving Strategies Every Principal Dentist Needs to Know

As a principal dentist, it’s easy to get overwhelmed between your clinical duties, managing your team, and ensuring your dental practice runs smoothly. Many dental practice owners say that ‘it feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day’.

In this article, we’ll share seven practical strategies to help you reclaim those lost hours, so you can focus your time on working on the business instead of in the business.

What You’ll Learn

  • A 15-second adjustment to your appointment diary that prevents last-minute chaos.
  • How to eliminate up to 80% of admin-related headaches with one switch to your workflow.
  • Practical tips that you can apply instantly to save yourself hours of time

1. Use White Space in Your Favour

Many practice owners see white space as “wasted chair time,” but it can actually be one of your most valuable blocks of time. However, there’s a big difference between proactive white space and unintended white space.

Strategic gaps in your diary allow you to manage unexpected emergencies or treatment reviews without double-booking yourself.

Practical Tip:

Set aside daily time for admin tasks like team meetings or approving treatment plans. This could be as little as 15 minutes per day.

These small adjustments help prevent to-dos from piling up and cutting into your clinical time.

Within Pearl Dental Software, this is made easy by using the ‘Find a Slot’ feature. This helps you find the most convenient time to add time blocks in your day.

Find a slot within Pearl Dental Software


2. Go Paperless

Paper forms create a massive bottleneck in dental practice management. They aren’t just outdated—they create inefficiencies that drain time and resources. In contrast, digital intake systems can reduce patient wait times by up to 80%. (1)

For instance, one of our clients, Reginald O’Neill Dental Care, relied on paper for several years. This incurred many hidden costs for the principal, Dr O’Neill – such as filing, storage, and manually scanning back ups.

Following a simple transition handled by our tech team at Pearl, we transformed their documents into a fully digital workflow – saving them hours of administrative time a month.

Practical Tip:

Switch to a paperless patient-facing system like the PearlPad, where patients can complete and sign forms digitally. The documents are automatically saved to their records, reducing clutter and giving reception staff more time to focus on patients.

Loobna using a Pearl Pad to complete an NHS FP17PR Form

Loobna using a Pearl Pad to complete an NHS FP17PR Form


3. Make Remote Management Work for You

Being a practice owner shouldn’t mean sacrificing your personal life. At Pearl, we encounter many principal dentists staying behind after a long day in the surgery, purely to finish off small administrative tasks.

With cloud-based practice management software, you can securely access patient records and financial data no matter where you are. This gives you more time to spend with your family, without sacrificing the growth of your dental practice.

Practical Tip:

Some of the legacy UK practice management software offer remote access. This requires you to sign into a desktop that is running in your practice.

The problem with this arises when multiple users need remote access. Instead, cloud-based practice management software, like Pearl, allows multiple users to access the system remotely, all at the same time.

This means you can check appointment schedules, approve invoices, or resolve minor issues—all without stepping foot in the practice.


4. Reduce No-Shows with Automated Patient Reminders

We discussed the importance of proactive white space earlier. However, unintended white space – in the form of missed appointments – are costly. The loss in chair time can add up if this is a frequent occurrence.

Automated reminder systems help keep patients on track, reducing no-shows and ensuring your day runs smoothly. These can be easily set up via email or SMS, depending on the patient’s preference.

Quick Win:

Set up automated reminders that include an easy rescheduling link for patients who can’t make their original appointment. This keeps your chair time productive and minimizes diary gaps.


5. Use Patient Data to Focus Your Efforts

As a dental practice owner, it is important to focus your efforts on the most profitable areas. Chair time can be easily mismanaged through over-reliance on exams and hygiene.

After all, the cost of chair time has increased to £650 per day over the last 2 years. (2) So, using your patient database to identify highly-profitable treatment subsets is crucial for the future of your practice.

For example, an increase in demand for whitening treatments might prompt you to focus more of your investment on that specific area.

Pro Tip:

Use your practice management software to filter patient records by factors like treatment history or demographics. This enables you to create targeted marketing promotions, fill unused slots, and prioritize high-value treatments.

Filtering Patients in Pearl Dental by Treatment Done


6. Delegate Routine Tasks to Remote Team Members

You don’t need to handle every operational task yourself.

An underrated time-saving strategy is making use of remote team members. This has been popularised within the United States, however it is becoming increasingly popular within the UK.  Routine jobs like patient bookings, follow-ups, or recall reminders can be delegated to virtual receptionists.

This enables your in-house members to focus on higher-value tasks, such as individual patient care or compliance tasks.

Actionable Advice:

Opt for a system that supports secure, remote access for team members. This allows them to manage essential tasks without compromising patient data security or GDPR compliance.

Pearl is an example of this type of system. We utilise cloud-based technology to allow practice team members secure access to your patient management software.


7. Invest in Your Team

Even the best dental management software won’t save you time if your team doesn’t know how to use it effectively. Regular training ensures that everyone is confident and efficient, reducing mistakes and delays.

Suggestion:

Schedule monthly check-ins with your team to review processes and address any challenges. Small tweaks to your daily workflow can save you hours of time over the course of a year.

The Pearl Dental Team


Summary

By implementing these seven strategies, you can reclaim hours every week, reduce stress, and refocus your energy where it’s most needed.

Your practice management software is a vital tool for achieving that. There’s nothing worse than a sluggish system that slows down, and fails when you need it most.

Whether it’s optimizing your appointment diary, using patient data effectively, or empowering your team with better training, small changes can lead to significant time savings.

See how Pearl can save you even more time today

You can book a demo with our team. This won’t just be a presentation – this is an opportunity for you to discuss what you need to make your practice run more smoothly.

As always, we will work with you to find the best solution for your practice.

 

1 – https://www.dentaleconomics.com/practice/article/14213408/automation-is-driving-the-next-dentistry-revolution

2 – https://dentistry.co.uk/2024/08/13/is-your-dental-practice-profitable/

 

 

Ben Baker
ben.baker@bhasoftware.com