Client interview, October 2016
How long have you owned your dental practice?
We purchased our practice just over 20 months ago in November 2014. I (Alastair) am a dentist and Jessica is the practice manager with a legal and economics background.
How were you introduced to Prime Practice?
We were introduced by a dentist friend who worked at a Prime Practice. They showed me some resources on the Prime Practice website that were really valuable and I became interested in Prime.
At the time, I was still working as an associate, so I attended Primespeak and got a better understanding of how Prime Practice works. At that early stage in my dental career, it was just so great to know there was a company out there supporting dentists.
When we started our own practice, we wanted to have Prime on board to help us navigate the waters. So we attended Practice Owner’s Workshop.
What did you gain from that workshop?
We did the workshop 6 months into owning a practice, which was the ideal time. The topics provided a glimpse into practice ownership and the issues faced on a daily basis. At this point, it was good to know we weren’t the only ones facing the issues mentioned and to learn there were ways to make life easier. It really gave us a lot to think about and a good snapshot of where we are and where we could be.
We actually felt like we were going ok, but it was about trying to learn from the experts with experience and learn what we could do better. The intention was always to try and build our dream practice. We didn’t have any sort of systems, so learning how to systemise many aspects of our practice was a massive learning. Implementing these was another thing, but has really helped make things more efficient.
What do you think are the key things Prime Practice has helped with?
Primespeak has really changed the way we interact with patients. It’s an incredibly powerful thing to get patients to trust us and understand we are always trying to do the best by them.
And also understanding the importance of having active maintenance processes in place has been key. This has really helped us build our practice.
In a nut-shell, Prime Practice has really helped us align our practice. Aligning our patient communication so our whole team speaks the same language with patients, and also aligning our communication and management of our team.
How have you found the coaching experience?
This has been a great asset for us. Our coach always seems to pin point key areas for us to focus on. She has been great and managed to help us take things to another level. After each call, we feel really empowered, we have an action plan, we know what to do and the next step. As business owners, you can get caught up in the day-to-day grind. Knowing the call is coming up keeps us accountable and makes sure we take the time to grow the business and focus on it. Helps us keep up with the work and implement systems when possible.
You have recently grown. How did that come about?
We have recently hired a new hygienist and dentist. Initially, it felt a bit awkward handing our patients to other people, but we worked with our coach and the communication with our patients became much easier… Having a coach to help us with the transition to introducing these two new key team members made it easier to get them aligned into the practice. And it’s great, both these two new team members have been able to learn a bit of the Prime Practice way using the online learning videos. They have workshops coming up in September to truly get them on board, but the videos are a great interim step.
Dr Alastair Fung, Principal Dentist & Jessica Chua, Practice Manager.