What Accounting Practices Can Learn From New Age Dental Practices
What does the dentist of the year get?
A little plaque.
Always having Done Something A Time Honoured Way, Doesn’t Mean We Should Continue Doing It That Way.
I live on a point on a Lake. You come down a long lane and at the end it opens to a circle of 20 homes. Our point, along with the rest of our lake, is very social. It’s like living at a cottage, but all the time…
Our livers hate us.
Our hearts love us, though. And our teeth.
Because on our point - of 20 homes - there are 4 dentists! Plus there are a few more elsewhere on the lake.
So while we really could use a liver transplant surgeon living out here, we have fabulous dental knowledge.
What we have learned from them is that there are many new ways of caring for our teeth. Both in the processes we use and in the technology available to us.
Here are a few useful tidbits:
Processes
Don’t brush your teeth right after you eat and drink. Wait 30 minutes.
Your enamel is soft, and it has remnants of the food and beverage on it. Meaning you are really grinding the bitsy bits into it.
This is even more of an issue if you have eaten or dranken (it’s a word) something acidic.
Rinsing washes away the benefits of the goodies in toothpaste, like fluoride.
This is especially true if you have sensitive teeth, and use a paste designed to mitigate the sensitivity.
Floss before you brush.
You need to rinse after you floss. So do it before you brush your teeth because now you know not to rinse after brushing.
Technology
Vibrating brushes are awesome!
They make it easy to move the bristles around to all areas of your teeth and mouth and take away the urge to brush too hard.
There are battery operated ones now that are terrific, so you don’t need to have the plug in charger on your counter or drag it around while traveling.
There are a ton of great bits of low and high tech for flossing now.
Water pics are amazing - even if they do have a weird technical name, oral irrigators…
But you will have more space hogging paraphernalia related to tooth-care. Which if you live in a small home, or are a frequent traveler may be an issue.
There are these little floss sticks that have the string taught in a small plastic tool, for you to use in an easy to press through your teeth manner.
They are not meant to replace regular flossing with the full string, but they are convenient to keep in your car or your wallet for when you are on the go.
They are also great if you are a lousy flosser. They don’t do as good a job as water picks or full string flossing but using them is waaaay better than not flossing at all!
The technology used in forward action dental practices is mind blowing.
Just think for a minute about the new xray machines!
How about braces and mouth guards now - wth Invisilign coming into being!
3D printing is being used to create dentures.
The patient experience in the chair is not the only thing that has changed. The whole dynamic of coming in for dental work and the office administration has improved.
Many dental practices now make it engaging to come to their offices.
There are fireplaces and cozy chairs in the waiting area.
There are TVs on the ceilings.
You get to wear really cool sunglasses while they work on you.
The front office systems are techified.
You can book and reschedule online (buh-bye call reluctance)!
There are automated appointment reminders.
You can have your recipts emailed to you and sent directly to a benefits provider.
It’s easy to pay for the big work with set it and forget it payment plans.
So while this may all be very interesting - or perhaps not - I want you to reconsider using some of the long standing, illogically revered processes and technology in accounting practices.
It’s weird and scary - for both the firm and the clients - to contemplate making changes.
The what if-s, the I’m not sure-s, the we’ve always done it this way and it’s worked out fine-s - they are the attitudes that make it hard to implement change.
Change though - if just taking a look at the benefits for the near future not the comfort of the time honoured past - would improve client outcomes immensely.*
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Sociable
- said in your head in a loud sing-songy voice
There were a few posts put in The Workflow Wateringhole citing security concerns with human intervention in the OCR process for our receipt capture apps.
Here’s the summary response form me.
“I want to start with: data security is very, very important to me. So thank you for posting the articles.
I am gathering up to date info and statements from my app partners to post their thoughts and hopefully mitigate some concerns. Stay tuned…
These are very old - very old - articles in the lifespan of AI and OCR technology. This is important to keep in mind.**
In the meantime, I wanted to point out that it is critical that we all:
1. Define what are sensitive documents (Incorporation docs and tax returns for example), what is sensitive information (Social Insurance Numbers) and what is relatively not sensitive (day to day receipts, for example)
2. Have a process, that we impart to our clients and team, of how to share sensitive vs not sensitive stuff
3. What other security polices need to be implemented to mitigate risk around things like home addresses being on docs”
Simply yours, Kellie :-}
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*Consider that all the new tech changes, which are so great to be on the receiving end of, are only being used at forward thinking dental practices!
**The articles were from 2017 and 2018
PS: A friend of mine, Dr. Jeff Sumner, a “Key Opinion Leader” (cool term) advocates on dental technology on so many fronts.
From cosmetic surgery technology, orthodontics to endodontics, Jeff and his partners have led the way on promoting and implementing new technology to benefit dental patients.
Jeff is not unlike some of the APIAs*** I follow who are trying to promote change in our indutry, so I find him interesting to follow as the dental industry has change reluctance just like the accounting industry.
***APIAs Accounting Professionals I Admire
