Every successful dental practice needs a current operating standards manual in printed, easily accessible form so all involved can make the practice mission happen on a daily basis. That manual defines those goals and what each team member is expected to do, and how, to help reach them.
Standard Operating Procedures for Pediatric Dentists by Marsha Freeman is the model of such a manual, easily customized to reflect the needs and style of your practice. It can be quickly adapted to implement new policies and procedures and reflect changes to those already in place. It is divided into eight sections or departments: Mission Statement, General Front Office, Accounts Receivable and Bookkeeping, General Back Office, Hygiene, Management and Marketing, Performance Agreements, and Forms.
The individual SOPs are provided as editable Microsoft Word files, either compressed as a direct download upon checkout completion, or on CD with the physical edition. Identify a specific task, find its counterpart SOP on the CD, and edit it to describe the way it’s done in your office (or the way you want it done), print it, and replace it in the binder—that is, your new Standard Operating Procedures manual! Working from a model saves you hundreds of hours work! While no manual could provide templates for every task in the modern practice, finding one close enough to start from saves you and staff from starting with a blank page, wondering how to even start.
The files are editable in all versions of Microsoft Word (as the older .DOC file type) for maximum compatibility but can be opened and edited in any application that can open the .DOC format. Depending on the practice, distribution of the finished SOPs could be as straightforward as hard copies in departmental binders. More tech-savvy offices could just as easily post the SOPs as PDFs to an intranet or internal server for access through any desktop or other connected device. Many options are available, from the native .DOC/DOCX, PDF, even HTML, but only you know what will work best in your practice. We are not selling proprietary formats or software-based solutions with ongoing storage costs or upgrade and iteration fees, just the examples and representative samples of how tasks are done to help you standardize how they are done by your team.
