Professional Planning Assessment.  
A Professional Planning Assessment determines what is working and what is not working in your practice operations and allows you to focus on what is missing and what it will take for you and your practice operations.   

Echelon Consulting Group is unique in the diagnostic approach we take in discovering and reporting the particular needs and dilemmas of your individual practice.  Our individualized approach is a departure from the generic national consulting “seminars” that have defined dental management consulting for many years.  Instead of a generic approach that offers the same solution for all practices, we offer custom tailored solutions designed to achieve your stated goals. 

Purpose of Service.  In order to make a diagnosis and to prescribe a plan of action in accordance with your personal goals, we conduct a comprehensive analysis and examination of your practice, its current systems and their effectiveness and areas of deficiency.

Intended Results.  You will become clear how your practice measures up to current standards of management effectiveness.  Areas of strength will be identified.  Weaknesses will also be revealed that have been holding your practice back. 

Structure.  The Professional Planning Assessment looks at your practice with a critical eye and examines at least 365 different elements of your practice, and staff.  It includes an extensive comprehensive questionnaire for the doctor.

The Professional Planning Assessment includes the following:  Doctor questionnaire, Doctor personal interview and goal statement, staff interviews and in-office observations of key elements of your practice.  The Assessment includes an evaluation of the previous two years’ Profit and Loss Statement in comparison with our financial model for efficient well run quality practices, and a consultation report in both written and oral form.  The report concludes with a strategic game plan for step by step implementation.

Strategic Planning and Action Plans.
The surest way to achieve a goal is to first visualize it, then plan a path to that desired place.  Most dental practices never truly plan.  Strategic Planning provides a step by step roadmap to future success.   

Purpose.  To provide the guidance and plans for intended results on a future horizon of 1 year, 3 years, 5 years or other horizons important to you.

Results.  You achieve specific measurable goals on an intentional timeline.

Structure.  Strategic Planning provides action plans by setting specific measurable benchmark goals.  Strategic Planning takes a hazy future and clarifies it by assigning specific benchmark dates to the plan. 

Business Plans. 
Many practices simply do not have a working knowledge of basic business principles.  Just like a comprehensive patient treatment plan, we compose and write a plan that outlines the approaches needed to bring your practice from its current condition of challenges and performance issues to a preferred future.  This is strategic planning for the economic future of your practice.  We provide you with a written roadmap to business success that ensures an organized step by step improvement of your practice.

Purpose of Service.  A Business Plan gives you a road map of logical steps to take to reach your goals.  You set your own goals and we show you how to achieve them.

Intended Results.  The results you want in your dental practice are achieved by following a step by step business plan. 

Structure.  A written step by step business plan is presented to you based on the findings of your Professional Planning Assessment. 

Critical Issue Analysis.
Short term management consulting that will focus on one or two specific issues that can be resolved within 90 days.  We will analyze current issues that have risen or may soon arise to crisis proportions.  This is for the practice that has an emergency management situation, or financial dilemma that seems to be overwhelming the doctor and/or staff. 

Purpose of Service.  To extinguish management and/or financial fires before they get out of control.  Better yet, we will train you how to prevent the fires that are lurking on the horizon.

Intended Results.  Resolution of a burning issue or issues in 90 days or less, with a plan for future prevention of the management issue, or financial dilemma.

Structure.  Our work is accomplished by on-site one-on-one training for the doctor and the staff.  Solutions are discussed and projects are created to in order to address your issues and to reach your stated goals.  Milestones are set and measured along the way.

Mission and Goals. 
This is what really makes things happen.   Truly successful doctors define their successes by meeting or exceeding their personal, professional and financial goals. 

Purpose.  A mission statement provides you with the opportunity to really think about what you want in your life and in your practice and provides a framework in which to set goals.

Intended Results.  Having a personal and professional mission will produce a sense of satisfaction, knowing that you are indeed fulfilling your desired purpose in dentistry. 

Structure.  Through a dialogue with your consultant you will identify and clarify your values and crystallize exactly what it is that you want to do with your professional career.  Your consultant will use a series of meetings, questionnaires and interviews along with workshops for the doctor and staff members to help determine your personal and professional mission.  Personal goals can be shared with your staff where appropriate.  This process leads to a very concise personal and practice mission and a defined set of goals to be fulfilled. 

Communications. 
The ability of an office staff to effectively communicate with each other and with patients determines how effectively the practice develops a culture of trust.  This “culture of trust” is the key to harmonious working relationships and patients acceptance of treatment plans, fees, and financial arrangements. 

Business communications begin with a shared purpose and mission.  Communication is a means of sharing through verbal interaction the ideas, feelings, fears, pains, frustrations, successes, happiness, and achievements of the business day.

Purpose.  One of the first steps in developing a well-managed business is to establish excellent communication.  Communication is the key to the success of every system in the dental office, every behavior of staff and patients, the professional satisfaction of the doctor, and the job satisfaction and security of the staff. 

Intended Results.  Communication sets the tone of the office and determines the success of case presentation and case acceptance.  It determines the quality of job experience for staff, and the quality of the professional experience of the doctor.

Structure.  Your consultant will guide you through our communication materials in several workshops, to give you and your staff the skills necessary to become more sophisticated business communicators.

Communication begins with face-to-face meetings and briefings.  The typical dental practice requires at least the following minimum meetings and briefings:  Morning Huddle, Daily Management Briefings, Weekly Staff Meetings, and Monthly Staff Strategy Sessions. 

Productivity and Profitability. 
We have the best planning and tracking tools in the industry and we don’t keep them secret; they go on your computer.  This is where everybody else starts and finishes in the consulting world. 

Purpose.  We want you to have easy access to the information that will tell you how your business is doing.

Intended Results.  Every month when you have the financial status of your practice at your fingertips, you are able to see what area of your practice needs attention.  It is far easier to address a small problem before it becomes a big one.

Structure.  We provide you with a customized software tracking tool to monitor your monthly statistics. 

Marketing. 
We believe the best practices should also be the best known.  Superior services combined with excellent communications will create permanent sources of new patients. 

Personal Coaching Programs.
Confidential hands on coaching for doctors and select key staffers who want to be better leaders.  These programs are for leaders who want to take their leadership skills to the next level by increasing their capability to produce results through others and to dramatically improve the contributions they make.  Issues may include both business and personal. 

Personal attention to your issues and concerns.  Personal telephone conferencing provides direct contact to address the ongoing success strategies and emerging issues during times of change and implementation.  No other program is as personal and “doctor directed.”

Purpose of Service.  We move you forward by clarifying your thinking which will be reflected in your practice. You translate your ideas into action by working through your thoughts and applying them to your practice.

Intended Results.  Your practice reflects who you are and what you want your practice to be.

For more information about our services and programs, or get started call 1-800-954-8002, send email or complete our online information request form.