It has been estimated that dental practices can get as much as 20% increase in production simply by effective utilization of preblocking. Preblocking means blocking time on the appointment book for primary procedures.
Why is this important? Let's look at some numbers. If a practice wants to produce $1 million per year, assuming the doctor works 46 weeks at 4 days per week, that works out to close to $5500 per day. Virtually the only way to meet this kind of production goal is if half of the production each day comes from primary procedures. However, if the day is filled with secondary and tertiary procedures, the primary procedures must be delayed until the schedule allows the appointment.
If preblocking is used to reserve a calculated number of appointment slots for comprehensive care and quadrant dentistry, performing multiple procedures when possible, these types of procedures can be booked sooner and production goals can be met more easily. Many practices like to block time each morning when the energy level for the staff is higher. There is usually sufficient diagnosed treatment sitting in the charts to fill many of these times. Advanced dental software programs like ACE allow you to search pretreatment items to find patients for these appointments.
If categories are chosen for each appointment type, the "Search for next available appointment" function will honor the preblock categories in the book. The search function allows you to override the preblock for the next "x" days. This defaults to two days, but you can specify any number you want.
To see more about preblocking in ACE, click here.