Dr. Rob Smith and the Team at Dripping Springs Family Dentistry Enjoy Deeper Connections and Higher Collections

Dr. Rob Smith and the Team at Dripping Springs Family Dentistry Enjoy Deeper Connections and Higher Collections

Dr. Rob Smith of Dripping Springs Family Dentistry founded his practice in 2000 with a mission that includes the simple but impactful phrase:

We are here to serve our patients and each other.

From the beginning, Dr. Smith wanted to be more than the premier destination for family-friendly dentistry in a modern and relaxed environment. He established a vision; articulated his values of loyalty, relationships, integrity, compassion, and quality; and set about building a patient-focused culture that was as beneficial to the team as it was to the patients.

“Our goal is to create trusting relationships with our patients and inspire them to a lifetime of healthy, beautiful smiles. We provide state-of-the-art dentistry to achieve the best possible treatment outcomes, always with the patient’s best interests at heart. We’re enthusiastic and considerate, use an old-fashioned caring touch, and treat patients like family to make them feel as comfortable as they would be at home,” said Dr. Smith.

Administration: A Make-or-Break Component

Despite the expertise of the doctor, the caliber of the administrative team, especially the Office Manager or lead administrator, can make or break the success of a practice.

Fifteen years ago Dr. Smith and Ms. Sunny Cardenas were fortunate to find each other. After opting to relocate away from the hustle and bustle of the Houston area, Sunny submitted her resume as Office Manager to “a cute little office in the beautiful Texas Hill Country outside Austin. And the rest, as they say, is history!”

In Sunny, Dr. Smith found an Office Manager and leader who wholeheartedly believes in the mission and shares his values. In fact, she credits their outstanding culture as one of the primary reasons Dripping Springs Family Dentistry was honored as an eAssist Top Practice in August 2021 – awarded to the practice as a whole in recognition that it takes a cohesive unit to run a practice to the highest standards.

The precise details of what it takes to be a Top Practice may differ somewhat between the viewpoint of a practitioner compared to an Office Manager, but clearly Dr. Smith and Sunny have been in lockstep on what’s most important over the years. From Sunny’s perspective, being a Top Practice entails these key elements:

• A strong doctor with a clear vision who lives the values that support a great culture, provides leadership, and has a heart. And, of course, delivers superior clinical results for his patients. Not surprisingly, Sunny loves working for Dr. Smith, considers him “a really good guy” with whom she has developed a mutually trusting relationship over their 15 years of working together, to the benefit of the patients, the team and the practice.
• A strong team that drives the culture set by the doctor. Everyone must share the vision and core values; always keep the patient’s best interest at heart; and communicate and connect with patients and one another. “It doesn’t happen overnight; it takes time, resilience, good leadership, and heart from everybody. Everyone who comes into the office can tell we have a great dynamic. It makes it easy to get up and go to work every day!” observed Sunny.
• Stay humble and hustle; always work to continuously improve for the betterment of the practice and patients.

Improved Patient Connections

Sunny has always viewed dentistry as “extremely relational.” And yet, she and team members were frequently too bogged down with administrative tasks to be able to connect with patients to the degree they wanted to. In April 2020, Dripping Springs joined the eAssist platform to completely outsource their billing department.

Ever since, she and team members have had the time and energy to be much more relational with their valued patients. They’re able to sit and spend time communicating and connecting on a deeper level, understanding fears and anxieties, and listening to their stories. Another beneficial outcome is that “treatment plan acceptance has gone up quite a bit” – a plus for the patient and the practice.

eAssist has taken the busyness off our plates – time spent on EOBs, posting payments, calling insurance companies, playing phone tag, writing appeals, and following up. It’s made all the difference in the world!

Outside the office, Dr. Smith and the team are proud to connect with even more people in the community by supporting local events and school functions, and shopping locally.

Improved Operations

Operational excellence and efficiency have also improved as a result of Sunny’s time and energy being freed up.

Since joining the eAssist platform, average monthly production has increased by 53%. Instead of the in-house team being bogged down with the additional administrative workload, their eAssist team of dental billing specialists has simultaneously increased average monthly insurance collections by 98% and average total monthly collections by 70%, and decreased patient balances by 82%.

Thanks to eAssist, I can better perform my role as Office Administrator. I have time to communicate with the team, analyze systems and how well they’re working across departments, and provide feedback.

Equally valuable, Sunny now benefits from the feedback she gets from her team because she’s more available and accessible to receive it. She used to hear from her team that she was always so busy and they didn’t want to bother her. And, she knew patients felt the same way.

She appreciates eAssist as “part of our team; if I have a question they’re always there and they know what’s happening. They give me, and everyone else on the team, time to communicate and connect with our patients and each other.”

To learn from others honored as eAssist Top Practices visit www.dentalbilling.com, and subscribe to our top-rated How We Did It podcasts on which Dentists Teach Dentists by candidly sharing their experiences, best practices, and what sets them apart in their communities.