 Hello everybody, Andrew and Maeski here with Dental L. So let's have a little chat together. Let's just talk about the never ending paperwork that I seem to have to do in my practice. Does anybody else feel like this or is it only me? Now I felt that it was never ending before because I did not have a dental software so anytime that I sent claims to insurance it would be by paper, which is annoying as heck. And trust me though, when I got my dental, my dental software, dental hygiene software I should say, DomeTrack, they're amazing. I hope I'm pronouncing their company name properly. But it has saved me a ton of time but I'm still doing so much work but it's my own fault because I tend to put these off and then a bunch kind of comes onto my plate and then I feel like I have to do it all. So I have some little tips for everybody. You might be doing this or maybe not, I don't know. But so this is more for people who have their practice and aren't hiring anybody else to kind of help them. I would love to hire somebody but I'm a control freak so I'm just not at that stage of the game yet. So if you're a one man or woman show and you are a dental hygienist, your own practice these are some tips for you. Number one is do things as they come. And I say this meaning, let's say you're seeing three patients that day. Do your notes after every single patient. Do not wait to do your treatment notes until the end of the day because you will forget. I always forget. Take the time. If you're behind for your next patient, so be it. That's okay. Do those notes after every single patient. Again, just do as much as you can for that patient at that time. Now I do have a mobile hygiene practice so I go to patients houses plus I see patients in my own home too but primarily at the moment it seems to be all mobile hygiene. So where I'm getting at is I do all of my charting by my Apple watch. So I actually click the record feature and I do charting that way. And then when I come home, I listen to it and do charting for the odontogram or just simply whatever I had talked about. But what I've been doing is I have not been doing it as soon as I get home because I'm exhausted. So I will wait until the next day but then I'm tired again. So then I put it off, put it off, put it off. When I finally get around to it, there's like 10 patients where I have to fill in the odontogram for. So don't be like me. Do it after every patient, okay? So I'm kind of reminding myself of this as I'm talking about it. Do it after every patient. Even as I'm saying this, I have three patients that I have to do from yesterday because I was too tired when I came home. Okay, anyways, insurance stuff. If you are that nice person like I am, that actually helps your patients and sends everything through to insurance for them and they only have to pay the difference. That means extra paperwork. Kind of the same thing from point number one is just do everything as it comes. Send everything through to their insurance right away. Now, there's a little exception to this rule. If you know that you're seeing say three patients that week with sunlight insurance, maybe wait until the end of the week to put all of those claims through, those paper claims since we cannot send electronically, but those paper claims through the one envelope. So you save a little bit of money on stamps. You save a little bit to only have to use the one envelope. That's just kind of what I've been doing and that does sort of help me manage my time a little bit. But don't wait two weeks or three weeks because then you don't get paid, right? Another tip for you that I had thought that I was always super organized, but it's the same type of thing where I put things off and put things off. Meaning if patients have secondary insurance, write that down somewhere. Whether it be in your computer software where it sends you a reminder in a month's time to check to see if that claim form from their primary insurance has come back. So then you can send to the secondary, okay? Have a reminder for yourself. Because when I first started, I didn't think that I would have as many patients as I do. So a good problem to have, but I just assumed that I would remember everybody who has secondary insurance and then send it through that way. Don't ask me why I thought that, but it doesn't happen. So make a note somewhere of those patients that you see that have secondary insurance so you can check and then submit it right away. Because I'm still finding patients from like September that I forgot to send it through to the secondary. So that's money on the table that I could have, right? So make sure to do that. Another thing, which I'm still not doing, so I'm kind of a hypocrite right now, but it was because I didn't know how. But what you should be doing is printing out your day ends, your day end reports. I was not doing it right away because I tried with the dental software. It just wasn't working. I thought I was doing something wrong, but now that I finally figured it out, they do say you should do that every single day. Now I don't see patients every day. Sometimes I see one patient, sometimes I see two patients, sometimes I see four patients. So for me, I do it at the end of the week. But you probably see more patients than I do. So do it every day. So then that way you can keep things organized, everybody. That's the key. For tax purposes, if you are a mobile dental hygienist, like I am, you should get the app QuickBooks and keep track of your transportation. Every time you go to a patient's house, what am I trying to say? You need to put down the kilometers traveled the address of that house, who you saw and why, and then the kilometers for on the way back. It's a pain in the bum, but that's how you will get that tax right off, but you have to make note of all of that. Do it right away. I used to have a spreadsheet on my computer, but I find I'm not always at my computer. So I now have it on my iPad, where it's just all right here. So even as I'm in the car, I just quickly do that so I don't have to worry about it at the end of the week because things come up, you get tired. Keep track of that. So I did mention the QuickBooks app. That has been so nice for me. So your dental software is kind of like a QuickBooks too, where it should keep track of everything, but I use QuickBooks for other things too. So anytime that I purchase dental supplies, any expenses, I put that in my QuickBooks app, and that actually keeps track of what I'm spending. When I first opened up my own practice, when I needed something, I just simply bought it. But now that it's been a year, I do have an idea of what I need and what I don't need. Some things I'm like literally ordering every single month, but I'm trying not to do that because if you order a certain amount, you get free shipping. So I'm trying to place bigger orders. It's harder on the credit card, but if you get free shipping, save like 13, sometimes $30 per transaction, you kind of want to do that, right? Keep track of those expenses. I'm hoping you're at least doing that for tax purposes because that will be a pain in the bum to have to go back later, but keep track. Like I am so organized now, where I have categories actually in my QuickBooks app, such as Amazon because I do purchase like some things on Amazon, including I just bought a side table, a portable side table for my mobile hygiene practice. I bought Daisy Chain bib clips off of Amazon because they're a lot cheaper. I bought safety glasses for my patients off of Amazon, again, a lot cheaper, but keep track of that too. So I have a category for Amazon. I use the company Maxill for a lot of my ordering. I use the website KDental for a lot of my ordering. So I keep track of things that way. So then it just kind of helps you manage your money a little bit better too. These might seem like super obvious things to you, but it took me actually a while to learn. So I hope that this helps. I'm sure I have more tips, but those are just kind of most important ones that I can think of now. Any questions, let me know. I'm so happy to help. And thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you guys in the next one.