"We have been Sterling clients since June of 2000 - just a few months. I talked with Dr. Greg Bixby, who recommended Sterling to me. At the time, in my office, I felt that I was maxed out as far as my production went. I had hit the limit on my schedule and on the space that we were in, and on getting new patients scheduled in. I felt that we were topped out for the way that we were running. We needed to get more organized and run differently if we were going to produce any more.

"As my wife and I went through the training, there were a lot of things that came up which we could relate directly to our office. For example: getting people to do their jobs, organizing and having a hierarchy of responsibility.

"Before, basically, everything would come back to me. Sterling pointed out all the ways you can organize your office so that not every communication has to come to you, but can be handled and taken care of by other staff members. I thought, as I was going through the training, 'Yeah! I can see where I can use this to correct this particular problem.' It was like that right on down the line.

"Sterling had given us a 'battle plan' of things to do when we got back to our practice, and we started doing them as soon as we returned. These were suggestions our consultant had given us during our consultations.

"Based on our training, we've assigned staff members more specific duties. Instead of having overlap between staff members where multiple staff members would be doing the same job but at different times, now we have made one person more responsible for each area. That way, all questions concerning that area are directed to them.

"We reorganized how we schedule. We schedule more by operatory now, rather than just by procedures. We added another operatory, so we have five now. We have two hygienists who stay busy in their own operatories, and I use the other three.

"We've definitely increased our production. August was our highest-producing month ever, about 20% more than we've ever done before. That's a pretty dramatic improvement.

"The Sterling system has been very beneficial, because it has freed up so much time for me. I've managed to delegate to other people a lot of things I used to do. It has really, really given me a lot more free time. It's definitely made me a better manager and executive. We're much more organized. The time it has freed up is going into my operatories. Now we are able to see more people without everybody being zoned out. Even though we're seeing more people and doing more, it doesn't seem as hard. We're not as harried.

"The feedback I am getting from my staff is positive. They are enjoying this. The way it worked before, you'd have a couple of people trying to do the same thing, but if it got tougher then everyone would walk away from it. There was a lot of discontent among the staff, too, because if they felt like so-and-so wasn't doing her job as well as she should, there was no way to address it. Now they have an avenue for that, too. So they really appreciate it.

"As we stick with this program and keep things moving the way they are moving, everything will continue to improve for us. The way I look at it, production is the bonus. I was trying to get things organized enough so that I could have more free time and the staff would feel better about everything that is going on, and we'd have the scheduling a bit more under control. That is the way it is going."