The essential toolkit for becoming a therapy-led practice

Thinking of becoming a therapy-led practice? Cat Edney shares an essential, practical tool to simplify referrals, boost collaboration and support a smooth transition.

Becoming a therapy-led practice isn’t as simple as making a decision to become therapy-led – no matter how determined a business owner may be. There are multiple hurdles and considerations along the way.

Practices that attempt this transition often encounter similar challenges:

Your dental therapist is unsure where to start: they may lack confidence in treatment planning, performing examinations, or even pricing appropriately
Your associates are confused: they feel conflicted about how shared care benefits them, worry about liability, and experience imposter syndrome when they are no longer the sole clinician managing patient care
As a practice owner, many questions remain unanswered: you may be uncertain about financial sustainability, how to structure pay within this model, or whether you can generate enough patient flow to keep both associates and therapists busy while covering operating costs
Patient acceptance is another key concern: how will patients react to this change? What will happen to your business if you don’t adapt? And how much financial strain can your practice withstand if you continue with the traditional ‘one dentist, one list, one income’ model?

Having worked with multiple practices to implement sustainable and profitable shared-care models, I’ve developed a range of tools to help businesses and teams create systems that work for them. These resources are designed to ensure every process is optimised, every concern is addressed, and every question has an answer.

To celebrate National Dental Hygienist and Dental Therapist Day, I’m giving away one of the key tools: my Modern Therapist therapy-led toolkit: you can download it here.

The therapy-led toolkit

This tool is designed to help guide conversations and streamline referral systems within your practice. It provides a structured approach to managing referrals between clinicians for any treatment type. By using this tool, you can:

Clearly define what should be referred
Establish who should receive the referral
Determine what information is required
Identify what type of appointment is needed.

How to use this tool

Download the PDF here
Customise it for your practice: adapt the framework to reflect your team’s specific needs and workflows
Train your team: ensure all clinicians understand the referral process and their role within it
Implement and refine: test the system, gather feedback and make adjustments as needed to optimise efficiency and patient care.

This tool will help you create a streamlined, effective referral system that works for any clinician and any treatment type – helping your practice transition to a successful therapy-led model with confidence.

How to customise your referral protocol

I use this framework to help facilitate conversations between clinicians about how and when referrals should be made. Each type of treatment will require a new protocol to be devised. I like to start with something that is more universally understood, such as a two-surface restoration, but this protocol builder will also work when discussing referrals for indirect restorations and specialist treatments where the decision making often varies from clinician to clinician.

By putting these protocols in place and specifying each clinician’s process, you are able to ensure referrals are made to the right clinician at the right time and patients are able to access care without unnecessary barriers. It is worth noting that having access to digital imagery, scans and radiographs will support this process.

1. Define what should be referred – for this example, we are discussing a two-surface restoration

Outline the types of case that requires referral and categorise them by complexity:

Basic cases (eg simple restorations that are D1or D2, not subgingival)
Moderate cases (eg more advanced caries, either close to pulp or extensive to matrix)
Complex cases (eg subgingival, requiring crown lengthening)

2. Identify the appropriate clinician for each referral

Clarify who should receive these referrals within your team, ensuring proper delegation:

Eg basic and moderate cases to the dental therapist
Complex cases that involve crown lengthening to the dentist with special interest.

3. Standardise required information for referrals

Prevent miscommunication by defining the necessary details:

Clinical notes
Radiographs
Vitality testing
Intraoral scans
Treatment objectives.

4. Establish appointment types and duration

Structure appointments to align with referral complexity:

5. Set financial considerations

Ensure transparent pricing for consultations and treatments:

Is a pre consultation required for any of the complexities?
What fees are to be quoted in each case?

6. Clarify decision making and follow-up

Define how referrals are communicated, how clinicians can approve treatments being booked with them, and who follows this up and books the appointments.

Utilise a communication platform such a task manager to ensure referrals are trackable.

Click here to download and implement your therapy-led toolkit.