What the dashboard shows
What should a dental production dashboard show?
MyDentalForce Production Command shows one production number per office, read from the practice management system, next to the two numbers that give it meaning: what is already scheduled and what the office is aiming for. That is the job of a dental production dashboard. Actual production on its own says what happened; actual beside scheduled beside target says whether the month is on track and what it will take to close the gap. In a single office, that is the figure the owner and the office manager look at together. In a multi-office group, it is the same figure in every location, side by side, so the dental KPIs mean the same thing in every office.
The scorecard exists for one decision: which office needs attention this week. Every office appears on one screen with actual, scheduled and target, the percent to goal, and the bonus tier it has cleared so far. A single office reads the same scorecard; it simply has one row.
The production calendar exists for a different decision: which days fell short, and whether the days still to come will cover them. It grades each past day against the daily goal and shows scheduled production on each future day, so a shortfall is visible while the month can still be fixed rather than after it closes.
The goal tracker exists for the mid-month question: at today's rate, does this office finish at target? It shows the needed daily average, the running rate, and the projected finish. Bonus tiers are computed from the same production figure, so the number on the dashboard and the number that pays the team are the same number.
Four terms come up whenever a team talks about production, and they are not interchangeable. Production and collections in particular get used as if they were one number, and the gap between them is where a practice loses money it already earned. Here is what each one means and how often it is worth reviewing, whether you run one office or several.
| Term | What it means | When to review it |
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| Production | The fee-schedule value of procedures completed and posted in the practice management system on the date of service. | Daily against the daily goal, and monthly against the month target. |
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| Scheduled production | The fee-schedule value of procedures booked on future appointments that have not yet been completed. | Weekly, to see whether the days ahead cover any shortfall so far. |
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| Collections | The cash the practice actually receives for work it has produced, whenever that payment arrives. | Monthly, next to production, to watch the gap between the two. |
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| Adjusted (net) production | Gross production minus contractual write-offs, insurance adjustments and discounts, so it reflects what the practice can expect to collect for the work rather than the full fee. | Monthly, when comparing offices with different payer mixes or checking a collection ratio. |
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For a longer look at which views belong on a dental dashboard and the decision each one exists for, read What a dental production dashboard should help you decide, which walks through the same views one decision at a time. If you compare offices by production per operatory, or size a single office's goal by its rooms, the operatory glossary entry explains production per operatory per day and why it is worth writing down.
