It appears either
1. There is pressure on NCDR & Kool Smiles to ditch the traveling trainers.
2. Strapped for cash and need to increase the bottom line in hopes of a sale.
3. Planning to hang the clinical leaders out to dry.
4. All of the above
Friday December 7, 2012
Dear NCDR, Kool Smiles and Resolution Dental colleagues:
We continue to make great progress toward our dream of creating a world of happy, healthy smiles through access to quality dental care.
In the middle of this year, we launched a cultural initiative, developed with your constructive input during 2011, to create balance within our offices. To that end, our Kool Smiles and NCDR employees worked together to create an action plan for their vision of their office, or department. As you have seen for the last year, we have made many big steps toward achieving that vision, which include:
- The roll out of SmileOn, our new dream, mission and the Priority Pledge;
- Improved office level decision tools and responsibility; and
- Stronger focus on patient satisfaction and retention.
Today, we are announcing that NCDR is reorganizing its field leadership team to better support the evolving needs of the Kool Smiles and Resolution dental offices.
Effective January 14, 2013, the Kool Smiles and Resolution Dental clinical leaders will assume additional responsibilities over their respective offices. These changes will unify field leadership into a single structure in an effort to improve communication and local accountability for your offices.
Unfortunately, these changes will result in the elimination of some field-based management positions, which includes our regional presidents, as those responsibilities will now be shared among our new senior clinical management team.
[Hmmm. Wonder who the “new” senior clinical management team is?]
Tom Hurney and Bill Foltyn have been wonderful managers and respected leaders. We wish them continued success in their future endeavors. In addition, while we will be eliminating several district manager positions and the regional CTL position, efforts are being made to assign these individuals to new roles.
[The Regional Clinical Team are the “trainers” who travel to “Denovo” (new) clinics and train the CTLs.
CTL = Clinical Team Leaders – Duties are to supervise dental assistants and patient flow. In Small Smiles lingo, they are Clinical Coordinators (CC’s)]
We will be bringing all our leaders to Atlanta on January 14, 2013 for a SmileOn summit focusing on leadership, management training and patient care, and how these changes will both improve communications and efficiencies. There are no plans at Kool Smiles to eliminate any doctor or office staff positions as a result of this reorganization.
All of the changes have been personally communicated to those affected. We believe these are the right changes to make for Kool Smiles, Resolution Dental, and most importantly our patients. We're sure everyone will embrace this new structure and we're looking forward to great things from our new clinical leadership!
Tom and Bill’s LinkedIn Page
Tom Hurney and Bill Foltyn are regional presidents.
Kool Smiles offices are split up into districts (in the case of Texas, multiple districts within a state). Then those districts are grouped into two regions, Central and Coastal.
Tom had Texas and Eastern Region (Coastal) which included Virginia , Maryland, Illinois, etc.
Bill had the Central Region which were most of the southern states, such as South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, etc.
Tom and Bill dealt with more practical aspects of the office management, such as scheduling, and they also work with the facilities department to make sure the offices get what they need as far as equipment is concerned.
They are were not supposed to be in any sort of clinical supervisory role; that goes to Mayfield and Vieth, who are each over a region as well.
There is a lot of crossover and you will see the regional presidents get involved in serious matters with the doctors (such as EEOC complaints, of which they've had a LOT).
They are certainly in all the same meetings with the "operational" leadership team and the "clinical leadership" team. They at one time worked directly under Bill Brigham. They both live here in Atlanta but primarily work outside the office traveling in their respective districts.
