Presenting more benefits to dental patients means more cases accepted
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As a dentist, you have an unprecedented array of techniques, technologies, and materials for maintaining and improving patients’ oral health. Yet you may, like so many of your colleagues across the country, experience frustration when patients decline to take advantage of what you offer. Why don’t they accept treatment that’s obviously appropriate for them?
The answer is that what’s obvious to you will not be at all obvious to most patients, unless they happen to be other dentists. Even treatment that’s needed, in your professional opinion, might be regarded as optional by many patients.
Thinking like a patient
When Levin Group consultants begin working with new clients who haven’t been able to improve acceptance rates, the consultants frequently discover a common problem. Dentists don’t translate their clinical rationales for treatment into patient benefit statements. When they focus more on education than motivation, they make it difficult for patients to envision how the recommended procedure will improve the patients’ lives.
The benefits of excellent oral health care, including not only need-based procedures but also cosmetic and other elective treatments, are numerous and compelling. By implementing a more effective case presentation system, you can leverage these patient benefits and increase your acceptance rate to the Levin Group target, which is over 90% of need-based, multi-tooth, and elective treatment.
A high-performance approach to presentation includes:
• Comprehensive exam—You can’t present what you haven’t diagnosed, so this is the first step. Do this with new patients when they join the practice, as well as with all active patients every year. When introducing this thorough approach to patients, be sure to point out its benefit—that it’s better to prevent serious problems by detecting them as early as possible.
• Comprehensive treatment plan—Patients benefit from knowing all their options and having the opportunity to decide which of them to accept, and when. This type of planning makes patients true partners in the pursuit of optimal oral health.
• Visual aids—Marketers will tell you that if you want people to opt for what you’re offering, don’t just tell them what they’ll gain, show them. When recommending a procedure, present visuals that depict not the clinical details (which can actually be off-putting in many cases) but rather the beautiful end results. Show pictures of actual patients who accepted treatment and now have healthy, happy smiles. Before-and-after images can be very effective.
• Frequent benefit statements—Many dentists unintentionally present cases in a take-it-or-leave-it manner, as if that’s somehow more “professional.” However, the highest calling for a dentist is to improve the lives of patients. Tell them how much they’ll benefit from treatment, and be enthusiastic. This is not selling, it’s professional guidance offered in strong persuasive terms.
Focus on these steps and you’ll be well on your way to serving your patients better while increasing case acceptance and production.
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Learn how Levin Group Consulting works, and why it works so well. If you’re in any way dissatisfied with your practice, Dr. Levin’s systems-based approach to improving performance might be exactly what you need. To find out, email Levin Group at [email protected]or call (888) 973-0000.
