I have a famous saying said all throughout our industry in Dental Practices across North America, I have been quoted by the highest income earning Dentists, leading gurus and clinical lecturers from coast to coast, and the most successful Practices on the planet follow my advice on this…
“When it comes to Case Acceptance, Money Objections, Patient Investments all of these things … the battle is, should, and must be won before it’s ever fought.”
Bottom line…when you are getting objections to money you are failing your patients. You are leaving your success up to financial decisions instead of health decisions.
When I see this happening I know 3 things are occurring.
#1 – there is not enough value established to the outcome of the dentistry being treatment planned
#2 – there is no authority positioned with the Doctor and/or no importance established to their visit in the first place
#3 – there is a commoditization of the patient perception of dental care and their decisions will become based on insurance, convenience, money; not health outcomes, future benefits, or consequences of inaction
Since today and last week we are talking about money, I will keep it focused on this. Just know that money is a default objection, it is a human response to having nothing else to use to base their decision on.
Yes, there are patients who actually do not have money but most of them are already on government insurance which no one reading this is accepting and most of them never make their way into your practice because they are going to cookie cutter, discount dentistry and responding to stupid illegal and bait-and-switch ads in the mail, newspaper or online with corporate dentistry.
There are 4 key concepts to overcoming money objectives before they ever come up and they need to be instilled and memorized by every single team member.
1st – The patients understanding that any problem is a result of a greater problem that your practice is designed to care for – that’s called comprehensive dentistry (versus having an emergency clinic).
2nd – Patients must take responsibility for their own oral health, it must be established that what is being diagnosed is not option, it’s what is discovered inside of their mouth.
The most obvious way to explain this is…your treatment plan is like a mirror of what’s going on inside of your mouth…not an a la carte menu.
3rd – We want to position ourselves as in-demand, not desperate; and appointments in the schedule is NOT set-up at the convenience of the patient because there is demand for your services.
4th – And this is so important, you can’t bring up money or insurance or anything else in advance of the diagnosis, in advance of engaging the patient emotionally in their care.
If you recorded every conversation or dialogue with patients in your practice, you would find that your team usually sabotages yourself before patients ever get a chance to.
From the phone discussion to the intake process to the discovery in the treatment room and the doctor’s diagnosis, we usually allow patients to go immediately to price and insurance before we even have an opportunity to get them to believe in the problems they have and the benefits of the care you can provide to them.
Let’s play a game…make a list of the top 3 objections or excuses patients give for not moving forward with their care, give me your toughest money challenges, survey your team (go through this Huddle with them) and then submit them to info@DentalSuccessToday.com (subject line: Top 3 Objections) and I will take the most frequently submit ones and I will answer them right here next week.
Do not let Money stand in your way. Your patients will always have excuses…the problem is when YOU have excuses; those are the ones that are getting in your way.
Let’s handle the money objections once and for all. Begin with these 4 key principles and make sure you are not falling victim to the 3 pitfalls I’ve outlined here.
Together we can help more patients get healthy and put you and your team back in control of your patients’ health and your financial prosperity.
If you want some advance study sessions you can watch my webcast all about selling high-fee big cases and it will walk you through the most comprehensive patient experience format you’ve ever seen…
http://UltimateHighFeeCaseAccelerator.com
