Of course, I’m going to talk about gift giving… it’s December. Certainly, you have heard my talk about problems and possibilities. If you haven’t, it is a complete practice potential liberator and the surest way to breakthrough the plateaus holding you back from helping your patients.
Today, as I try to do often, I want to remind you of the significant impact you have on the patients you take care of.
Don’t forget, going to the dentist is a choice, even when it appears necessary – they still have a choice to go and who to go to. That alone is a very special thing; a great responsibility and privilege that you get to be the one they want to see.
Still, it’s very possible you far undervalue both the influence you have over your patients and the magnitude of the gifts you are capable of giving them.
My team and I work with practices that in turn help hundreds of thousands of patients with their expertise, knowledge and care. I know that the single greatest shift in a practice comes from this philosophy.
That is a belief that you are not there to do dentistry on a mouth, you are there to provide patients a gift of health, a beautiful smile, confidence, the ability to sleep at night, to eat the foods they love and many other life changing results.
You see, as long as your patients believe you are only there to fix their problems, they will forever wait for problems to arise.
Instead, the magic happens when you help patients believe in the possibilities of what you can do for them; of what dentistry can do for them. Not just their mouths but for them as individuals.
Now, I don’t expect everyone reading this to want to makeover every patient’s smile and that’s really not what I’m talking about here. I’m simply stating that you should be sharing with your patients the possibilities of taking them to an optimal state insomuch as your clinical philosophy represents.
Far too many doctors and team members are caught up in waiting for problems to get worse or never moving past only pointing out the negatives in their diagnosis; instead of exploring what is possible for patients today, tomorrow and the rest of their lives.
You do have the opportunity to give your patients so many gifts. The best part is: it’s a wonderful surprise to them. They have no idea what the impact and benefits will really be, otherwise they would have already found someone to make it happen or have brought it up to you before.
Hey, tis the season for possibilities, giving, generosity and care. If only people embraced all of this the year round.
I’m sure you are thinking the last thing any patient wants to do in the Holiday Season is make a visit to the dentist, let alone actually give you any of their holiday spending money. And sure that might be true based on the way the ‘average’ patient sees, thinks and understands dentistry, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
All they need is a change in perspective and that responsibility lies in your hands. It’s the first and greatest gift you can give to your patients. The gift of seeing all that’s possible.
I’d start doing that more deliberately with every patient who gives you the opportunity. After all, they chose you, don’t let ‘em down.
