In keeping with our theme from last week, there are only three reasons why we don’t do a better job with patients when it comes to the bigger picture of their health and more comprehensive treatment.
Number One:
Either we don’t know or have the awareness about what is possible. Whether this is getting a new team member up to speed and integrated with your practice philosophy. If everyone isn’t on the same page and armed with the tools and understanding then diagnosis will be diminished.
Then there is the same for the doctor. I have long used the industry saying about “you only diagnose what you know,” however that isn’t really the complete picture of what occurs. There is far worse problem than lacking knowledge and that’s knowing but choosing otherwise by not giving your patients the opportunity for complete health in the first place.
Let’s assume, because you are here, you don’t have those issues. That said, you should always be pushing the education and growing the knowledge limits of everyone in your practice so that you continue to expand on how you can serve your patients and how you bring to life complete health and comprehensive dentistry.
It, as you know, begins with you first, always.
Number Two:
The next reason is the biggest excuse and worst offender… we don’t make time, we aren’t scheduling properly, we are seeing too many patients, or we rush through due to misplaced priorities.
No matter how busy you are, diagnosing and patient engagement on their health and future should take precedence over everything else. A practice out of alignment on this will never come close to their potential. You can do everything else flawlessly and still fall short because this is the greatest constraint.
You can very easily be working against yourselves and adding more work, more stress, more of everything other than the results you actually want all because of how you engage, use, manage, schedule, and execute your patients’ visits.
Complete treatment and comprehensive diagnosis most often suffer because people are too “busy” but every reason is the wrong reason. Fix it fast and then do everything you can to keep it under control by constant oversight and daily reflection. This goes for the whole practice and every individual.
Number Three:
Finally, something that is often never talked about nor addressed is the other reason why practice’s reach a plateau on results and fall short of comprehensive dentistry… confidence.
Team Members and doctors alike lack the confidence to put it out there and to tell the patients the truth. That is why I said last week to ask yourself every visit, “How can I help this person today?” That is why you dedicated your life to dentistry, that should be comfortable, familiar, and approachable.
Most often a lack of confidence is disguised by feeling of not wanting the patient to say no or not wanting to scare them away or thinking they won’t be interested anyways or worried they’ll be uncomfortable with the truth or whatever other preconceived ideas and past conditioning that you might have in your mind. It is all in the way of your own confidence.
I always say, “Please, never apologize to patients about things you can do to help them.” Whether that’s identifying problems or presenting possibilities. Instead, celebrate it because you get to help them improve their health.
The more positive and confident you are, the more positive and reassured they will be.
There you go, three of the biggest culprits that diminish treatment and stand in the way of helping more patients get healthy. Make time to discuss today and work on improving as a team and as individuals.
We’ll pick back up here next week with some specific concepts on helping your patients fulfill their true potential.
