What makes a patient a great patient?
Everyone promises you ‘better’ patients and every doctor says they want ‘better’ patients even though most doctors would say “we have the best patients,” and “we love our patients.”
So it seems to be a most necessary thing to define exactly what “better” is.
That’s why I created my A, B, C patient screening system. The misunderstanding is that EVERY PRACTICE views A, B, C as the same and that A’s are better than C’s; neither are necessarily true.
First, every practice is different. Different clinical objectives, different demographics, different definition of success, different retention models within practices. You have General, Advanced and Specialty among the most basic differences though the list goes on and on. Then there is insurance, procedures, and hygiene model and so on and so forth.
A’s for one practice, are NOT A’s for another.
C’s for one practice are NOT C’s for another.
Then there is perhaps the most detrimental mistake and one of the biggest issues in all of dentistry, when it comes to patient experiences, across the board is…
PRE-JUDGMENT of Patients.
The way we see them is, sadly, often the way we treat them. The expectations we have of what they will do affect the diagnosis and alter the care we provide.
It’s very unfortunate that patients are often treated differently without any real reason to do so. This is without even asking them enough questions and certainly without preparing them for what is possible and what they ultimately deserve.
This is why screening for “good and bad” or “A, B, C” patients are all subjective concepts unless you devise a process, experience and system backed by sufficient and effective education that ELEVATES a patient and gives them a chance to be a better patient for you.
You have often heard me talk about BUILDING A BETTER PATIENT.
Emergencies treated (not just clinically) in a proper way can cultivate a patient for life (and an A Patient, at that) and some of the best life changing cases.
Some wealthy patients can be the worst A Patients and most insurance-driven leading them to see you as a simple commodity.
My points to all of this are three-fold…
1st – You have to get beneath the surface with your patients in every point of engagement and interaction (from online to phone, from referral to marketed, from intake to exam, from diagnosis to presentation, from collections to scheduling).
Every step is a meaningful (and overlooked) opportunity to build relationships, establish trust and elevate the value the patients feel towards dentistry, themselves, their mouths, health, smile, etc. Ultimately, this means increasing the patients’ held value of your practice and you as their doctor.
I always say: the greatest difference in the patient’s mind is NOT ‘what you do’ but ‘who is doing it.’ You are the most significant aspect that they can’t get anywhere else.
2nd – More often than anything else, patients make the decision because of the process YOU and YOUR TEAM take them through. That includes what you say, how you say it, what they experience and how they experience it. You create and cultivate the type of patients you have (good, bad or indifferent). Your results with your patients and the case acceptance you garner is NOT a ‘patient problem’ – it is a You problem.
And that means there is great opportunity. Opportunity in four key areas which I alluded to earlier…
Process
Systems
Education
Value
3rd – and this is big… Some practices or other informational resources out there might talk about “dental IQ” for referencing patients’ knowledge about dentistry and a criteria for the best patients.
I always say, the BEST patients are the MOST educated. However, I do not stop there. The best patients are the most educated BY YOU – not someone else.
You see, if we get a great “A Patient” who already knows everything about dentistry (a high dental IQ), what does that mean?
It means either…
A) They are already at optimal health; or…
B) They were told about concerns and did nothing
Therefore, why would you want them? Furthermore, no doctor should want a patient who has been “educated” and pre-conditioned by another Doctor because your philosophies may not match.
Which begets the greatest challenge in all of dentistry: overcoming a patient’s PAST dental experiences and the preconceived ideas and either positive or negative thoughts about those. That is the biggest hurdle you have to overcome.
That is why the best patients are always ones that you take from the bottom up. From where they are, you can build for yourself an A PATIENT; for their benefit and yours.
The greatest things you can do for all of your patients are…
- Treat them as new patients every single time.
- Show them the big picture of how dentistry fits into their lives, not just their mouths.
- And never prejudge, because patients can only say yes to something you give them a chance to say yes to.
Your experience, process, systems and overall approach to building value and educating must incorporate each of these three concepts in order to give every patient the best chance at helping themselves get healthy.
We’re going to dissect each of these components together over the next several weeks. In the meantime, I challenge you to take a hard look at what ways you are prejudging, skipping steps and/or making assumptions about your patients (for better or worse). Then decide how you can enhance your process, systems, experience and education to achieve our ultimate goal of building a better patient that results in more yeses in your practice.
