I hope you have worked on your list and taken action with it from last week.
I can’t imagine you would stand still, with cash in your pockets, as a thief walks behind you to take your money, without you doing something about it.
And yet, you are stealing from yourself, letting dollars fly away and doing nothing about it. That arguably is dumber than the other.
Now, remember, I’m all for you giving away dentistry when you choose to do it, to people you deem worthy and by providing free dental days in your community.
Go for it. Do that as much as possible. The way to do more of that is to stop doing more of “this”.
Giving away dentistry comes in all shapes and sizes. First the obvious ones…
Actually telling patients that you’ll take care of it or not to worry about it. Or giving discounts in the back, which is not your prerogative or authority to do. Don’t mistake yourself as the owner when you are being the dentist, these are two separate roles.
Any of these set terrible examples for your team and condition patients to expect more of it.
And then you have the dentistry you do for patients who have not taken care of themselves, but instead blame you. They come in with problems that you supposedly fixed a long time ago, and expect remedy.
If it is your dentistry, then own it; but if it is their negligence, then doing them a favor is like enabling a child to be demanding and selfish.
Then you have the not-so-obvious ones that are a much bigger problem than you may realize.
These come in the form of improper billing; missed or wrong codes for certain procedures; carelessness by not billing for procedures; or not including every aspect of treatment that will be (or has been) performed.
And this often happens in hygiene and with other treatments where there are complications or things that come up. You can’t short change yourself.
If you do consciously provide concessions, then make sure the patients know that they are receiving some special benefit because they will never value, appreciate or thank you for things that they do not know about.
The last one we will cover today is the biggest one. The one that is prevalent in every practice, it is only a matter of what degree it is in yours.
That is stealing the money and treatment from yourself because you hold back on your diagnoses, you minimize discussions with patients, you shortcut the education or rush through the visit entirely. By doing any of these you leave money on the table and treatment in their mouth.
You are in control of your own treatment philosophy and approach to diagnosis – once you make that determination, then you should stand by it and stick to it. This means never pre-judging or squandering an opportunity to bring patients to the health they deserve by only partially telling them what their problems are or what benefits they can have from accepting your treatment completely.
There are many ways you lose money in your practice and the biggest ones have nothing to do with costs and expenses, they have to do with not effectively, consistently and profitably monetizing the dentistry you do and the expertise that take place in your practice everyday.
“Free” carries little value with your patients and often it is never even realized. Choose to be paid like the professionals that you are by plugging the holes in your practice where free dentistry is leaking out.
