Great work last week. Glad you got such good insight. Of course, you should have been doing most of them very well… after all you are here. However, ‘very well’ doesn’t mean perfect and a whole lot of sabotage occurs while money, treatment and patients are lost. As with anything, these are not things you can ‘do well’ and move on. They are every day with every patient and require mastery.
So, picking up where we left off last week… each of these are about once the visit has started and direct engagement with patients occurs. There’s big stuff here that’s very important, so pay close attention.
Ready…
11. Not setting goals and controlling expectations of your patients before they get into the treatment room. This leaves them nervous, timid or fearful; instead of looking forward to their time with the doctor.
12. Not having warm and professional introductions from team member to team member when moving a patient around to different areas and people in the practice. If you miss this you will undo or start over on the progress that was already made.
13. Not letting pictures do the talking – ALWAYS. Instead of ‘telling’ patients, you show them. This may be the biggest area of sabotage inside of the treatment room. You can never take it for granted that you have rapport, trust, engaged patients. You must always show proof of diagnosis and have total buy-in on the problem before diagnosing.
14. Not being circumstantial in your diagnosis… in other words, failing to customize (at least in perception), for the patients and their care. You cannot afford to come across that you assume they want ‘everything’ until they ask you for it. While diagnosis is a clinical reality, that has nothing to do with your patients’ opinions. You have to respect the fact that they will only accept what they believe, want and desire to change or improve. By rushing to the diagnosis without the patient being ready for it will hurt your success and therefore your patients’ ability to get healthy.
15. Not using stories and other patients’ as examples to express benefits and consequences. Every person/customer in a business secretly believes as though they are the ‘only sucker’ who falls for your sales pitch. This is the harsh reality. You have to reassure them AND NEVER LET THEM FEEL being SOLD because you are making it their idea through sharing with them the many other people who have there before. That others have experienced what they are going through right now.
16. Of course, we have my famous triangle of trust at every point of engagement with your patients pre, during, post clinical exam (also known as pre-appointment interview, selling the problem and getting the clinical yes).
If you fail to use this and embrace it, without exception, you will continue to lose the majority of treatment that is ever discussed, diagnosed with your patients.
17. One word (the worst word in dentistry) that sabotages more success and patient health than any other: INSURANCE. You have to take responsibility for it, own it, control it and not let it get in your way. If you are not handling this properly and your patients are making decisions based on their insurance (so called) “benefits” then you are missing out on all of the profit of your practice.
Quite literally, you can double your collections overnight by moving your payments to the time of scheduling and moving insurance out of the way. While it does take discipline, structure and commitment to a firmer experience and process, it is not however difficult. It is only about being preemptive with this issue and not rolling over when it is brought up.
18. No follow-up after patients leave. I could write out ten more steps of ways you sabotage your success by not having this system in place. The key word is system. Not “call you in a couple weeks” or “catch next time you are in” or “we can do this part next year” but actually having a post-visit experience that is tailored to what the outcome was from the treatment conference and discussion. Again, this could easily double your treatment acceptance with this system in place in a proactive way.
19. Not rewarding patients for good behavior and expecting patients to become sources of referrals and new patients for you. I’m lumping these together because they are important and they are linked. You want your patients talking about you then do things that make them want to talk.
20. The list could go on but we have to stop somewhere and the last one for this week on sabotaging is: not having consistent communication between all parts and people of your practice. You are literally letting patients, treatment, follow-up and money fall through the cracks and get lost in the process. This is why I encourage everyone to have a morning huddle and also an end of the day debriefing where there is communication and closure to the day and preparation for the next one.
Just like the saying about how important preparation is (and it’s true), the same goes for reflection, reviewing, keeping track of what actually happened.
You did a great job last week with your homework and ratings. The same goes for these 10 here – you can assess each and every individual team member’s performance on these 10. Next week, we’ll dive deeper into communication and talk through some of the best ways to improve in-office team member to team member conversations that will help make each of your lives easier and drive more results every day.
By the way, do me a favor if you would, let me know if there are specific items in last week’s or this week’s that you would like to talk more about, you would find value in me elaborating or putting some other writings, trainings or just huddles together for you to study and practice more with your team. I’d be happy to do it.
