Some people will tell you convenience is the best way. Some people will tell you getting them out of pain is the way to help your patients, at least in the short term. Others will tell you to let the patient play doctor and decide what their own dentistry should be.
These are just some of the small-minded, easy-way-out shortcuts to patient care that are infecting our industry today.
Each of these (and there are so many others) are the exact reason we wake up every single day fighting the good fight against the commoditization of dentistry, against the ‘every practice is the same’ concept, that is simply not true – is it?
Are you and your team just like everyone else? Could your patients just flip a coin or go googling to decide who their dentists should be?
Would you let them go that easily… because if everyone is the same, then there is no reason to stay with you?
I think not.
You can’t be shortsighted about what is supposed to be a relationship held with great integrity. Dental healthcare is about credibility that is founded upon individualized actions that show patients just how genuine you are; just how serious you are for them, for their health, for their mouth, for their appearance, for their function and for all of the other benefits that come with personalized care.
I can tell you this, there is no emergency care clinic or convenience store that anyone has any real loyalty to. They are looking for the quickest, the cheapest, the easiest place to go. And really depending on the day there isn’t much difference between emergency or convenience.
Of course, you get to decide how people see you and what you want to be known for. But I can tell you being about emergency and convenience isn’t going to keep your team in tact, keep your patients loyal or keep your profits stable (let alone increasing).
That’s why I believe there is one way and one way only to really, truly help your patients and that is… to tell them the truth.
Yes. Read it again, it may not be as profound as you were thinking, but it is far more significant than it may appear.
You want to tell patients the truth because it’s the only way to really build trust, to engage in an authentic relationship, to help them get healthy.
All of this will only happen if you are honest with them both about their mouth and about what you can do for them. No person on earth would answer “no” to the question “Would you like to know what we can do to help you right now?”
I challenge you this week, to get every team member’s perspective on ways that you might be sabotaging patient care and letting anything get in the way of truly helping patients… by educating, informing, and truth-telling about the possibilities and the importance of the care you can provide to them.
We always say, make every visit count because every patient matters. You can only do this with full and complete transparency. And by the way, this is the only way to grow your practice in a healthy way – it just so happens to be the healthy way for your patients too – as it should be.
