Too often people have the wrong perception and understanding about Case Acceptance and Patients saying “Yes.” I’m talking about You and Your Team.
Questions are asked of me and comments made that imply some concept of “black and white.” Where patients either want it or they don’t; patients either say “Yes” or “No.”
The reality is: all that does for you is let you off the hook. Which is what most people want. Not the smart, successful, ambition people but most. They settle for this idea that “it’s up to the patient.”
It is not (just or only) up to the Patient.
You play the most pivotal role in terms of getting patients to say yes. They don’t come into your practice pre-determined to say yes or no. Sure, some do, but most are on a continuum of interest. Our job and your responsibility is to move them towards the yes, towards more interest, towards being committed to their health.
It’s not about doing one thing and then they say yes, or about telling them what you think they should buy and them turning you down.
This whole process, done right, is just that – a process. It requires certain things to happen along the way. Then if everything is aligned properly (the emotional engagement, the desires and the goals of the patient are being met), then you can achieve the outcome you want … because (and I mean only because), that is also what the patient wants.
You can’t and you aren’t going to sell a patient something they do not want. But, you have to acknowledge the fact that they do not walk in necessary “wanting” what they need right now. Which this is good news for you because if they already wanted it, then they most likely would have already gone somewhere else before and bought it.
Therefore, this leaves the most important objective and premise of the entire point of your patient experience (whether new, old, returning, hygiene, whatever), and that is to compel the patient to want whatever it is that they need or should have based on your clinical philosophy.
I believe everyone should have a beautiful (or handsome) smile with teeth that not only look good but function properly in a mouth that is completely healthy.
My doctors believe the same.
Make no mistake about it, it is not your patients job to walk in believing or even feeling they deserve any of this. It is your job to bring them to that point.
There are a few things that have to happen in order to effectively bring a patient to that point. Some of the most obvious and critical ones are…
1. Trust & Respect
2. Proof & Believability
3. Desire for change to receive the benefit or avoid the consequence
4. Urgency & Severity
5. Level of deserve & value exchange for the supposed investment
I could go one and I will. Case acceptance is a process that is not cookie-cutter or one-size fits all but customized for patients based on how they buy, what they value, their own personal principles, ways they make decisions and how they justify investments (among many other things).
Here is what I want you to know: every single thing you do either takes away from or adds to your patients’ journey down that continuum to case acceptance. You are either moving them forward or pushing them backwards.
I have big news for you beginning next week.
Before that happens, if you want a little refresher about all of this, you can review one of my most popular trainings on the exact format of getting case acceptance and building big cases.
Then, next week, we are going to take it to an entirely new, deeper, bolder level. I’m going to challenge you to take more control and responsibility over every patient “yes” that you and they deserve to hear.
No one gets any benefit from you (or dentistry at all), until they buy-in and that requires all of this to happen.
Go here for your refresher training… until next week.
