HOW TO GROW A DENTAL PRACTICE AND INCREASE DENTAL CASE ACCEPTANCE

Do you know what your dental case acceptance rate is? Most dentists do not. It is not your fault because they don’t teach you in dental school how to run your practice like a business, there is enough time in four years.

But just as you x-ray before and after to know if you did your root canal correctly it is helpful to know where you stand so you can adjust your procedure or overall strategy to improve results over time. Dentistry has been a Golden Age for quite some time now, and the technology just keeps on rolling out, and it can be challenging to keep up with all that is new.

My goal is to teach you how to improve dental case acceptance so you can focus on what you’re trained to do.

Over the next couple months, I will go over with you 10 proven tactics that are simple yet effective for improved dental case acceptance, especially on larger cases.

Tactic Number One: present all treatment plans over $500 in writing and have the patient sign when they accept the dental treatment.

There are a few reasons why it is important to present needed dental treatment in writing to patients. When treatment plans are in writing it tends to minimize confusion as to what exactly you are proposing to a patient. It happened just the other day that a patient came in and we presented a $16,000 treatment plan that was accepted. The patient had said that she had been to two other dentists and no one had explained to her exactly what it was that they were proposing and nobody had told her how much it would cost. She very much appreciated the fact that it was in writing and was clear about what we were proposing along with the cost. It also will protect you if weeks or months down the road there’s a question about what you originally proposed.

Another reason why she put the treatment plan in writing is that people believe what they see in writing, more so than what is said to them verbally. It becomes more real to people and it is another medium of communication which makes it easier for the patient to understand and digest what is being proposed. It also makes it easy to make a copy and give the patient a treatment plan to take home to have it for their records.

Additionally, if a patient agrees to a large treatment and wants to bring money to their first appointment they can always sign it while they are in the office. If the patient will not sign a treatment plan, it usually means that they have an objection that they have not communicated and you can then talk to them about it. In my experience with big dental treatment plans, patients may need to get money from retirement accounts or a loan from their local credit union to get money and bring it into their first appointment. When they sign the treatment plan in the office, patients follow through a majority of the time.

You will boost your dental case acceptance and grow your dental practice by presenting treatment plans in writing and having them sign it when you present it to your patients.

Have questions? Contact XPress Promotion for answers about growing your dental practice, and view our gallery of direct mail dental postcards.