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3 Mistakes in Comprehensive Case Acceptance

The Three Most Common
Comprehensive Case Acceptance Mistakes

Most dentists want to do more comprehensive dentistry, but make it difficult for their patients to do so by making the following three mistakes:

Mistake #1 – They attempt to push people into accepting comprehensive dentistry.
Many case acceptance programs available to dentists are way too pushy. These programs are based on sales concepts that are out-dated and/or are only useful in product sales. If patients feel pressured to accept care, they will take one of three actions: 1) They will push back in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. 2) They will protect themselves by erecting barriers that block communication. 3) They will leave the “pushy” practice and not return. In addition, they will spread the word to their family and friends about the pathetically pushy practice.
Most people would like to have comprehensive dentistry. They don’t always receive it because of four barriers blocking their paths:
1. cost
2. lack of knowledge
3. lack of trust
4. fear
So instead of being a salesperson who pushes people to accept care, be a consultant who makes it easy for them to accept care by removing or lowering each of the above barriers to comprehensive case acceptance.

Mistake #2 – The doctors mistakenly believe that case acceptance primarily occurs at one point in time - the treatment conference.
Comprehensive case acceptance does not occur at one point in time. It’s a series of small steps beginning before the first phone call to your office. In fact, who’s calling you on the phone (or visiting your website) and what they’ve heard about you is the most important step to case acceptance. The next step is the first phone call. Then the time period between the first phone call and the first visit; then all the interactions that occur at the first visit (there are more than a dozen of them); then the time period between the first visit and the treatment solutions conversation; then the treatment solutions conversation; and then, perhaps, a series of recare conversations. As you can see, when it comes to Comprehensive Case Acceptance, “This could take a while.” You need to be prepared for it.

Mistake #3 – The doctors mistakenly believe that only one person (usually themselves) is responsible for case acceptance.
Many doctors erroneously believe that the person doing the case presentations is responsible for case acceptance. When done correctly, case acceptance is actually a series of events that involves everyone in your office. As a result, your team must understand and the entire case acceptance system in general and their place in the system in particular. They will need training on how to effectively fill their roles in the system and how to create smooth transitions to other team members.


The best time to take part in dental courses and CE


Dental courses and continuing education are more important than ever. In slow economic times, education and marketing are the first to go and the last to start up.


This is a shame since it is during these slow times that we might actually have time to learn something from dental courses that will make us money when the economy returns. It is easy to become shortsighted on this and to take a "hunker down" approach forgetting that "this too shall pass."

I have the privlege of working with most of the dental world leaders. They are not only master clinicians but also experts at building a thriving practice. Most, if not all, are telling me this is the best time to learn a new skill or brush up on an old one.

At a recent DURAthin's hands- on, course I asked course facilitator Deb Ham why dentists were choosing now to attend courses on advanced cosmetic dentistry? "Dentists who stay on top of the latest trends in the industry understand that the economy will eventually turn around and when it does, you had better be there with the solutions because if not someone else will be."

In his latest book, The Outliers, Malcom Gladwell points out that to be an expert in anything you have to do it 10,000 times. Shouldn't you start learning now?

The time to learn how to place prep-less veneers is not 6 months from now; It is now, so that in six months you might be able to do with confidence. The time to learn more about improving your website's visibility is not "someday soon," it is now while you can learn and apply that knowledge, so that when more people are searching, you will dominate your market.

Attending hands on dental courses or continuing education courses is always a good idea, but the reality is their are always other things demanding your time. That is why HDiQ Dental should be an integral part of your education. From the comfort of your home or office and on your schedule, you can learn about everything from prep-less veneers to Search Engine Optimization --all from the leaders in their respected fields.

Contrary to traditional thinking, the time to spend money on education is while you may be seeing fewer patients but that is the best time to do it.

As the old proverb says, "let us make hay while the sun is high." That is the only way to ensure that we will have food for the winter.



Do Social Network Sites work for Dentists?



To be clear Social Networking is a huge center for Internet activity. So let's all agree that Many, if not most, of the Baby Boomers have Facebook or Twitter accounts. The question is, can you leverage them for a repeatable, predictable, stream of patients and revenue?

Google it. You will find a number of sites that claim Social Networking sites do work. But be careful, many of these sites are also pushing you to purchase products or services associated with them. You might say they, "have a dog in the race."

First, what are Social Network sites? Essentially, they are micro blogs. Blogs have historically proven to be very effective for SEO (Search Engine Optimization.) Twitter is a good example of a micro blog as it only allows 140 characters for you to communicate. Here is how it works. you post "tweets" then people who follow you receive your updates. In theory this is great but keep in mind that most Tweeter users follow dozens of users so in order to stay on top or fresh in the mind you have to constantly be posting to stay on top.

*8:00 "busy day ahead, keep you posted."
*8:15 "First patient needs a full mouth..Cha-ching."
*8:19 "they want to 'think" about it.:(

Bored yet? Imagine how the poor dentist or staff member feels having to post all this? Of course only teenagers would take it to this extreme and most dentist who use Tweeter say they update once a week, but how effective can that be? Probably between, "better than nothing"and "not worth the time."

Twitter can work over time, but it requires a hefty time investment and must be used with some other system for short-term patient attraction.

Companies who are seeing measurable success from Twitter are already well known, established companies with constantly changing content. Ie.. ABC, 24, Wall Street Journal etc... They already have a large database of clients who know who they are and want to hear the latest. Let's be honest, dentistry does change but not as fast as Jack Bauer can.
The biggest success I have heard using Twitter is Dell computers. Big client list and a product that is constantly changing. They will occasionally combine efforts with Twitter and release limited specials to their database. In 2008 they generated 1 million dollars from Twitter. Great money but consider the size of their database.
Facebook was suppose to change the way we communicate. While a very "cool" tool it has yet to live up to the hype or for that matter even turn a profit. The same applies here as it does for Twitter. Personally, HDiQ Dental has a Facebook page that we are experiementing with. We spend a good deal of time updating and putting videos but so far it has produced little if anything except other dentists and labs inviting us to join them.

I am not saying you should not use Twitter and Facebook I am only saying...

Social networking can work. But their are far more cost and time saving methods to do exponitallly more than all of the Social Networks together.

Conan O' Brien said he was going to create a network that would waste time, bore people and lower productivity all at once by combining YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. He is going to call it, "You Twit Face."
A strong web presence and informative and timely blogs are the first step before anyone should even consider Social Networking.
Programs like Ignite Dental are far more effective at helping you Obtain, maintain and regain new patients. Last week the developers announced that Ignite Dental's patient automation service will provide users the ability to create customized websites in about 15 minutes. Nothing new with that but what is unique is in how the programming allows anyone to change metadata to be discovered by the search engines. In other words, let's say you are a dentists in Dallas. Showing up on the first page is either difficult, expensive or probably both. Now it is neither. Now that dallas Dentist can create a page using a simple template. He may want to advertise whitening so he buys the URl (right there on Ignite Dental's site) for (name-Dallasdentist/whitening.com) now any time someone searches for Dallas dentist, or his/her name or for any combination with whitening that dentist comes up. No add words but true specific search engine results. Combining existing technologies and creating a few new ones has taken years to develop but is as simple to use as any template.
Bottom line, this service will allow a dentist to dominate an area by purchasing all the sites with their name an services they provide. It is the new frontier and a lot of land is up for grabs still. Best of all it is immediately effective and like the rest of the services with Ignite Dental like e-mail and text reminder, offline marketing, surveys and more it is all automatic. Set it up once and forget it.
Ignite Dental is still looking for a few more beta testers to try this out for free. To see if you qualify as a Beta tester and to learn more click here to watch the video to hear more of the details.



Building your dental practice


At least once a week a dentist asks me something like this, "How do I build my practice?" It is a simple question but has so many layers of intent. Some are asking "how do I get current patients to accept care?" Others are saying, "how do I affordably attract new patients?" In this economy, dentist are seeing fewer and fewer full mouth reconstructions. In fact, the return to "bread and butter" dentistry is here.

Now, more than ever it is critical to Obtain, Maintain and Regain ™patients. While I believe Ignite Dental is a great product to do that, this blog is not about that. It is, quite simply, how to build your practice, especially a general dentistry practice in any economic times.

Recently I had the privilege of working with Dr. Marvin Berlin of McKinney Dentist. com. His practice is located just outside of Dallas in a fast growing but still rural area. He, along with his three partners, run a general dental practice that produces over 1 million dollars a month. He is currently gaining over 250 new patients a month and is on track to meet or beat last years numbers. This is not Dr. Larry Rosenthal's practice that is a boutique type catering to Donald Trump (which by the way is a great model to imitate if you wish) no, this is everyday dentistry.

We met at his barn, now let me be clear hear. Calling this place a barn is like calling the Four Seasons a motel. See the picture above. I wish I slept as well as the horses do.

Dr. Berlin is a wonderfully humble person who wanted me to see this as a testament to the fact that any reasonably skilled dentist can build an amazing practice. Just being around him for a couple of hours you start to believe you really can. What I thought was so interesting is that while we taped his discussion and lecture, it occurred to me that most people already know what he was suggesting. The problem is that most of them were not following through.

The entire program is up on HDiQ Dental and is already one of the most popular programs. Here are just a few of the tips Dr. Berlin discusses in detail. Here is a short sample from the program.
  • Find ways to say yes. Most dental offices say no more than they think. Can I come in for a cleaning only? No. Do you take insurance? No. Can we fix that problem right now? No. Can I come in on the weekend? No. Do you pull wisdom teeth? No. Now, some of you are already saying things like, "but we don't take insurance and we have to schedule it for a later appointment." That's o.k, you can be totally right and justified and also lose patients to the guy down the street who will make a little more effort and win a patient and their family for life.
  • Get to know your pharmacist. Did you know that a lot of people ask pharmacist for "free" medical advice, including what to do when they have a tooth ache. Getting to know your pharmacist will bring you dozens of new patients, at the very least, over the course of a year.
Those two tips alone are worth the time to watch the entire program. What I have learned from Dr. Berlin and the rest of our presenters who all have successful practices is that it is the little things that set you apart. As Zig Ziglar says you can take 211 degree water and do a lot of things with it. You can shave, make soup or coffee. But if you add just one more degree, now you have 212 degree water which boils and which produces steam and with that steam you can create enough energy to power a city. If your practice is at 211 degrees, make 2010 a year of 1 degree of separation.


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