Dental Hygienists have so many tasks to complete every day at the office and with every patient they see. My question is this, Dental Hygienists, what does your cheat sheet have on it?

As our team of consultants works with dental teams and dental hygienists around the world what we notice is that important tasks, valuable parts of a dental hygiene appointment go “untouched.”

Here are some examples:

• Patient rapport

Patients are greeted but immediately seated in the dental chair. A patient bib goes on and back they recline in the dental chair.

How do you connect or reconnect with your patient in your chair?
What do you know makes your patient feel like they are more than a tooth and more than a way for doctor to pay for their next vacation?

A quick reconnect or connection with your patient means a lot and it takes about 2 minutes, maximum.

Ideas for quick rapport building are:

Patients of record
• How is your son doing at University of ABC?
• Did you see that new movie 123ABC?
• Are you planning any new vacations?

New Patients
• I see you are new to ABC City, what brings you to ABC City?
• Looks like you work for Amazon, what do you enjoy most about working there?

When speaking to a new patient use ice-breaker type of questions as listed above. Make the conversations light-hearted and easy-to-answer.

The Most Valuable Cheat Sheet

After you have seated and greeted your patients, you have a lot of task and services to complete so what type of cheat sheets do you have available in your treatment room to remember everything you need to do during your dental hygiene appointment?

We have created laminated cheat sheets for the dental hygiene teams we work with.

Please contact our office for your own cheat sheet and you can laminate to use during your day with patients.

One cheat sheet we have found hygienists like is the Comprehensive Periodontal Exam. Many hygienists we meet do not know all eight areas to annually evaluate to determine if your patient has a healthy mouth, active disease or gingivitis.

The areas listed on the Comprehensive Periodontal Exam Cheat Sheet are:

1. Six-point pocket depths
2. Recession
3. Mobility
4. Furcation
5. BOP (Bleeding upon probing)
6. Mucogingival Involvement
7. Suppuration/Pus
8. Occlusal Issues

Another Valuable Cheat Sheet Lists “Areas a Dental Hygienist Needs to Report on During the Doctor/Hygiene Exam.”

We teach a specific system for all team members to transition (Dismiss) a patient from back office to the front office. This is a five-step program.

Let us know if you use a “Cheat Sheet” and if you believe this can be helpful to your team, please email us to share some of our cheat sheets with you and your team.

Need help implementing these areas in your dental practice? Do you have a system to support each of these areas listed above?

We can help! Contact us today to find out how we can help create these systems and find out how to Implement the systems that create success without working so hard.

About the Author

Debbie Seidel-Bittke, RDH, BS is founder and CEO of Dental Practice Solutions. She is also a former dental hygiene program director. Her expertise is optimizing the hygiene department by taking a total team approach; including the doctor as the leader.

Dental Practice Solutions is able to support your dental practice with supporting your front office admin skills, insurance billing, reimbursement as well as credentialing and increasing your PPO fees.
Schedule your no-cost Profit Boosting Session Here Today. You can also call our office to schedule: 949-35-8741 or email.

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