Dental Consultant | Dental Practice Solutions

Forever White™ : How to Keep Patients Coming Back!

By: admin

January 4, 2013

I recently spoke at a dental conference and asked the audience “What is one thing that your patients want more than any other procedure?” 100% of the attendees answered in harmony “WHITER TEETH!”

You may be offering patients something they never knew they really wanted so here is how to open up the conversation.

Step One
While patients are seated in the treatment room and as you are reviewing the patient medical history, ask a few simple questions. One of the questions can be something such as: “Mrs. Jones, if there is one thing you could change about your smile, what would that be?” Wait for her to answer. This is not a yes or no answer but allow the patient to think of their own answer. It must be answer that doesn’t require a “yes” or “no” but their honest opinion about their teeth. Most of us have at least one thing we would like to change about our smile or how we can look better! We are our own best and worst critic!

Another question you may want to ask is “Mr. Holmes, If I could wave a magic wand and create any wish about your teeth or smile, what would you wish for?” Now that can be a powerful question, as well as get a smile from most people you ask this question!

Asking one of these two questions or developing your own simple questions about how a patient would like to change their smile, can open the door for more cosmetic procedures. Most will want teeth whitening, Invisalign®, Six-Month Smiles®, Veneers, Ortho or even implants. Give it a try for the next month and keep account of the additional services that can come out of your dental hygiene appointments and of course new patient appointments!

Ask a few simple questions to your patients about their smile and you will create a consistent profit stream to your dental practice.

Changing Lives One Smile at a Time
As a dental professional you and your team are changing lives. You are able to truly change the way people feel every day about themselves.

“White teeth is one of the first things people notice about a persons appearance. You have the valuable expertise to not only change how long and healthy your patients live but also how beautiful their smile is. A smile can affect their day to day life in a positive way!”

Men and women of all ages throughout the world are now opting for teeth whitening to improve their smile.

Many patients today are still clueless about the variety of various products and this is why it is very important to educate your patients on the variety of whitening products and procedures you have available to patients in your office.

Keep Them Coming Back for More
For several years, dental offices have seen a decline in New Patient numbers. I see advertisements through social living sites and Google Ads; dentists are spending thousands of dollars in advertising for new patients.

I would never say not to advertise to increase New Patient numbers, but I know there are two ways to get production numbers up as well as New Patient numbers.

If you advertise for New Patients, I suggest that you include teeth whitening in the New Patient fee. (YES! At no charge) You can easily and cost-effectively offer free whitening in your dental office and every six months when the patient returns offer them a free whitening syringe. There is a simple way to deliver this without losing money but gaining patient loyalty and also referrals from your patients. You will gain more attention with your ad if you include the whitening in the New Patient appointment.

The thought here is “give patients something they really want” and use whitening as an incentive for keeping their regularly scheduled hygiene appointments.

There are many patient loyalty programs available to dental practices but they have a hefty monthly fee to participate. Forever White™ is a Premium Patient Incentive Program that has no monthly enrollment fee for the dental practice. Forever White™ is a system for dentists to use and create other income streams.

Forever White™ is a premium patient incentive program dentists can market and brand as their own. View it as a private label program that the dentist can offer their patients, that they can’t get just anywhere. The office will be using the same quality premium whitening gel but at half the price. This means the dentist keeps their patients and more money stays in the dental practice.
It also can used to reactivate those overdue patients and helps to gain patient loyalty. A series of calls and letters are sent to the patients explaining the premium whitening program. The best part of this type of program is that whitening only costs the dentist a few dollars (Pounds, EURO) to use because of the special pricing offered to dentists worldwide.

Why Does This Concept Work Well?
One of the reasons this concept works so well is because patients feel like a VIP when they are given the special treatment. Patients will respond kindly when you give them what they want. People feel much better about themselves when they see a beautiful smile. This is what will give you a competitive edge over other dental offices down the street or even a few miles away.

This is also a fantastic tool to get a “YES!” from patients to continue with further restorative needs. The whitening is only the tip of the iceberg.
Not only do your patients have a reason to smile, they have a great reason to continue returning to your office and you will also smile when your bank account grows over your 2012 balance!

Need more information about how to order? Send us an email: support@dentalpracticesolutions.com or call us: 503-970-1122

Toll-free: 888-816-1511

Please note:

* There is no monthly membership charge. You are only charged the wholesale price for the whitening gel. We provide the materials at no additional cost to you so you can reactivate, retrain your patients why their hygiene appointment is so important and your will retain your patients for life! We coach and guide you to utilize whitening most successfully.

Our product has a 100% guarantee! If you are not satisfied send it back. We’ll return your money paid for the product. That is how confident we are you will love Forever White™!

Going For the Gold! What is Your Half Time Plan for Success?

By: admin

August 3, 2012

There is a bigger game being played than the World Olympic Games. Yes, Olympic athletes train for years and many leave their families to accomplish these goals. As dental professionals we do this approximately 50 weeks out of a year and for usually, more than 30 years. Many of us spend thousands of dollars in college and then later another few hundred thousand dollars to buy an office. We have a huge legal and financial liability for many years. Profitability and sustainability are very important aspects of a dental professionals’ life and for many decades!

The year is more than half over and it’s time to get your game face on. What type of plays do you have planned for this second half of the year? How well did you and your team play in the first two quarters? Did you have a mid-year team meeting to evaluate the first half of 2012 and what are your plans to get the gold by December 31st?

If you have met with the team, what type of adjustments will you make? How do you plan to accomplish this year’s goals?

When you meet with the team, it will be beneficial to share what you discover when analyzing your mid-year numbers, systems, etc.

The Office of Dr. Doolittle

This dental practice started off with a bang! They not only met their goals by March but exceeded their production goals by March 1^st for the first quarter of 2012. During the second quarter of 2012, things dramatically changed and they are currently $55,000 behind their year-to-date production goal. We also noticed that the employee salaries paid are up from June 30, 2011. We’ll need to talk to doctor about this challenging situation and how this could have occurred.

First of all, Dr. Doolittle acknowledged to us what went well the first quarter of 2012. He reports a steady flow of new patients, creative and very effective marketing, the hygiene schedule has 9.3% unfilled patient hours, and collections

Dr. Doolittle realizes that unless these revenues and expenditures are resolved, his deficit, when annualized, will be $110,000.00, or worse, if this decline continues. Doctor has planned to cover the overhead with the 2012 production goals. If these facts do not change over the last half of 2012 his expenses will not be covered. This creates stress!

After reviewing the numbers with Dr. Doolittle we decided to begin on a positive note and the half yearly team meeting began by celebrating success! Doctor gave each team member a personally written card with a note of how much they are appreciated. Inside the card he wrote specifically what each team member did to make a difference for the practice. The second step was for everyone to sit down and discover what created this $55,000.00 deficit the first half of 2012. The challenge was doctor’s plan to cover expenses with the production goals. During the team meeting and through analysis, they discovered many patients had unscheduled treatment. The total amount of unscheduled treatment was in excess of $100,000.00. The next step was to review patient communication for the unaccepted treatment. Where was the breakdown? Why did patients choose not to accept and schedule treatment?

After brainstorming together, as a team, they discovered:

1. Patients had not been taken into the new consultation room for private conversations. This is the perfect atmosphere to answer patient questions, concerns and overcome their objections to treatment. As you can tell from the above story, patients are returning for their hygiene appointments but by the time they returned for the next hygiene appointment (Months later) their enthusiasm that may have been there, had now faded. Any value added and benefits communicated at the time of diagnosis, had now been lost. The challenge was that too many patients said “I’ll call to schedule later…” and too much time had since passed to remember what they were going to “schedule an appointment for”. No follow through nor follow up was the big breakdown in this scenario.

2. Although the Financial Coordinator has been with Dr. Doolittle for over 8 years, and she does not have effective communication skills. She is a great listener but not real confident overcoming patient objections. She is also not confident in offering third-party financing. The final result is too many patients who do not understand the value of moving forward with treatment sooner than later. She is also not able to assist patients with their financial needs when they think they don’t have money to spend. People usually buy what they want, not always what they need.

There are three solutions to get this team back on track and accomplish their 2012 goals!

1. Effective communication must now take place in the new consult room

2. The auxiliaries will always offer third-party payment plans when finances are an objection

3. A follow-up time with patients, who do not schedule treatment, will be made before the patient leaves the office without a next appointment. This follow up will usually occur one week after the treatment plan was presented. A new change will be made to contact patients to follow up with outstanding treatment sooner than later.

Dr. Well May Throw Money Down the Drain

The economic climate aside, this office had a chronic hemorrhage in their daily schedule; both doctor and the two hygienists! (too many holes in the schedule, cancellations were out of control!) As of June 30, 2012, the practice production was down 43% from their 2012 production goal. Doctor spent $3,000.00 on a new website last year (2011) and this did not help any with potential new patients finding the office through search engine optimization. (Google, etc., type searches) The new website was unfortunately, not set up correctly! Dr. Well could just continue to “throw money” down the drain by continuing on with her current marketing plan and she could wish upon a star that the cancellations will come to a halt. W I S H is not how Dr. Well spells success. After meeting with Dr. Well, she set up a “half-time” team meeting to look at what specifically is going wrong. (half-time = half year)

Here are some questions they will ask at the meeting:

What was working well last year (2011) and now has a deficit this year?
How many hygiene patients leave their appointment without a next appointment?
Do we check route slips prior to the patient appointments? Do we check if patients need a next hygiene appointment?
Do we check the route slips to see if other family members need a hygiene appointment?
When do we call to confirm appointments?
What do we say on the phone call when confirming a patient appointment?
Do we need to call to confirm appointments?
What are alternative methods to call patients and confirm appointments?
What is our patient reactivation system? (Continuing Care System)
Do we allow our patients to leave a message with the answering service (voicemail) to cancel an appointment?
Do our patients understand the value, benefits and risks to their health if they cancel an appointment?
Do we have a cancellation policy?
What can be done to create more unique visits to the new website?
What are other low cost marketing aspects to keep an ongoing conversation with patients between appointments and attract new patients?

The Team Meeting

A key to success during team meetings is to have a facilitator who can keep the team ideas flowing. It is important that the facilitator supports the ground rules for meetings and this means starting and ending the meeting on time, no negativity or finger pointing, etc. Always come prepared with an Action Plan Form which outlines/keeps record of what solutions need to be created. If team members are assigned a project write this down in the Action Plan Form, along with the due date for the project to be completed, and plan a time to follow up with the plans created.

Lessons Learned from Two Doctors

What I enjoy about and applaud both of these 2 doctors for is that they “inspect what they expect”. Notice how they both agreed to take a proactive approach to solving challenging situations? Both doctors have great leadership skills which makes it much easier to work with. This makes it easier to create a system for improvement and overall success. These doctors were open to sitting down to analyze their challenges and then discuss/problem-solve with their teams. Both doctors realize it takes an entire team to bring about effective, solution-based change.

Both doctors have a positive attitude and never once did they go into panic mode. As the leader of your team, the team members find it easy to follow you. Panic is caustic and creates stress. Solutions are not easily resolved when panic or negativity exists. If you are proactive in your approach to deal with a challenge, you will lower your stress and the creative juices are more likely to flow from everyone. One positive creates another positive much easier than if you begin with a negative.
Both doctors have been solution-focused. Challenges arise in every business; it’s the nature of the beast and finger pointing does not resolve challenges. A good leader will not point fingers but will be solution-focused.

The plan of action, which direction you choose to take on your road to 2012 success, has everything to do with how you will be celebrating at the end of the 2012 game! This is a choice you need to make and your chances for success are greater if you take action today.

Need more “halftime” plays?

Purchase Continuing Care for Dental Practice Success. This is an eBook that you can access immediately. It has all the necessary tools to reactivate patients and then keep them coming back! Your cost is only $47.
Contact us to discuss Your Dental COO which is our proprietary yearlong consulting program. This is designed to streamline your systems for a GO! Or we have a lower cost virtual comprehensive practice management program called RAISE™. Read more about these.