Step inside the local dental practice earning all the business these days and it’s not the cutting-edge technologies or enhanced marketing efforts that set the teams apart. They’ve unlocked the secret to something much easier yet more challenging to implement: they’ve made dental care comfortable and dare we say, enjoyable.
Meanwhile, many practices fail to acknowledge the changes. They think that their skills and long-standing operations are enough to retain patients for life. Sure, nobody wants bad dentistry but at the same time, what they fail to recognize is that a good dental filling means nothing if someone doesn’t have a good patient experience to go along with it. People remember you for how you made them feel, just as much as your clinical skills.
And those who recognize this get rewarded. They retain patients longer, patients bring friends and family for referrals, and even more so, they show up to appointments instead of rescheduling every other week.
Getting the Communication Right
Every interaction matters and the best practices recognize this in full. From that first answering machine message to the scheduling of an appointment to how the front office operates during intake through any post-op follow ups, they’ve clearly evaluated each touch point for the experience.
However, it’s also likely that these practices cannot consistently staff such communication savvy endeavors. They may have the people but those people deserve lunch breaks, vacations, and need to go home at 5 PM (and even if they stay later than 5 PM, they’re still in a bad mood). Thus, when the person holding the front desk down has a question about admin at 4:50 PM on a Tuesday, they’re out of luck.
Many practices nowadays are getting creative. A virtual medical admin can handle patient communications with the same professionalism as your in-house staff, but without the limitations of traditional office hours.
Consider how this works for patients. Someone has a question about a dental operation they had at 8 PM on a Tuesday night. Most people are just going to be stuck waiting until morning (probably worrying for no reason). But if they can reach someone with insider knowledge at that very moment? Now we’re talking patient comfort.
This works for those with busy careers who cannot tend to phone calls easily during the day, dooming them to have their concerns become much larger issues over time instead of getting the immediate response (even if it’s “it can wait until morning” which is always better than nothing).
Technology That Doesn’t Get In The Way
The best practices use technology to better patients instead of simply bettering themselves. Gone are the days of confusing scheduling with strict windows and non-negotiable through lines. Patients can call the practice they love for a time that suits them AND make it happen (with some required compromises in most cases).
Patient education materials used to just be those semi-indecipherable pamphlets nobody read. Now they’re videos on what’s happening in the chair, interactive options on what’s best for them and personalized assessments of what’s going on without making them feel worse when they inevitably have questions.
But they haven’t automated everything; there are clear distinctions between what should be automated (appointment reminders) vs what should be conveyed through conversation (treatment options and addressing anxieties).
Making Treatment More Comfortable
The best practices have assessed every step of the patient experience to find out where friction exists and eliminated it one by one. Treatment time assessments promote communication as pain levels grow—don’t just assume someone will say something; ask mid-operation how everything is going unless it’s obvious someone is too scared to answer (but they’d still appreciate being asked!).
Post-op care has been integrated into the treatment plans with clear instruction sheets they can actually read and comprehend. They know who to call if something doesn’t feel right or even better, they’re called the next day just to see how everything feels.
This isn’t expensive; this just involves using a little more effort for patient comfort every now and again.
Scheduling for Real Life
It’s not easy to juggle work and family responsibilities but most patients are in this boat these days. And anyone who accommodates reality is going to be preferred over one who does not. This means offering morning or late appointments; it means weekend emergency coverage.
This isn’t possible for every single practice across the board but those who find some semblance of means in this value effort are going to get rewarded with patient loyalty when demand dictates success.
Another way practices can set themselves apart is responding to emergencies—like the person who chipped their tooth on Saturday night—and they just want someone to know they have a dental emergency and can’t do anything about it tomorrow! Having someone assess even over the phone as to what’s worth doing at that moment makes all the difference in the world.
Building Actual Relationships
The long-term best practices are NOT focused on teeth; they’re focused on people—believe it or not, some people work with personal partnerships in mind! They remember birthdays, anniversaries; they remember your long-term patient was worried about her kids’ cavities because it was first grade and she didn’t want to go through another summer of braces work; while they might not necessarily note little anecdotes on follow ups, they’ll continue a conversation if someone mentions anxiety from their past visits to another office.
This relationship focus extends into preventive care by assessing why any patient should get their cleaning every six months vs every three months or a year-and-a-half—personalizing why someone needs one over the other in addition to their medical history from another provider adds levels of trust as well as advantageous efforts for home care routine development.
Patient feedback is invaluable when it’s actually put into practice—asking patients why changes occur and then incorporating what they’ve suggested goes a long way when someone feels like they’re part of their care process.
What This All Means
Those practices which thrive on up-to-date efforts know that excellent clinical options are only the tip of the iceberg; making everyone feel phenomenal before and after anything goes a long way—the good news is that much of this doesn’t require expensive support; many of these shifts only require minimal shifts in staffing philosophies or modifications in current trends.
The ones who do make these minor adjustments have hearts and value patient expectations over anxiety—if you can understand what stressors exist beyond dental issues themselves and make them simpler from the start, all else falls into place naturally—easier compliance post-op, stellar referrals and subsequently successful practice growth.
Those who fail to adapt are getting left behind, despite incredible clinical talents; patient options expand in today’s market which means that they need to feel like valued humans more than just teeth in need of help.
