HOW TO MAKE A DENTAL PRACTICE GROW VIA DENTAL CASE ACCEPTANCE

Xpress Promotion • Nov 04, 2014

This advice is from my wife, Stefanie. She is a master at customer service, and scheduling new patients. This advice is for you, and your scheduler, and if followed, will lead to more big cases, starting with the vital new patient phone call.

It is very important to establish a good relationship with a patient right up to their first phone call. Every phone call should be treated as the first opportunity to help someone. It is also very important to ensure that you are listening to the patient when they call in. It doesn’t matter if the patient has never been there, or has been there for years, they are calling you because they are expecting to be helped. Not everyone is calling for the same reason, so it is vital that you listen first. This is your first step to really helping the patient.

woman with headset

These are the 4 steps in helping a current, or potential patient on the phone:

1. Listen : Listen to what the patient is saying. What are their needs? Are they in pain? Are they upset? Are they worried about something? All of these needs are handled in a different way, so it is imperative that you listen.

2. Acknowledge : I have handled a lot of patients that are in need, and are very thankful to receive a simple acknowledgement. By simply letting the patient know that you have heard, and understand their needs goes a long way. They know now that you are willing, and able to help them.

3. Find an answer : Now that you have acknowledged the patient, it is important to find an answer to their problems. This can come in different ways. If a patient is calling, and they are simply looking for advice on a prescription, or a billing question, it is unnecessary to get them in the office. All you would do is simply put them on hold, and either find the answer if the proper person is available, or simply let them know that you will call them back promptly with the answer. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO CALL THEM BACK PROMPTLY! If the patient is calling in, and is in pain, or wants to know more about a procedure, it is important to assist the patient as much as possible in getting them in to see the doctor. IT IS NEVER OK TO DIAGNOSE OVER THE PHONE, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE NOT THE DOCTOR! You can say things like “I know the doctor is going to want to see you, and I am going to help you with that”. Anytime a patient knows that the doctor is recommending something, they tend to listen.

4. Get them the help NOW!!!! : If a patient is calling in, and needs to be seen, a strong effort needs to be put forth on getting them in right away. A PATIENT IN PAIN NEEDS TO BE SEEN WITHIN 24 HOURS . An office that is efficient, and productive can get an emergency seen, and diagnosed in 2 units of time. Get them out of the operatory quickly, and into the consult room. A good way to do this is to have a few 2-unit blocks in your schedule for emergencies. If it is a true emergency, a patient will come when you have time. I always explain to new patients that we like to have a full mouth, and a thorough exam on all new patients, but because they are in pain, we will see them that day to handle the area that is bothering them, and we will schedule the full workup after that. Getting patients in, and serviced is key to big case acceptance. Thinking outside the box, and realizing that patients do not fit into the same category can really set you up for fast expansion.

-Stefanie Palmer

Want to know more about how direct mail marketing for dentists can benefit your dental practice? Be sure to read the direct mail advertising review from Dr. Seifi.


Marketing Meeting

The Simple Secrets of Wildly Successful Marketing

By Xpress Promotion • 19 Mar, 2022
What is this new generation of lead tracking? It’s a cloud-based system that automatically captures every lead then tracks the outcome for each lead. It can be surprisingly affordable given the fact that when you utilize it properly, you get more results for every marketing dollar.

An Outdated Website Could Be Costing You New Patients

By Xpress Promotion • 29 Jun, 2020
75% of consumers admit that they judge a business’ credibility on their website design. An older website with poor loading speed can be harmful to businesses. Most consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less!

Coronavirus and Your Dental Practice

By Xpress Promotion • 16 Mar, 2020
With the emergence of coronavirus and it's impacts on dental practices, and the economy in general, there are exact things you can do now to mitigate the damage and expand - not contract - your business. In this article we go over some tips.

Marketing During an Economic Recession

By Xpress Promotion • 12 Mar, 2020
How to keep your business going strong during an economic recession. No matter what the cause, there's successful marketing strategy to follow in order to see bigger, long-term return when the economy takes a dive.

Dental SEO Case Study In California

By Xpress Promotion • 11 Mar, 2020
Find out what we did to bring this dental website to the top of the search results in just one year of SEO. From not having a website, to now getting an estimated 3,400 new site visitors per month visiting their site - we show just how useful SEO is.

What Makes a Great Dental Office Website?

By Jon Rochefort • 02 Oct, 2019
Find out what exactly makes a website effective in driving in traffic to your business. From design, to SEO, we cover this point by point.

Epic Fails of Direct Mail That You Can Easily Avoid

By XPress Promotion • 03 Jun, 2019
There are certain things you can do which guarantee results from direct mail and other things you can do which totally destroy your results and ensure failure—epic fails of direct marketing.

The Pitfalls of Online Dental Marketing

By XPress Promotion • 07 May, 2019
Effective online marketing is a “make-break” for today’s dental practice. Everyone needs to know the key actions to take to be successful online.

Building a Marketing Machine: How to Get a High Volume of New Patients in Your Door Each and Every Month

By XPress Promotion • 29 Apr, 2019
Generating a large volume of new patients doesn’t come from only one or two isolated sources, or a hit-and-miss approach to marketing. A large volume is the result of a comprehensive marketing machine.

The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Tracking and Analytics in Dental Marketing

By XPress Promotion • 18 Mar, 2019
How much do you really know about the effectiveness of your dental practice’s current marketing strategy? Is what you think you know about your target market, your print or online marketing campaigns, and your advertising plan’s ROI truly accurate? What can you learn from your practice’s website analytics and call tracking, and why should you start taking a closer look at this data? Read on to find out.
More Posts
Share by: