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Treatment Acceptance

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What are you and your team focusing on to help patients understand the need for the treatment you are recommending and want to move forward with it?

Consider discussing at your next team meeting:
Your treatment planning – is it communicated clearly from the back to the front. How could it be improved?

Are you prepared for your consults – do you know your patients hot buttons, do you frame your explanation of treatment using their motivators or concerns? Do you understand their personal style, how it differs from yours, and how you need to adapt? Are you clear with your patients about the risks of waiting and what that will mean in terms of time and money? Patients want to understand what to do – most want to do something conservative and not life changing. I have heard it said that patients want “it” to look good, feel natural, and last a long time. Especially in these times they want value for their money.

Is your hygiene team supporting restorative treatment – do they focus on dentistry (what the patient is paying for when they come into the office, not just social chit chat), do they set the patient up well? Do you come in earlier in the appointment for the hygiene exam? Does the patient have to wait? Are you and your hygienist “in sync” about what the patients’ restorative and periodontal needs are?

What are doing to set yourself apart from other area dentists and to make it worthwhile to come to your practice? Think about how you might market the Oral Cancer detecting equipment, a Laser, a CEREC, or other similar system to your patients. These all provide a benefit that a patient might want and they give the patient a story to talk about with their friends and colleagues.

Keep focused on what is positive and on the basics in your practice!

Personnel Policy

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How many dentists are in full compliance with labor laws? We just completed 2 days of Human Resources Recertification Training with Bent Ericksen and Associates and were reminded of just how vulnerable most practices are to very expensive labor disputes. This is a growing trend and we encourage you to protect yourself and your practice from exposure! Contact us if you have questions about this important area of your practice.

Leadership Quote

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Leadership can’t be claimed like luggage at the airport.

Leadership can’t be inherited,

even though you may inherit a leadership position.

There are no manufacturing plants that fabricate leadership.

And leadership can’t be given as a gift.

Leadership must be earned

by mastering a defined set of skills

and

by working with others to achieve common goals.

What’s your Brown M&M?

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Just read an interesting article in Fast Company Magazine, The Telltale Brown M&M. Van Halen’s lead singer was known for asking for a bowl of M&M’s backstage during his concerts, his request was that the bowl not have ANY brown M&M’s. This clause was clearly stated in the middle of the contract each performance venue signed. Many people assumed that David Lee Roth was just a diva for not wanting brown M&M’s. How he really used the Brown M&M clause was to check to see if they actually read the entire contract. If he found a brown M&M in his bowl, he would force the venue to do an entire check of the set for technical errors. This was his canary in a coal mine, it was how he could be assured that the stagehands were paying attention. Most dentists do not have the time or energy to do a complete check of every facet of their practice. What are your brown M&M’s, what is your check that things are going well?

Earning Employee Trust Article

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Earning Employee Trust It’s no secret that being trusted by team members is critical to any leader’s success. And that fact leads to an all important question: How can you earn your people’s trust … what can you do protect and maintain that most important leadership characteristic? The answer: By exhibiting the following four behaviors …
1. Keep your promises. You don’t have to promise things just to make employees feel good. They’re more interested in being able to depend on what you promise than in feeling good. Just keep the promises you do make and your team will trust what you say.
2. Speak out for what you think is important. Employees can’t read your mind. They don’t know how you feel. If they have to guess about what’s important to you, they may guess wrong. Save them the trouble. Tell them how you feel and why. They’ll respect you so much more.
3. Err on the side of fairness. Be fair to everyone. Employees really do know that things are not always clearly right or wrong. Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions that affect many people. Sometimes those decisions include having to dismiss team members. All your team can really ask for is that you be fair at all times – regardless of the type of decision you have to make.
4. Do what you say you are going to do. Just let your “yes” be yes and your “no” mean no. When you tell people you are going to do something, they should be able to “consider it done.”

6 Easy Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog and One Not So Easy – Marketing & Sales – Biznik

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This is a good article – how many of you are blogging regularly about the things PATIENTS want to know about? Blogs are an important means to introducing prospective patients to what your practice is about, it is another way to let them test the waters without having to open their mouth to you. Think of it as an introduction to you and your team and a platform for the common interests you share (of course, leaving out sex, politics and religion 🙂 ).

6 Easy Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog and One Not So Easy – Marketing & Sales – Biznik