A dental practice’s success is built around case acceptance. You could deploy the best marketing efforts in the world and have a revolving door of new patients coming in but, without getting patients to actually sit in your chair, all that hard work will be for naught. The long and short of it is that, without high case acceptance rates, you’ll be getting in your way when it comes to making money and changing lives. That’s why, for this week’s blog post, I want to give you three truths about increasing case acceptance rates in your dental practice..
1. Money is usually the biggest obstacle between patients saying “yes”—especially for high-ticket procedures.
High-ticket procedures—like dental implants—can provide a lot of value for patients, but affording that value often costs them a pretty penny. Most patients aren’t walking around with $5,000 to spare, not to mention that the more extensive procedures can cost upward of $40,000. These sorts of procedures can really deplete a bank account and so, naturally, most patients are reluctant to say yes.
Many dentists make the mistake of thinking insurance will handle their patients financial concerns but, the reality is, insurance only goes so far. Even if they have some awesome insurance that’ll cover 70% of their procedure, that’ll still amount to a good amount of cash when that procedure is expensive. To use the previous examples, 30% of $40,000 is $12,000. That’s enough money to go on a vacation or buy a used car, and a patient may be hesitant to pay for their dental treatment in lieu of their other priorities in life.
Instead of depending on insurance, a good way to help patients meet you in the middle is to offer a payment plan. Perhaps they provide a series of payments over the course of a few months to a year instead of paying everything up front. This dental treatment acceptance technique can significantly increase case acceptance rates.
2. Presenting treatment takes a village.
It’s important for dentists and their team members to work together in order to present cases effectively. Without a coordinated team effort, you’ll greatly lessen your chances of success.
Make sure everyone is on board with the same process in regard to presenting treatment. Without training across the board about one set process, your team members will be undisciplined and unpredictable in how they handle the process. And that process should be a protocol your team has down to a science (see truth #3).
However, there’s one key member of any dental team when it comes to getting patients to accept treatment: the treatment coordinator. You can either delegate this role to somebody on your front team or bring someone new on who will become part of the front desk team. They’re not someone who is involved in the clinical process but, rather, know how to build trust with patients and relay information to them about the backend of things.
You ideally want a treatment coordinator with a gift for overcoming patient objections in dentistry. They should be able to answer any questions the patient has, help them overcome any objections, and so on. However, you want to cross-train your people so they can handle the load if that insurance coordinator is away or just up and leaves one day. You don’t want your whole office grinding to a halt if they’re gone.
3. You need to have your case presentation routine down to a science.
It’s far too uncommon for dental practices to lack a proper treatment plan presentation protocol. Many dentists have nothing written down. There’s a general idea of how the process starts and ends, but the team abides by unspoken rules. Without the proper structure and one set process that can be followed to a T by everyone, there’s bound to be missteps along the patient’s journey that’ll steer them away from saying “yes” to treatment. You need to be able to hand off the patient easily and with full confidence.
Ideally, your process is down to a science and everyone on the team knows the protocol. Your “formula” should look something like this: the doctor has made the diagnosis, opens up the chart, adds the necessary treatment to that chart (and having the doctor do it themselves is important: it creates less room for error during the handoff and lessens the potential of miscommunication).
Meanwhile, the assistant and/or hygienist is there taking notes, adding treatment as needed, and making any necessary edits to complete the diagnosis. From there, you should have a hygienist or assistant who can generate a treatment plan. After they’ve generated the treatment plan, they then send the message to the front for review. The treatment plan coordinator(s) up front then organize the plan and make sure it’s good to go before giving a thumbs-up. Last but not least, you ought to present the treatment chairside in the op.
This last step is important to do because setting is super important when it comes to increasing case acceptance rates. The patient is still thinking about dentistry when they’re in the chair. They haven’t gone to the front to start thinking about their upcoming vacation or their bills—their eyes are still on the chart.
Case acceptance is pivotal to your practice’s success.
Case acceptance is vital for any successful dental practice because it improves lives, helps boost your bottom line, and can lead to more referrals from satisfied patients. All of your hard work behind the scenes might be in vain if you can’t present treatment effectively—I hope these three dental practice success tips helped.
I run a community full of dental professionals who can give you some nuggets of wisdom about case presentation strategies. So, join the Nifty Thrifty Dentists Facebook group and reach out! People from all across the globe will be happy to let you in on their two cents and share what they do to increase case acceptance rates.
