Every article you read today in dental practice management talks about building and creating a great team. Dentists, you are the leader of the team, but nothing gets done in your office unless you have a unified team of players, which includes your dental hygienists, dental assistants, and front office staff. I would also suggest, as I have done in previous articles, that your dental laboratory technician is an invaluable part of your team, as well.
You need to take care of your team. You need to take your team with you to continuing education so they are as knowledgeable as you are in the services you provide to patients. Your hygiene staff is very important, your dental assistants are crucial to your success, and your front office people are the gatekeepers, so they obviously are a vital part of the team as well.
But wait; there is another important member of the dental team. When I hear the dental practice management gurus talk about the team, they often leave out the most important player. Every dentist reading this article needs to add this person immediately to your team roster and treat them with the respect and honor they deserve. One of the best things about this team member is that you don’t pay them; they pay you—because the most important person on your dental office team is the patient!
Some dental offices are so worried about their own office team that they almost forget about the patient. Many times in dental practice management, you almost get the feeling that there is an “us vs. them” mentality. It’s us, the dental staff, on one side and the patient on the other. We are told to manipulate the patient to do what we want so that we win. If the patient doesn’t do what we want, then they win. Some of the dental practice management articles I read are incredible to me in the fact that people are trying to train dentists to use sales techniques to try to force the patient into a corner and into getting treatment done. I have news for you—you can’t force people to do anything they don’t want to do. And if somehow you are able to manipulate them to do it, it rarely works out well for your team or the patient.
Start thinking about the patient as the most important team member you have. We can learn a lot from companies such as 1-800-DENTIST who have taken the time to really understand patients and what they are looking for. There is a science to understanding people and how they choose service providers. There is also a science to getting people to come to the dental office, and that is the vital role that 1-800-DENTIST understands and does a very good job at.
Once we get the patient into the office, we let the patient team member tell us where they want to go, what kind of treatment they want, and how they want to be treated. We work with the patient as a valuable member of the dental team. They want the treatment, we want to provide the treatment, and then we all work together to make it happen. That’s what team work really is. It is not us against them— it is us and them together so that everyone wins.
It’s not just in the treatment planning arena where the team approach with the patient works well, but also in the financial planning. Our team, all of us together, wants to make whatever treatment we suggest to our new team member affordable. Using patient financing plans, such as Care Credit, is one way we have been able to forge this bond with the patient and make them a valued team member. By helping them work through the financial considerations, we get paid. When our patient is able to finance their dental treatment and affordably make payments, everybody wins. Working with patients in terms of their financing and treatment plans is crucial – if they get a little less financing, we can break up the treatment plan until they can afford the rest. In many cases, a company like Care Credit will give us more financing than we asked for if a patient has a good credit history and all of a sudden the treatment plan can grow beyond what we initially talked about.
Yes, there are unreasonable patients with ridiculous demands like, “Pull out all of my teeth and give me dentures.” When patients are unreasonable team members or can’t be dealt with, let them become free agents. Let them be recruited by a new team so we don’t have to deal with them. The truth is that most patients are reasonable and wonderful people who we are proud to have as members of our dental team.
People come to us because they are looking for changes in their lives, whether big or small. Like any good team, we all make suggestions, work through alternatives if possible, and come up with the best action plan. But that plan comes together with the input of the team MVP, the patient—it does not happen without them.
When you start treating patients as an integral part of your dental team, amazing things can happen for you. If it’s a really good team, then there is an excitement in the ability to work together and to get the job that the patient needs done. Certainly it’s nice to have a team member that pays you, instead of you paying them. By their paying you, this is a win-win situation for everyone in the office. Start treating your patients as a key member and watch your practice go.