Getting more treatment plans done

There is a fine line between informing and pushing patients over the edge when it comes to discussing their dental treatment plan.

 

 

We’re talking about one of the hottest topics today…What do you do with all those unfinished treatment plans?!

Every dentist has tons of charts with necessary, unfinished treatment plans. How do you go from a long list of treatment to a happy smiling patient? It’s about the psychology of how to frame this so the patient can process it to move towards that “YES”. It’s important to think about the WHOLE process, not a simple quick fix.

Today, I want to talk about an example from one of my clients. When we met, I had them bring all of their marketing materials. Looking through everything, I saw something that I have never ever seen before.

Click on the video image below to watch.

It was a form letter that they send out towards the end of the year. It lets patients know that they still have insurance benefits they can use before they expired on December 31st and goes into great detail. So much detail, that it included all of the fees, insurance coverage, billing codes…and even the actual clinical charting of everything in their mouth! (OH MY!)

Say it with me…Whoa! That is way too much for a patient to process.

Let’s back it up a minute. That information is important to your dental office, how you file insurance and document all of their charting. We aren’t trying to hide anything from our patients, but that is just too overwhelming. And it’s not information that benefits the patient in moving forward with their needed dental care.

So we went through and simplified things for them, focusing on just the key parts of their letter. Give them the “Why”, why do they need to come in. Is it an emergent situation? Is it time-sensitive?

Maybe just start with a part of their treatment plan. For example, we’ll start with your bottom teeth and this is what the cost will be per month. Once we get through that, we’ll move to the top teeth. You want to make sure you break it down, make it easy. Does this work with their budget? What about their work/life schedule?

Take a few minutes to watch the full video above as I show you this jam-packed letter so you can see what things in your office you might be overwhelming patients on also – do it for you and for your practice.