Making It Easy For Your Patients

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Making it easy for your patients to find you and say ‘yes!’ to care.

The easier you make it for patients to say yes and do their treatment, the more successful your dental practice will be.

I hear a common issue from dentists, they say their new patient numbers are up but their production numbers are down and they can’t figure out ‘the disconnect’. This tells me the patients are getting overwhelmed somewhere in the process.

To help you overcome this, I want you to take off your dentist goggles for a minute and put on your patient goggles. Put yourself in their shoes and run through the process of finding you, making an appointment, and visiting your office.

There are a few things you can look at, and the first step is your website. I know we can get caught up in wanting to prove what a great dentist we are, and list everything we know on our site, but sometimes less is more. If you give people too much information or too many choices they shut down and can’t make a decision. An easy fix to this is simply your website. Make it easier for the patient to understand, in a language that is important to their wants and needs.

Think about the process of when they call your office. Is your phone greeting very easy for them to understand? They are probably already a little nervous or unsure when calling you for the first time, so don’t overwhelm them with a big, long phone introduction.

What about your office? Is your signage out front easy to see from the road if they are trying to find you for the first time? Or while they are in your office, can they easily find the restroom? All these little things you don’t think about on a daily basis because you know your office space like you know your home but it’s new to them and not assumed.
The same applies when explaining care and treatment plans, and even the check-out process. Don’t be too technical. Don’t run through all of thousands steps and tools used in a procedure, or detail every billing code and what insurance doesn’t cover. Instead, place the emphasis on how you want to take care of them, and you are thinking of their best interest. It’s not about lying or withholding information but it’s talking to them in a way that is easy for them to understand and that isn’t overwhelming.
I’m giving you an assignment – for your next office meeting ask each department to run through their process and think of ways to simplify it and make it easier for your patients. And I know you will see big results and quick.