I Love My Dentist

Companions

This category, companions, is never
really talked about but can be a
great source of new patients if you
pay as much attention to them as
you do to the other new patients that
enter your practice.

This group of patients is comprised of those people that
accompany your patient to your office just to keep them company
or possibly to provide transportation etc. Very often, these people
are not patients of record but are now ‘trapped’ in your office
where you can now introduce them to the Great things you can
offer them in comparison to their current dentist (assuming they
have a dentist at all).

Treat these patients as if they are New Patients and provide them
with a welcome that they will never forget. Hey, ‘ya never know.
They just might become your next new patient……

First Impressions Do Count

This first (oh, well maybe second impression) starts the minute
your new patient, regardless of the source, enters your office
through the front door. What do they see, smell, hear, feel and

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yes, even taste can make a huge difference in the way they
perceive your practice. This Exceptional Patient Experience will be
discussed in great length in future chapters.

"Men often become what they believe
themselves to be. If I believe I cannot
do something, it makes me incapable of
doing it. But when I believe I can, then I
acquire the ability to do it even if I
didn't have it in the beginning."
Mahatma Gandhi

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Chapter 7: The Welcome – Here Comes
the Patient

There is nothing more important than welcoming your new
patient. Now, as I mentioned previously, you really should be
treating each and every patient as if they are a new patient,
even your existing patients of record. But let’s look at the way we
treat a ‘real’ new patient, by definition someone who has never
been to the office before.

Remember, it takes a lot for a patient not only to call your office
but to show up at all. Most patients have some fear or concerns
about dentistry and deciding to obtain treatment is a major
decision. I would suggest that if you are now a believer in the
Niche Concept of Marketing and are ready to establish a truly
Unique Dental Experience than now is the time to get the juices
flowing. This initial contact in the office will not only make or
break a relationship but will also provide the momentum for
increased case values and case acceptance.

Setting the stage properly, much like a theatrical production, can
provide the audience with a preview of what is about to come.
Providing the patient with more than they ever would expect
from a ‘dental office’ can go a long way to establishing your
practice as something new and different. Remember,

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differentiation is the key to success in not only tough times but
good times as well.

The Initial Encounter

What happens when the patient enters your front door? It
makes no difference by the way whether this is from the
street or out of an elevator. Sure, a dramatic private building
makes a wonderful first impression and sure, I wish I had that
during my career, but you can make a wonderful first impression
being on the second floor of a traditional office building as well. It
just takes a bit more effort and creativeness, that’s all.

We spoke a bit about the five senses in previous chapters and I
would like to expound on that a bit more in this chapter and
possibly in future chapters as well because I believe we must be
aware of each of these senses when we approach our patients.
For too long we have ignored our patient’s senses and allowed
bad smelling, ugly looking, annoying sounding etc. stimuli to enter
our patient’s brain matter. That needs to stop now if you are
going to be a truly unique dental practice.

So, let’s approach our new patient with the five senses in mind.

Sense 1 – Sight
What does your patient see the moment they enter your office?

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I would suggest you test this
yourself with a video camera rather
than your own tainted eye. Let the
camera see your office and then
review it with your staff.

Do they see a typical dental office full of chairs indicating that
they are just one of many patients who will or might be waiting
for an appointment? I would hope that your reception room looks
much like your own living room or den where you welcome family
and friends. Treat your patients like family and friends and they
will treat you back in a similar manner. Ask yourself how many
chairs or seating you have in your den and use that as a guide for
reception room seating.

Is your reception room lit comfortably so that someone can read a
magazine without squinting or losing their eyesight?

Do you have magazines that are interesting to your targeted
market? Now I know the gurus tell us not to have magazines that
compete with us for our patient’s discretionary dollars. But, I’ve
got to you that when I have to sit in a reception room, regardless
of where, I want to read something that interests me not
necessarily what is interesting or important to the doctor. I would
hope that you have a selection that keeps the interest of your

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patients rather than have them ponder what will be coming next.
The magazines in your reception room should not really be for the
patient anyway since the amount of time they should be spending
in that room is minimal. The magazines are more for those
accompanying your patient or for those rare circumstances when
you happen to be running a bit late.

Also do you really think that having those huge, black and white
pictures of beautiful young boys and girls (yup, they are just boys
and girls to most of your patients) is really impressive and leads to
more dentistry being accepted? Do you think that your patients
relate to these gorgeous young men and women with white (fake
white) teeth? I would imagine that most patients see this for what
it is, blatant marketing!

My suggestion is to keep this kind of art (if that is what it is called)
in a cosmetic treatment room or in the treatment area hallway if
you really think it helps ‘sell’ dentistry. Leave your reception room
as an indicator of welcome, warmth and comfort rather than a
sales environment much like a car showroom.

Next, if you have a TV in your reception room, what is the
program of the day? Is it violence in Afghanistan or turmoil in
Iraq? Is it more gloom and doom about the economy that can
only cause increasing stress for your patient as they enter into the
dental unknown? How about those gas and food prices?

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This is one area where we need to be sure to concentrate our
energies on providing our patients with visual stimuli that are
geared to their comfort, relaxation and reduction of stress rather
than setting them up for an increase in blood pressure and heart
rate.

My suggestion here is to play a DVD of something designed to
relax and reduce stress. There are numerous selections out there
that can achieve these goals without spending large sums of
money. I have tried using some of the computerized interactive
software programs provided by dental companies in an attempt
to educate patients about implants, snoring, crowns and bridges
and have always been asked to turn it off. This, again, in my
opinion is not a place for sales or patient education. Leave that to
the treatment area or your consultation rooms.

Of course, designing a new reception room should involve
providing the proper stimulation for your patient’s visual sense
but it is really not necessary to run out and hire an office designer.
Just take a look around and please yourself and then, if changes
are necessary, make small ones at first. It’s real easy to find
inexpensive artwork for the walls, comfortable seating to replace
those old hard reception room chairs. There are amazing fake
flowers and plants that can add incredible warmth even to the
most dreary reception room and they never need watering!

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If you can afford it, fresh flowers weekly are a great addition to
any reception room. They look wonderful and smell great. They
also tell you audience that you are concerned about their comfort
and are willing to go the extra mile. Just think about the
wonderful flower arrangements you tend to see at upscale
restaurants and I think you’ll get the idea. They do it for a good
reason and so should you!

Finally, get rid of the barrier between your patient and the front
desk. Nothing says “stay away” more than a glass partition. If you
are truly a warm and welcoming office you need to express that in
everything you do and say. Those sliding glass partitions need to
go!

Sense 2 – Touch
What happens when your new patient opens that front door is
critical to establishing a new relationship.

If this was your home you would be there to open the door when
the bell rang. If you don’t have a bell on your office door, you
need to make sure that during your morning huddle that
everyone is aware of the new patient’s appointment time. You
need to be sure that someone is ready to extend a welcomed
hand to that new patient when they first enter the office. The
office staff member needs to welcome the patient by name and

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offer their name as well much like you would do at your home
when a new friend arrives at your door.

That very same person should show the new patient around the
room; showing them where to hang their coats, where the fresh
coffee is located, where the magazines are and even where the
bathroom is located should that become an immediate necessity.

In some offices a tour of the office is provided by the staff
member where they introduce the remainder of the staff
including the doctor, show the new patient the unique attributes
of the office and familiarize them with the office structure so that
it is not quite as menacing or confusing as it normally can be for
someone new to the office.

It is not the purpose of this book to go into details of how to deal
with the new patient on all levels such as obtaining medical
histories etc. Suffice it to say that treat patients like you would
want to be treated and things will go just fine.

Just a brief anecdote:
A number of months ago I had to go to a new physician. I arrived
just a few minutes early and no one was there. I waited outside in
the rain until one of the staff arrived. I sat down by myself,

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noticing the torn and weathered carpeting, and then was called to
a hole in a window where she passed me a clipboard with a whole
bunch of papers on it.

She said, “Name”. I said, “Dr. Ganz”. She said, “Fill these out and
return them to me when you’re done”. I said, “OK”.

Like a good boy I filled out the forms and returned them to her
without as much as a single word.

About twenty minutes later I heard a voice from afar, “Ganz”, she
shouted. I looked up, almost jolted out of my seat, to see that I
was being called into the treatment room by one of the doctor’s
staff. No introduction was offered and I was escorted to a
treatment room and asked to wait until the doctor could see me.

Now, the physician was a good guy and the treatment was fine.
But I have related this story to numerous other people probably
forgetting the part about him being a good guy!

This is not what I would call a warm touch and feel practice. You
might be saying to yourself, well, in medicine this never happens.
Well, this is really no longer true. My good friend and patient, Dr.
Steven Mendelsohn owns a radiology group, Zwanger-Pesiri
Radiology here on Long Island, that rivals the Ritz Carlton in its
ambience and customer service.

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Steve is a perfect example of the Real Golden Rule: Treat others
like you would like to be treated. It never hurts to be nice!

Sense 3 – Sound
Music soothes the savage beast and always makes patients feel a
lot more comfortable. The sounds patients hear while they wait in
your reception room can help create a sense of calm or serve to
increase their level of anxiety, it’s up to you.

First, make sure that your reception room is not in total ear shot
of your treatment area if at all possible. The sound of the drill
drives most people nuts in much the same way as chalk on a
blackboard. It’s bad enough to sit in the operatory listening to the
sound of the drill, let’s try to avoid it while patients sit in our
reception area.

As a side note and I’ll probably mention this again several times
throughout this book, patients should never wait in the reception
room unless it is absolutely unavoidable. Waiting increases stress
and anxiety (I hate dentistry or I have to get to my next
appointment, pick up the kids etc), creates a sense of
abandonment (does he/she know I’m here), establishes confusion
(when will I be taken) and is just plain annoying to many if not
most patients. As I said in earlier chapters, the reception room

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really should be for companions that you can hopefully turn into
new patients not for patients ready to be treated.

If you’re running late, and believe me I
run late just like you, seat the
patient in another treatment room
and provide a spa like service while
they wait. Keep them no longer
than 10 -1 5 minutes, do it for free
and your patients will thank you.

Secondly, do not judge the music you play by your ear but rather
by the ear of your Patient Avatar. What do you patients like to
listen to? What is age appropriate for your own patient
population? Can you play music in your reception room that is
comforting, stress reducing rather than music that is played at the
local night spot?

I would also suggest that the music selection is not totally
arbitrary. There is music available that is created for specific
purposes and can be used for different reasons. We will discuss
more about the type of music to be used during treatment in
another chapter. In the reception room the music may come from
the DVD being played on your large screen TV or if no TV is

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present, select something that plays in the background and can be
enjoyed by everyone.

In our office we have connected our
music system to the internet so we can
actually download songs from either
streaming audio or iTunes. We
ask our patients what they would
like to hear and then try to oblige
them whenever possible. This is
typically done in the treatment area
but streaming music from the Internet
can also be used exceptionally well in
the reception room as well. The
technology to do so is inexpensive to
buy and install and, the Internet is
FREE!

Sense 4 – Smell
This is an easy one. Never allow your patient sitting in the
reception room to smell the typical dental office smells of Eugenol
and acrylic etc. It is very inexpensive to provide some kind of
aromatherapy, essential oils or air fresheners to provide pleasant
fragrances while people sit in your reception area.

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According to the Sense of Smell Institute 75 per cent of all
emotions we generate are due to what we smell. Businesses are
well aware of this and for years they have used this power of the
scent as an important marketing tool. Just think of all of the
companies you can recognize just by their smell (i.e. Crayola
crayons, Baby Powder by Johnson and Johnson and even
Kentucky Fried Chicken)

Now different companies, including dentists,
are on a new quest to enhance their images
through what is now being called Aroma
Branding.

Fresh flowers can also provide a wonderful Fig. 1 Reception
fragrance as well. You need to be aware of Room Floral
patient allergies if fresh flowers are going to Arrangement
be part of your reception room décor.

By the way, you can also place a
small vessel in your fake flower
arrangement and use some
essential oils to mimic the smell of
fresh flowers. Take it from me,
oftentimes patients will comment on

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how wonderful the flowers actually
smell. We’ve also had patients try to
water our fake flowers….

In future chapters we’ll also talk about the sense of smell as it
relates to the treatment process. Most patients will tell you that
the sounds of the drill and the smells and tastes of the materials
we use are probably the most stressful and uncomfortable aspect
of their treatment. We need to attend to these concerns if we are
going to be successful in creating a Unique Patient Experience.

Sense 5 – Taste
Okay, this is a bit more complicated. Most dental offices today
provide their patients with coffee, tea and the like in the
reception area. If you’re not one of them, get on the stick and go
out and buy or rent a coffee maker. Even our local Nissan dealer
provides these services, including donuts, while you wait for your
car to be repaired. Aren’t you not a whole lot better than a car
dealer?

If you want to be unique and
different in the refreshment area I
would suggest holistic coffees and
teas, food selections that are
cholesterol and trans fat free,

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homemade cookies and cakes, fresh
fruit and juices etc. We even supply our
patients with bottled water with our
own company name, logo and website
on the bottle.

One of the nice things we do, in our office, is to provide our

patients with a selection from our office bakery to take with them

when they leave the office. Instead of the typical pencil case with

floss and a tooth brush (more on this

later) we provide a beautiful bag with

several different items for them to take

home. One of these items is our fresh Fig. 2 Souriretm Bakery
baked selection of the day in a glassine

envelope.

When it comes to taking care of taste in the treatment area we
have a much bigger problem. There is no doubt that the materials
we use for impressions; fillings etc have just horrible tastes.
Having just been a patient recently myself, I can attest to the fact
that even the cements today taste like poop. (My five year olds
favorite word). It is also true that by changing the smells we can
go a long way in improving the perception of taste. More on this
during the chapter on Treatment, Before, During and After.

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What is important to remember is the last thing on the tongue is
what your patients will tend to remember. Leave them with
something that tastes good and the horrible tasting goop will
hopefully be a thing soon forgotten. (Or at least until the next
visit).

This is only a real brief discussion about how we, as dentists,
should approach handling our patient’s five senses during their
visit to our office. More will be discussed in future chapters.

It is important to note, however, that
one of our main goals should be to
have our patients leave our office,
after their dental visit, with
something wonderful to say about
our office. By approaching each of
their five senses we have established a
great opportunity to provide them with
just such powerful information.

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Chapter 8: Patient Communication

There is no doubt that in order to stay in business, any
business, you need to stay in contact with your customers.
Just look at the junk mail you receive on a daily basis and
you’ll understand how important it is to stay in touch with your
customers.

Most of the companies sending out this junk mail know full well
that most of it reaches the garbage pail in seconds flat. All they
hope is that you at least recognize the name etc. so that in the
future you may give them a call.

Those companies that are fortunate enough to get their mail
opened (and sometimes good luck has nothing to do with it) are
hoping that this is the right moment when you are in need their
services. You may receive direct mail from garage organizers
dozens of times without even noticing their name. However,
when the day comes that you decide it’s time to clean out that
garage, that very same advertisers hopes that their direct mail
piece will hit your mailbox and just the fact that you’ve seen their
name before will be enough for you to give them a call.

We, as dentists, need to stay in touch with our patients for the
very same reasons. There is no better source of new patients than
your current, happy, satisfied, overwhelmed and appreciative
patient database. These are people that have stayed with you,
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trusted you to provide extremely personal care and are more than
likely to buy again when the need arises. You need to stay in front
of their eyeballs so that when that needs does appear; they
automatically give you a call. Just think of Pavlov’s Dog……they
hear dentistry, they think of you!

Possibly more important than your current patient giving you a
call when treatment is needed (they most likely would do so
regardless) is for them to be in the moment when there is a
possibility of referral. Your patients should be so fine tuned to
your exceptional practice that the minute dentistry is mentioned
in almost any circumstance (lunch with friends, meeting with
boss, etc.) they jump up with your name on their lips.

Today, everyone is inundated with media messages. I’m not really
sure of the exact number of marketing messages we see a day but
it’s probably a gazillion. When our patients are at lunch with a
friend, at a meeting with a business associate, at home during
dinner, commuting with neighbors etc. they need to be not only
willing to refer but eager to do so without hesitation. We need to
create “Missionaries”.

This concept was started I believe by Quest Management years
ago. They are no longer in business as far as I know, but the
concept of dental missionaries was something I remember coming
from them when I worked with them a long time ago.

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In third world countries, missionaries go out into the most
remote, troubled and dangerous areas just to convert people into
one religion or another. They are there because of a deep seated
need to help others and for no other reason. We need to find our
‘dental missionaries’ within our own offices and then provide
them with the tools they need to go out into the most remote
areas of our towns and cities (figuratively of course) to promote
us.

To accomplish this goad we need to do many things starting with
proper, consistent and yes, even abundant communication.

Why?

I think I’ve basically answered this question in the above
paragraphs but repetition is sometimes valuable so let’s restate
this is another way.

If you’re not in front of your patient often in a meaningful way,
you will be forgotten. Sorry, but that’s pretty much the truth. We
are not on the top of your patient’s hit list (the good hit list). Just
sit in your local lunch place and eavesdrop on the tables around
you. Many of them will be talking about their dentist but
unfortunately, not in the most flattering terms. They’ll talk about
that root canal they just had and how they’re still numb. The pain
that was “inflicted” upon them by the dentists, the rubber dam
placed on their mouth suffocating them during treatment and the

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terrible tastes of the Eugenol placed in their tooth. They’ll most
likely still have the taste at lunch and try as hard as they can to
find something at the diner to drink to relieve them as quickly as
possible. And let’s not even talk about the numbness and
drooling….

Communication is critical if we are going to change this type of
communication. We need to provide our patients with better PR
so that they can represent us in a better light at these times. We
need to provide them with material much like comedians are
provided with material before they get on stage. Just imagine how
hard it would be for a Jay Leno to get up in front of his audience
each and every day if he wasn’t provided with the jokes of the
day.

We need to give them something good to say, or, they will either
say nothing at all or well, I hope you get the idea.

When

How frequently do you need to reach and ‘touch’ your
patients in order to be there at the right time? It was
previously thought that 10 -15 times a year was adequate. That
might have been true before the Internet and 24 hour TV. Today,
our patients (customers if you’re not a dentist reading this book)
are seeing hundreds if not thousands of marketing visualizations a
day. They are overwhelmed with ads for cars, food, medicine and

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the like. We have to fit in their someway and attract their
attention.

The good news is that since we have name recognition with our
patients, we can bypass a lot of the junk and get noticed pretty
easily, as long as what we are saying is pertinent and important to
our audience. If it is just the marketing fluff so often used than we
too will end up in that proverbial circular file alongside the used
cars ads.

I would suggest that, and hold onto your hats, 50 or more times a
year is probably appropriate in these times. How to do it, without
being invasive and insulting comes next!

How

Online – Websites and Blogs

The online world has grown by leaps and bounds. Today, most
people tend to get their information by using search engines,
websites and blogs. Your patients are not any different. One of
the ways to stay in touch with patients is by creating a unique and
different website and blog.

Your website needs to have current and pertinent information
that attracts your patients to it for most of their dental health
information. Your website should be a place for them to come to

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request an appointment, change an appointment, find out
information about techniques and services provided by your
office, request and obtain current and past copies of your office
newsletter, take a tour of your office and take a look at your staff
etc.

By using certain services and techniques, your patients can opt in
(request) to be on your newsletter list and then automatically
receive copies on a monthly basis (or whatever basis you feel
comfortable). This is called ‘push’ technology meaning that once
they elect to opt into your list, you then push the information to
them rather than them having to come to your site every time to
‘pull’ it into their browser.

Push/Pull concepts are really important to understand if you are
going to stay ahead in this communications game. You just can’t
rely upon your patient coming to your website each and every
time you have a need to contact them. You need to create a list of
patients who want to be contacted and then have it automatically
done by a third party so that you personally do not have to spend
your time doing all of the work.

You can outsource this to several companies or set it up yourself
depending upon your own level of computer knowledge, the time
you have for this endeavor and well, your level of interest.
Personally, I like doing this myself; it tends to keep me off of the

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streets and out of trouble. You on the other hand, may prefer
golf.

In future chapters we’ll talk about how to set up just this kind of
push technology so that your monthly newsletter goes out
automatically.

If you currently have a website than that’s fine. I would suggest
that having multiple websites is probably a lot more important
today for a number of reasons; each site targeting a specific
market, technique or service. We’ll touch base on this later on as
well.

The other online tool for communication is the Blog. Weblogs or
Blogs are basically websites that allow for two way
communication. Websites are uni-directional for the most part.
You provide the material and the patient reads it. Sure they can
push buttons to go elsewhere and do other things, but for the
most part the communication is one way; you to them.

Blogs were designed so that the reader can comment back to the
author and two way communications occurs. You can post new
items with great ease, let your patients know that your blog exists
and they can easily respond.

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They can ask questions and you can reply. You can introduce new
techniques and services, they can ask questions and you can
answer. You can introduce new staff members or provide
information about a new move, and your patients and respond.

In order for Blogs to be successful in dentistry, they must have
importance to patients and they must be updated regularly. This
does not mean that the doctor has to do it all. Staff should be
involved in adding to the office Blog so that it becomes more of a
family event. Patients should be welcomed to the family so that
they too become comfortable adding to the interest of the Blog.

Be sure to advertise your Blog in your
office newsletter, in email (coming
next) and verbally during the
patients visit to the office. Let your
patients know that you will provide
important material to them that
may affect their dental health and
that of their families on a regular basis.
Make it important!

Email
Now this is a great tool to understand and use. Don’t be taken
back by all of the SPAM stuff; this really doesn’t apply to you or

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your practice. Since your patients are directly involved in your
practice, it is not SPAM to send them email especially if they have
volunteered their email addresses during registration or at some
other time. They have opted in to your mailing list by the nature
of them supplying you with their email address.

Secondly, you still need to allow them to opt out of your emailing
should they not want to be included. Most practice management
programs today have the ability to 1) save email addresses in the
patient file and 2) create lists so that you can export them to one
of a number of email programs.

In order to use email as a
communications tool you need to make
sure that everyone on you staff is tuned
into capturing your patient’s
primary email address. Primary
meaning the email address they
use most often. Most people have
multiple email addresses but use one
primarily. Be sure that is the one you
store in their file.

Also, you need to make sure that you update this list frequently. I
would suggest that at every recare visit the patient be asked if

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there email address is up to date in much the same manner as
you update medical histories. I would add this field to your
medical history update just to be safe.

Once you’ve obtained these email addresses you now can use
them to reach your patients:

1. On their birthdays (1)
2. On holidays one each month (12)
3. On special occasions such as weddings, graduation etc.

(2)
4. Send them a monthly newsletter (12)
5. Send them appointment reminders for both treatment

and recall (6)
6. Offer them monthly specials or coupons such as

Summertime Whitening (12)
7. Staff updates, change in office hours, office vacation

etc. (2)

Total – 47 or more contacts just using these basic email
techniques. Obviously this will be different in your practice but I
hope you get the idea.

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The nice part about email is that it’s
FREE and the programs that are
designed for this purpose handle most
of the work for you. You set it up and
away it goes. All of the above contacts
can be made with little or no effort on
your part.

Another interesting aspect of email is that it can be Viral. Don’t
worry; this is a good type of virus, one that is spread voluntarily
and helps not only your patient and you but your patient’s
friends, family and business associates.

Here how Viral Marketing works:
In all of your emails, whether they are notes to your patients in
simple text format or whether you’ve created an html newsletter,
there should be a button or link for them to send this email to
their friends etc. If your patient feels that the email has value to
someone else they can easily forward it or, in a newsletter type
email, you can have a button that provides this function.

This type of viral marketing is very
effective since the marketing piece
as it is does not come from you,
where there can be a sense of a self

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serving agenda, but rather from your
patient themselves. You are, however,
the direct beneficiary of this type of
marketing.

Check the Resources section of this book for programs that will
help you with this project.

Direct Mail
This is a topic that is best covered by others with a lot more
knowledge and skill than me. Direct mail, or mail that you send to
either your existing patients or potential patients, still has a place
in your marketing plan. It is not easy to get the attention of your
patients or potential new patients due to the abundance of direct
mail received by all of us so I would suggest that you use an
outside resource with expertise in this area.

Be careful! There are lots of marketers out there that will take
your money, make promises and then when the results are in,
disappear. I will not make any suggestions in this book because
my results with direct mail have not been very good. I have used
many of the so-called gurus in this field with limited or no success.
I don’t doubt their skills and place the blame purely on my
shoulders. But, that being said, I am still not comfortable referring
any of these services.

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Remember that not one of these concepts will work by
themselves. You need to have a good mix of components to keep
this fresh. If it becomes stale, your patients will just tend to ignore
these messages much the same way they ignore all of the stuff
filling their snail mailboxes.
Keep your messages pertinent to their needs, new and interesting
and make sure they are up to date. These messages do not
necessarily have to be totally personal or involved with your
patient’s own healthcare. Each and every one of us has kids,
grandkids, parents, friends or relatives that may benefit from
interesting and up to date dental health information.

"I am a strong believer in luck and I find
the harder I work the more I have of it."

Benjamin Franklin

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Chapter 9: New Patient Acquisition

I remember the good ‘ol days of no advertising when we all
wished it would change. Well, we’ve gotten what we asked
for….in spades. Today, just about everybody is advertising
something or other to attract patients to their practices. You are,
whether you like it or not, in a competitive race for these patients
unless you’ve created your own patient acquisition tool.

I remember when all it took was a good practice, good skills, a
good staff etc. to get all of the new patients you could treat.
Patients came to you because they were referred by a family
member, a friend, a business associate or perhaps another
doctor. They came to you for your skills because somehow they
felt you could solve their problem(s). Call me old fashioned but
this worked just fine for me

But, today things have changed and I guess we need to change
with the times. I too have tried advertising in order to attract
more new patients to my Prosthodontic practice. I have tried just
about everything but I have to tell you that, for the most part, I
have failed. I say I because the truth is the final fault must be
mine because advertising does work for lots of offices around the
country. I just haven’t found the right mix, combination of
headlines and copy to make it work for me. So, I’ve had to do

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other things to allow my practice to grow and prosper in spite of
all of the advertising going on around me.

Some Things I’ve Learned Over the Past
Thirty-five (35) Years

Since external, advertising type marketing has not worked well
for me, I’ve had to learn to market myself a bit more internally
and rely upon the Internet etc. as my form of external marketing.
In order to accomplish my goals I learned the following,
sometimes the hard way.

1. Patient acquisition requires a conscious, continuous
effort. It cannot be left to chance…the phone may never
ring. It cannot be something you think about only when
times get tough and the schedule is open and looks like
a block of Swiss cheese. New patient acquisition is a full
time job and deserves a high place on your priority list
even if you are booked weeks in advance and the
money is flowing in. This too doctor can change on a
whim…just look at our economy today for proof that
anything and everything can happen just about
overnight.

2. Never be complacent. Today may have been a great
day, lots of new patient phone calls, lots of acceptance
but tomorrow is just one day away. You can never stop

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putting your best foot forward. You can never stop
being unique and different. You can never stop
promoting you and your practice as something to be
cherished and desired above all other practices in the
area.

Now, in these tough economic times, is
not the time to retreat. Quite the
contrary, you need to redouble
your efforts so that you can
prosper while other just tread
water. You need to make sure that
every new patient that is referred is
given a Unique Dental Experience so
that they too quickly become one of
your dental missionaries.

You need to immediately reinforce your gratitude for
the confidence of the referral by thanking the referral
source quickly and sufficiently. This is not the time or
place to cut back but rather treat this as if it were gold.

3. Always follow up on leads. If you utilize a lead
collection website or other lead collection strategy (to
be discussed) than you must be tireless in following up

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on those leads. Nothing is more wasteful than to get a
lead and let it lie fallow in a wasteland of other lost
leads. Leads are just that, potential new patients. They
have shown an interest and it’s up to you to cultivate
that interest until they become a new patient.

This may require multiple interactions
via mail, email, phone calls etc. But
remember, the cost to keep in
contact is usually miniscule
compared to the rewards you
will reap over a lifetime of
patient loyalt.

4. The Power of Testimonials. In a later chapter I will
discuss how to accumulate and use testimonials in a
wide variety of ways. Suffice it to say here that one of
the best new patient acquisition tools is Testimonials.
Use them often and use them everywhere.

Testimonials are a patient’s
voluntary tribute to your skills
and professionalism.

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5. Public Relations and Press Releases – They used to say
that any press is good press. Now, that is not necessarily
true but good press is always helpful in promoting you
and your practice.

6. Write and Speak Anywhere, Anytime – Getting your
name in print in either your local paper, local magazine
etc. can go a long way into making you an expert in your
community. Patients love to come to experts and love it
even more when they see their dentist’s name in print.
Be an Expert in Something, Anything!

7. Be known for Something, or You’ll be Known for
Nothing – Each and every one of us has something
unique and different about us that can be used to
differentiate us from the office down the street or
across town. It may relate to dentistry or it may be a
hobby that we excel in. I’ve seen dentists get
tremendous press because they are car buffs, have
jump out of a plane (willingly with a parachute),
volunteered to help the needy, run in a marathon etc.
I’ve also seen dentists get known for being the “laser”
dentist, the “implant” dentist or the dentist that will put
you to sleep.

I guess the point here is that you need to find
something special and unique about you, your office or
both so that you can promote that difference in order to
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attract new patients. In another chapter I’ll divulge what
we use in our office to make a visit with us something
special. So make sure to read on….

8. Create a Unique Patient Environment – OK, I’m
jumping the gun here a bit but my belief and really the
reason I started writing this book was because I
honestly feel that we need to change the face of
dentistry. We need to stop hearing the old, tiresome
comments like, “Hey, Doc, don’t take it personally but I
hate all dentists”. Or, “I’d rather have a baby than get a
tooth fixed”. Now I was in on the birth of my last son
and I know firsthand that that is a lot of bunk…..

9. Give Your Patients Something to Talk About – When
your patient leaves your office after a GREAT dental
visit, it is the best opportunity for them to refer another
patient. You need to provide them, as mentioned
previously, with the ammunition they need to present
you to your next new patient.

10. Who Do You Want to Treat? You can’t treat the whole
world and probably shouldn’t if you could. Each of us
has a certain disposition and a certain aptitude for
dealing with various types of patients both personally
and professionally. I, personally, just don’t have the
patience for treating young children and therefore
became a Prosthodontist. I love kids but just don’t want

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to treat them…..and therefore I don’t. Probably good for
all involved.

I don’t like root canal. I find it boring and not very
challenging. I’ve really tried to like it. I went out and
purchased all of the new tools, rotary instruments, apex
locaters and use digital x-ray but I still just can’t get
myself to like Endodontics. I therefore refer it all out to
dentists that are better at it than I. My patients get the
best care possible and I don’t have to do something I
don’t like. A win win proposition for all.

11. You get what you attract! Now I’m not going to get into
the whole Secret philosophy here but suffice it to say
that if you’re grumpy, you’ll attract grumpiness. If
you’re a positive person, positive people will tend to be
attracted to you. If you’re looking to treat the affluent,
look and feel affluent (even if you’re currently not
flowing in cash) and you’ll attract more of the same. If
you want to treat the affluent and your reception room
looks like something out of the London bombings, well I
hope you get the idea.

12. Where will they come from? Your new patients can
come from almost anywhere. I’ve had more and more
patients recently coming from the Internet. I’ve had
new patients coming from lectures that I’ve given to

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local study clubs. I’ve had patients come to me from the
local deli where I happen to go for lunch. I’ve had
patients come from other dentists, from my car
dealership, from neighbors and friends, from other
companies in my office building and the list goes on and
on….

There are as many Patient Attraction Systems as there
as hairs on your head. Just about everything you do and
say relates to your future success in attracting new
patients. The reality is that you need to track the
success of these systems and then duplicate, replicate
and accentuate the ones that are successful and drop
the failures.

13. Once You Get Them Are You Ready to Handle Them?
Ask and you shall receive but make sure you’re ready
because you may just get what you asked for. Is your
office ready to handle the new patients that walk
through the front door? Have you changed your
practice to attract the people you want to treat and
now are first coming to you for care? Have you made
the physical, emotional and tactical changes necessary
to treat the people from number 11 above?

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Remember, you only get one chance to make a first
impression. (Kind of a cliché I know) If you’ve made
promises you can’t keep, you may never get another
chance to make up for it. You need to be ready to take
on these challenges. You need to act now and continue
to move forward to not only attract these new patients
but to get them to:

a. Accept new dentistry at higher case values
b. Refer new patients just like themselves
c. Stay as your patient willingly and gratefully.
14. You Need to Stay on Top of Your Game to Succeed –
This is a bit more than just not being complaisant. You
really need to find new and exciting tools to use and
integrate into your marketing mix all the time. I find
that a day does not go by that I don’t hear or see a
potential new technique or tool to use as part of my
patient attraction mix. Just the other day I found a really
terrific new tool to use on my website to allow patients
to connect with me by phone instantaneously. More on
this in my next video.
15. Fear Has No Place in Patient Attraction – If you are
timid and afraid to use new technology to attract new
patients there is one thing you can be sure of, your
neighbors and competitors across town will be jumping
on this new technology with little or no concern. Being
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the first oftentimes helps capture the moment. Being
ahead of the curve can be a bit disconcerting but can
also provide a tremendous advantage when it comes to
creating a unique and different practice profile.

"The achievement of one goal should
be the starting point of another."
Alexander Graham Bell

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Chapter 10: Patient Re-Activation

Each and every dentist has a whole bunch of patients in their
old files that can potentially become “new” patients once
again. It is certainly a lot easier to regain the confidence of an
‘old’ patient than to attract a totally new one.

Many of these patients may have left because of life
circumstances that may have changed since then and now they
may be ready and able to return. All they need is a slight push and
they’ll be back, ready to move forward with the dentistry they
wanted and needed.

But, you need to reach out to them to let them know they are
welcomed back. You need to alert them that you are here if they
are ready to start treatment again. You need to make these
people know that there will be no repercussions should they
decide to return.

Sometimes patients that have been away from the practice for a
long period of time may be hesitant to return due to
embarrassment. They may feel that they are no longer wanted
because of the long lapse in treatment. We need to reassure
them that this couldn’t be further from the truth.

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Step by Step Instructions for Patient Re-
activation

1. First you need to determine how far back you want to
go in your records. Do you want to attempt to re-
activate patients who have been missing for 1 year, 5
years or more?

2. Are there any patients that you do not want to re-
activate? You want to be sure not to get in touch with
the 20% of the people who possibly gave you 80% of
your problems. Letting bygones be bygones is probably
a good idea for the remaining 80%.

3. Use your practice management system to create a list of
patients that have not been in your office for a
prescribed period of time.

4. Decide how you will be contacting this group of people.
I would suggest that you use a multi-prong approach.
Most people will not respond to just one interaction.
You will need to contact them several times and
hopefully reach them when the moment is right for
them to respond.

5. Regardless of the media, it will be the message that
counts. You need to:
a. Welcome them back to your office
unconditionally.

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b. Offer them an incentive to come back. Taking
a look at their past dental history might give
you a clue as to what incentive to use.
i. You might just find it easier to use
one incentive for the entire mailing
such as Free Smile Whitening or
Complimentary Exam etc. Makes it
much easier to get the project up
and running in less time.

c. Assure them that you will re-evaluate their
current dental needs and provide them with
the options that are available to them today.
These options may be different than the
choices they had at their last visit.

d. You might want to suggest to them that there
are new techniques and technologies that will
make their next visit with you different than
all of the visits they have experienced in the
past.

6. As mentioned there are several ways to send a message
to this group of patients.
a. Regular Mail – A standard letter from the
doctor could and probably should be the first
attempt.

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b. Email - This can be followed by an email a
month or so later. Many of the email
programs available today provide this kind of
service automatically on a timed basis. All you
need to do is provide the list of email
addresses. This might prove to be difficult if
you only started collecting emails recently.

c. The next attempt might be a second letter
reiterating the welcome message.

d. In six months, another personal letter from
the doctor.

e. One year, another personal letter from the
doctor.

f. Newsletters - Finally place the patient on your
newsletter list.

7. Personally, I wouldn’t stop with the letters or emails
until asked by the patient. You never know when the
moment will be right and you surely want to be there
when it happens.

"Genius is one per cent inspiration and
ninety-nine per cent perspiration."
Thomas Edison

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Chapter 11: Patient Maintenance and
Stability

This is a kind of bizarre term but by Patient Maintenance I am
not referring to any hygiene procedure but rather the day to
day tasks we employ to keep our patients up to date, informed
and a part of our practice family.

Once you integrate any particular item into your patient routine,
you need to be consistent. For example, if you call patients the
night before to remind them of their appointment (I’m not
suggesting this is good or bad. We do it but there is a down side
as well) then you need to do it ALL OF THE TIME.

If you provide fresh bottled water in your reception area, God
help you if one day it’s not there. You’ll never hear the end of it…..

Once you have a loyal patient you need to think of them as GOLD.
You need to do whatever is necessary, within reason, to keep
them ‘thrilled’ with the care and concern provided by your office.

There is no doubt that it is much harder to find a new patient than
to keep one. By that I mean you need to make sure that you do
whatever is possible to make sure that your current patients are
treated so well that nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, will
entice them to leave you and go elsewhere.

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Now, this is a tough task. Each and every day we as dentists rely
not only upon ourselves but on our staff to carry on with the
protocols established to create the Unique Patient Experience.
We count on them to make sure that nothing is left to chance and
that our patients are given the finest care possible.

We, as dentists, often delegate these tasks and then dive deep
into our own stuff like preparing teeth, taking impressions etc and
forget that we also need to wear a leader hat as well. Like many
others who have written books I need to mention this concept
because as someone who faces this each and every day I
understand the importance of being a leader. Unlike all of the
other writers and ‘authorities’ I won’t bore you with line after line
about what a leader is, how to become one, what will happen in
your life if you’re not a leader etc. I’ll leave that bit of philosophy
to others more educated and knowledgeable than I.

What I want to stress here is that as the owner of the practice you
need to be up on “follow through”. Much like a great golfer (and
take it from me I am not one of those) who understands that it’s
all in the follow through, you as a business leader need to make
sure that once a project, protocol, idea, thought is conceived that
there is a process to make sure that:

1. It is completed in a timely manner
2. It is measured for response

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3. If it is an ongoing project that someone is responsible to
make sure continuity occurs

4. In other words, that nothing falls through the cracks.

In our office we are constantly adding new ideas, techniques etc
just about every day. (Not an exaggeration). One of the toughest
parts of my job is to make sure that what we plan on doing
actually occurs, that someone takes responsibility for the
completion of the task and that if it is scheduled to be done on a
recurring basis, that it is done the second time in a similar
manner. Responsibility for the completion of the task is with
others, making sure it happens starts and ends with me.

You can delegate some of this to your
office manager or patient
coordinator but in the end the buck
ends at your desk. Never rely
totally on anybody when it comes
to putting food on your families
table.

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Stability - Patient

Patients like stability. They like to know what is coming next.
This knowledge creates a degree of comfort and tends to
reduce some of the anxiety.

Another quick anecdote:

This reminds me of a visit to another physician (no, I’m in great
physical health, thank you, but physician stories tend to be easy
to use to make a point) I had to make recently.

Like many of you I needed to have a procedure done that I had
never had done before. I was at the physician’s office (the one
mentioned previously) and was given very little advance
information regarding the procedure. Sure, I was told it wasn’t
going to be too bad etc but the operative question here is “too
bad for whom”?

I admit I was up pretty much the night before concerned about
the procedure. After it was over, I must tell you that it just wasn’t
all that terrible. If I had to have it done again, and I hope I don’t, I
probably won’t lose sleep over it the night before.

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The moral of this story, if there is one, is that patients not only
need all the information available but more importantly they
need stability. They need to know what’s coming next. We, as
professionals, owe them an obligation to remove as much of the
Fear of the Unknown as possible.

We also need to maintain some stability in our own offices. We
need to try to keep the same staff, same procedures, same office
configuration, and the same personal demeanor so that patients
don’t face something different every time they walk into the
office.

The unknown just adds stress to an already stressful situation.
Minimizing this using our websites to provide a tour of the office,
pictures of our staff, demonstrations (videos) of procedures helps.
Having in-office patient education presentations that are used to
take some of the fear out of a procedure are welcomed by ‘some’
patients. Others, by the way, prefer to live in ignorance. That’s
there call. Regardless, offering information can never hurt.

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Stability – Practice

Stability also relates to the practice as well. As a dentist for
over thirty-five years I have had up times and have also had
down times. I’ve got to tell you that the up times were a lot more
fun.

I’ve learned over the years that
being in the up mode is not luck
and it’s not magic. It’s all about
hard work and team effort.

As I’ve mentioned before creativity, consistency, follow through
and persistence are critical if you want to stay on top of your
game rather than suffer the ups and downs of a roller coaster
practice.

You need to be creative in trying new things, learning new
techniques and being fearless in venturing into unknown areas.
You need to find new and exciting ways to keep your practice
fresh and exciting. What you do today should never be the same
as you do tomorrow. The calls made at night after a tough dental
appointment were once thought of as unique and different but
today they are pretty much the norm.

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