So I recently overheard a phone caller to a dental practice.
The caller had phoned up and said that they were calling because they were overdue for a cleaning appointment.
During the call the caller had stated that they couldn’t remember the last time they visited this dentist.
And then the caller said this:
“There’s a couple of fillings he [the dentist] wants to do”
Here’s my take:
The practice has let the patient down if the patient is overdue for a hygiene visit and the patient cannot remember when their previous hygiene visit was.
Why was this patient allowed to slip through the cracks?
Also the words the patient used are a definite area of concern.
“There’s a couple of fillings he [the dentist] wants to do”
The patient/caller should have said:
“I have two teeth with decay. The decay needs to be removed and the teeth need to be restored.”
Because the words that the caller used show no urgency or ownership of a dental problem.
The words that the caller used imply that the fillings are the CHOICE of the dentist, whereas the reality is that the dentist is really only performing necessary treatment in removing disease from this patient’s mouth.
Now, maybe the dentist did speak to the patient in terms of urgency and pathology, but I’m figuring by the COMPLETE LACK OF URGENCY shown on the part of the caller, that the dentist and his team did not recommend a CLEAR NEXT STEP.
So many times I hear patients cancel appointments for treatment that has been diagnosed but presented so insipidly that the patient feels no urgency at all in terms of removing the disease and pathology from their mouth.
“It’s just a cleaning.”
“It’s only a little chip…”
“It’s not a big filling…”
Stop using softening language and call it what it is.
It is pathology that does not heal itself.
“Would you like a small filling this week or would you like to leave it go and let it the decay get bigger and deeper and closer to the nerve?”
Those of us who have been around a while have all seen an unrestored tooth that has vertically fractured and needed extraction….
“Just be careful and eat on the other side of your mouth…”
As if that’s the answer….
The simple fact is this:
The biggest problem with dentists is apathy.
Apathy towards presenting necessary treatment to every patient.
Apathy towards employing the wrong people who through either poor training or no training or no supervision make poor decisions that impact adversely on the financial health of the dental practice.
And these poor decisions then impact the lifestyle and retirement choices of the dentist.
“I could never take THAT MUCH TIME off from my practice”
“I could never retire that young”
“I could never afford a holiday to there…”
Apathy towards taking responsibility for their future.
Not making a decision to do something is in itself a decision.
And it’s a pretty weak decision.
Dr. Omer Reed told me that in the USA 95% of dentists reaching the age of 65 cannot afford to retire on an income equivalent to what they earned as a dentist.
And that’s a tragedy…
Stop making apathetic excuses.
Take a look in the mirror and say hello to your future self.
And say goodbye to your flaccid past….
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
The hardest conversation you will ever have is with someone who can’t make a decision.
And even not making a decision is actually a decision.
It’s a decision to not make a decision.
It is a decision to procrastinate.
It is a decision to let time advance, while standing still.
People who fail to make a decision do so because they do not know what they want.
Because if they knew what they want, they would have done it already.
Fixing Your Teeth
People who don’t go ahead with necessary dental treatment to restore their teeth are actually making a decision not to make a decision.
They are deciding they don’t want healthy better looking teeth.
They do not want healthy looking teeth badly enough.
There is no tooth fairy.
Healthy looking smiles do not appear by magic.
They require a decision to commit and do what it takes to achieve a result.
There is no magic pill.
Doing nothing is not the answer.
With change, also comes a need for change.
Have you ever noticed that people who come into instant wealth often burn through their newly acquired money very quickly?
It is said that if you distributed all the wealth in the world evenly amongst all the people in the world, that within two years, all that wealth would have found its way back into the hands of those who had originally owned it.
Putting it simply, whatever caused the problem in the first place, unless removed, will cause the problem again, and again, and again.
Whatever habit caused the poor oral health in the first instance, unless eradicated, will affect and impact on any newly acquired dental treatment in much the same way….
Information?
Have you noticed that people who can’t commit to a decision always want information?
“Can you send me some information?”
Information is a sedative.
What they need is IMPLEMENTATION. Not more information.
They need activation. Not procrastination.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
A lot of people out there believe that Customer Service, and the provision of good Customer Service, is easy.
They believe it’s a JUST ADD WATER thing, and that with the flick of a switch, great customer service systems will magically be in place and great life-long customer service skills will magically become acquired and maintained.
And I say:
“Yeah, right??”
Because nothing is further from the truth.
Great customer service systems are built and studied and refined and re-designed and re-designed and re-designed until they are pure.
And great customer service skills are studied and learned and practiced and mastered and refined and kept front of mind for ever and ever and ever.
The provision of World Class Customer Service is not something you just simply “read and do”.
The provision of World Class Customer Service is an addiction to perfection.
It’s an addiction to becoming the best that you can be in what you do
It’s a CULTURE.
Steve Young, the NFL Quarterback, summed his life up as:
“The principle is competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.”
And that is what World Class Customer Service is all about.
It’s about being better today at what you do and what you deliver, than you were yesterday.
This same edict is what drove Bradman, and Warne, to be masters in their fields.
It is what drives Disney, the Ritz-Carlton, and Zappos.
There’s a reason why these people, these companies, are so good.
It’s not about mass-production, like microwave dinners.
It’s about the culture and the EXPERIENCE, like fine dining.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
In the past two weeks two people in the NRL [Australian National Rugby League] have had to self-isolate for two weeks as a result of a Covid-19 risk.
In the first instance, a player from a club was informed that someone at a school that one of his children attends had tested positive to Covid-19.
In the second instance, the game’s leading referee has had to go into self-isolation for a similar issue… that is, that one of his children attends a school where someone has tested positive for Covid-19
In both instances, the player and the referee acted responsibly for the good of the game.
And in both instances, it has been shown that neither of them had become infected.
Better to be safe than sorry, that’s for sure.
Also, in both instances, the NRL has been shown to have a contingency plan that was easily activated to prevent any collateral damage.
This past week, in Victoria, it was also revealed that three of the twenty new cases of Covid-19 that were reported on one day were staff members at a dental practice in Melbourne.
Some may have “assumed” that this was a result of a breach of sterilisation procedures and protocols.
However, on investigation, it has been reported that initially, one staff member was diagnosed with Covid-19 on the Saturday. The Victorian Department of Health was immediately notified, the dental practice was closed, and appropriate public health measures were immediately put into place including cleaning and contact tracing. Subsequently, on the following Tuesday, two other staff members at the practice have returned positive results, taking the number of cases linked to this outbreak to three.
The good news is that no patients have been identified as close contact, at the time of writing.
It would appear that these three dental practice related cases have been as a result of co-workers at this site coming into close contact with each other prior to diagnosis.
It is not mentioned as to whether those who tested positive had displayed any symptoms or not.
It would appear that the quick and responsible actions of all concerned have limited the spread of Covid-19 in this unfortunate instance.
Congratulations and “Well done” to all involved here.
What this shows:
Covid-19 is an insidious infection that appears without obvious [at the time] causation. As such, all necessary preventive protocol measures of hand washing and social distancing need to be followed to reduce its spread to as small a number as possible.
Covid-19 has affected movie stars, celebrities, and politicians and sports people. It is not selective to certain specific lifestyles and behaviours. Good or bad.
Jumping to conclusions is a pointless exercise.
Responsible behaviours regarding cleanliness and reducing the spread do need to be followed.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
