Pulling Treatment Into Your Day
Pulling Treatment
You may notice a theme developing in these Process modules: we’re reaping capability and the ability to flexibly capitalize on what we’ve sown in Vision, Values, and Team.
Once you have maximum awareness of your schedule and great full-team coordination, you’re ready to talk about pulling treatment into the same day. It’s of great value to patients, if you can swing it.
Here Dr. MacInnis talks about what it takes to swing it, with a couple of important caveats.
"Pulling" is a Mindset for An Efficient, Caring Practice
When it comes down to it, pulling additional treatment is about being aware, prepared, and efficient. It’s the test of your team’s ability to coordinate, as well as an ongoing challenge the whole team can work to improve their execution on. In many ways, becoming better and better at pulling treatment into the day is the rally point for all training and constant, ongoing improvement for all teams interested in growing their practice though exceptional patient care.
Pulling additional treatment into your day as it presents itself is a massively important opportunity to deliver an exceptional, unexpected, and appreciated experience to your patients. This exceptional care can drive loyalty and referrals like nothing else.
We develop our same-day care capability to serve our patients better, but practically speaking, it’s about organization, awareness and efficiency. Doing more than you’re scheduled for requires that you get the most out of your time, space, and team. You need to start each day with a solid overview and ability to quickly determine the specifics of:
Exactly what is scheduled today, with an eye toward where you could fit extra work in
What operatory space is available and when
Which staff are available and when
Each patient’s existing treatment needs and remaining insurance coverage
You can see here that this is one major reason why schedule awareness is the cornerstone of each day’s preparation for optimum productivity.
Pulling treatment isn’t about being money-focused, and you need to be completely clear about that if you don’t want your attempts to pull treatment to have the opposite of their intended effect. Ask, don’t push. Create the awareness of the need for treatment, share your willingness and even urgency to get it done today, and provide the opportunity to get it done right now, but don’t look at this as an “upsell,” or anything of the sort. Creating a little urgency by presenting the issue and making yourself available is one thing. Don’t throw your credibility out the window by being pushy.
It’s about wanting to treat what needs to be treated, and wanting to get it done as soon as the patient would like it to be done.
In many ways, the “Pulling” mindset is an antidote to the arbitrary default assumptions many dentists work from:
Assuming that patients don’t like treatment,
Assuming (because of this) that patients prefer to wait
Assuming (because of the previous two assumptions) that they won’t like to hear that they have treatment that needs to be done
None of these assumptions hold water, and all of them prevent you from doing the most simple, powerful thing you can do to provide great care: asking what the patient would like. Considering these items is a good exercise in asking yourself if you aren’t working from a negative mindset about treatment. It’s an easy trap to fall into if we internalize the things we hear about dentistry. If we aren’t careful, instead of rejoicing in each day as an opportunity to practice comfortable, considerate, affordable dentistry, we can find ourselves unconsciously nodding along and accepting the cliches and supposedly universal attitudes about dentistry being painful, unnecessary, or expensive.
The fact is, the “Pulling” mindset is at its heart an attitude that will help you get the most out of your chosen path in life. It’s about:
Being sincerely positive and enthusiastic about sharing the benefits of treatment
Confidence in the fact that each time you treat a patient you have another opportunity to “wow” them
Always looking for a way to give your patients more than they expect
Enjoying the challenge of building and maintaining relationships with your patients
Be aware of remaining insurance. Money must always be handled with as little friction and awkwardness as possible. Always know what coverage remains and what things cost. For some patients, this is all they care about when it comes down to their treatment planning: All things being equal, if they can afford it, they’d like to get any and all treatment done. The approach Dr. MacInnis used with his patients for many years was that, after showing and explaining the issue, he would then explain that care outcomes were more important than anything else, and that he would make the most out of whatever portion was covered, but wouldn’t charge for the difference. He would explain that it was more important to take care of the issue than to make sure it was covered.
Caveats:
When you’re checking another doctor’s patient, be careful not to appear to be contradicting them, or “spotting something that they missed.” Read the notes, understand the whole context of this treatment. The team approach helps. Specifically, the treatment coordinator role is especially helpful for these situations. Treatment coordinators are well worth hiring or developing for how they can facilitate pulling treatment alone.
Walk-ins, Cleanings, and Toothaches
Like the billboard says, walk-ins are welcome. These patient interactions are important to accommodate and promote. They're important enough that you get the word out and let patients and prospective patients know that you are ready to help them in these situations.