Dentaltown July 2019 - 52

office
visit
pressure to produce now, in this moment. I learned to practice
from my heart. Getting to know my patients and their desires
is deeply important to me; I call it "conscious dentistry." The
entire team takes the time to establish meaningful relationships,
hear our patients' stories and co-diagnose to find each patient's
unique story and unique plan. I believe everyone, both regular
patients and dentists who are patients, desires this kind of care.

"One of the most overlooked
aspects in dentistry is being
mindful that quality work
takes planning. ... Most bigger
cases succeed or fail based
on the blueprint or the plan-
the dentistry part is easy."

52

JULY 2019 // dentaltown.com

As a cosmetic dentist, you might not see as many patients
because your treatments are more specific. How do you
market yourself within the community? Do you receive
many referrals, or do potential patients seek you out?
Like any office, we're not unique in needing new patients to
keep our practice growing and thriving. To market our services,
we rely on word of mouth and patient referrals. Over the years,
we've tried different strategies to obtain new referrals and the
best strategy has often been to just ask. At the end of every
treatment plan, we present the patient with a thank-you card
and use this happy moment to ask for referrals. We thank our
patients for entrusting us with their care and ask if they know
of any friends or family who might be interested in getting
the same level of care.
We also give new patients a tour of our beautiful office and
the technology that awaits them. We show them how we can
clean the dental lines between each patient with our built-in
chair system. We show them our Cerec crown scanner and
built-in patient entertainment systems-our "Netfl ix and
drill." Patients are so excited about what they see that they tell
their friends and family. We currently spend about 2% of our
collections budget on external marketing, mainly web- and
social media-focused. We can keep this number low because
we are using things that we already have: our trusted patients
and our brand-new office.
What's an average day like at your practice? How many
patients do you typically see in a week?
An "average day"-is there really such a thing in dentistry?!
There are some days when I may see one patient, and other days
when I may see more. A good schedule is no accident, and my
team works tirelessly to maintain parameters that we've agreed
upon. No matter how many patients are in the schedule, it's
my goal to see one patient at a time. Although we're mindful
of our bottom-line collection needs, I never feel pressured
to "stuff " the schedule or rush procedures. In the long run,
overloading the schedule leads to more lost production time,
deteriorating relationships between my patients and me, and
overall lower quality of work.
We schedule all of our high-production dentistry in the
morning; this ensures that the most intense work is done while
we are fresh. Before lunch, 80% of our collection goals should
be met. We always schedule our new patients first thing in the
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Dentaltown July 2019

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