Unveiling 3 Common Mistakes
That Dental Practices When it
comes to Treatment Planning
13 August 2024
Treatment plan acceptance rates are one of the most crucial benchmarks for understanding your practice growth. Common concerns of dental practice owners revolve around asking the following questions:
- What are the 3 common mistakes dental practices make for low treatment plan acceptance rates?
- What is my treatment plan acceptance rate?
- Why am I not closing as many patients as I see?
- Why do people not accept my treatment plans?
High treatment plan acceptance rates are paramount for any dental practice willing to provide quality care while maintaining a healthy stream of revenue.. Despite their best intentions, many dentists make the mistake of keeping their patients from understanding recommended treatments and thus are unable to move forward. As a dentist you probably never got a chance to nurture your patient management skills because dental schools primarily focus on dentistry. In this blog Samad Syed, CEO and Founder of mConsent and Dr. Rehan Shahid CEO of Shahid Dental Group share insights about the three common mistakes dental practices face and practical steps to improve your treatment plan acceptance rates. You can also watch the video for in-depth insights as Samad and Dr. Shahid highlight the mistakes and share some bonus tips and tricks to alleviate patient experience for practice growth.
Mistake 1: Lack of
patient-centered communication.
Many dentists believe that they are naturally good in communication. The number one step to a better practice is to identify or acknowledge that you are not naturally good and there is work to be done. Its called overcoming the me-barrier mindset. Acknowledgement is the first step towards getting better in communication.
Assess Your
Communication skills.
You can assess your communication skills by positioning your phone at 12 o’clock and recording yourself talking to your patients. Then listen to your recordings. This will give you a fair idea of your perception about your communication skills vs where you actually stand. Read books, listen to podcasts or invest in a course. There is not need to start from scratch, rather you can take inspiration from what is already working. Identify people who are great in patient communication and engagement and learn their techniques. Great communication plays a vital role in improving your treatment plan acceptance rates. When you come down to the patient’s level of technical understanding, half the battle is already won.
Avoid Using
Clinical Jargons
While describing the plan of treatment, use of clinical jargons usually makes it overwhelming for the patients. The lack of patient-friendly communication results in confusion, and such confusion readily eats into a reluctance to accept the plan. Make sure you describe the situation in a transparent manner while emphasizing the need for patients to take your proposed treatment plan. Creating a sense of urgency and offering convenience of receiving the treatment significantly improves the treatment plan acceptance rates for your practice.
Show & tell
Lisa was advised to have a crown placed after her dentist found that she had a cracked tooth. While the dentist was very clear in explaining everything, Lisa was still quite doubtful since she could not understand the need for urgency in the treatment. She delayed treatment, which introduced a more serious dental problem. When dentists exude confidence and provide a clear picture of the diagnosis along with the suitable treatment to patients, it becomes easier to improve acceptance rates. Dentists and their teams can use patient-friendly communication through simple, language, as well as visual aids and analogies for explaining everyday experiences.
Provide Written
Summaries
Written summaries provided to the patients with an in-office conversation for enforcement, develop an urgency for the proposed treatment plans. Moreover training your staff in empathetic and approachable communication techniques ensures consistency.
Request Continuous
Feedback
It also helps to improve the overall patient experience by getting continuous feedback. Keeping the response loop open during and after each treatment gives you an opportunity to improve your patient experience. You can start by having friendly, candid conversations to lay the foundation of your patient experience, and, eventually scale using surveys for improving the depth of responses received.
Mistake 2:
Inadequate financial clarity
When patients receive a dental treatment quote, such as $5,000, it's essential they clearly understand two key things:
- How much their insurance will cover
- How much they will need to pay out-of-pocket.
If these details are unclear, patients are less likely to accept the treatment plan. Additionally, offering a payment plan for larger expenses, can greatly improve treatment plan acceptance. By allowing patients to spread payments over multiple months, it makes the cost more manageable. Tools like mConsent’s insurance concierge service, which provides an insurance manager to clarify coverage, and mConsent’s payment plans through mPayr, can help avoid costly misunderstandings and increase patient adoption of treatment plans by providing transparency and financial flexibility.
Avoid Costly
Misunderstandings
Here’s an example to help you understand better. Mark, a patient with an alignment issue, needed orthodontic work and visited Dr. John’s office seeking treatment. However, the front office provided vague information about the financial aspects, leaving him unclear about his out-of-pocket expenses and unsure about what his insurance would cover. Without a clear cost breakdown, Mark hesitated to schedule the necessary treatment.
Frustrated by the lack of transparency, he went to another dental office that gave him a detailed explanation of the costs, insurance coverage, and payment options. As a result, Mark chose to proceed with his treatment elsewhere.
This highlights the importance of offering clear financial guidance, including estimated costs, insurance details, and flexible payment plans, to improve treatment plan acceptance rates and retain patients.
Provide
Cost Guidance
An estimated cost should be given to the patient, including how much will be covered by insurance and what will be out of pocket expenses. When possible, indicate flexible financing plans or the option to join in-house membership facilities to help alleviate fears regarding the financial burden and increase acceptance.
Ensure Informed
Representation
The way you present your treatment plan and financial options can greatly improve your treatment plan acceptance rates. You can communicate these either through an office manager or a financial coordinator; but, either ways make sure you have someone knowledgeable representing your service and offer.
With costlier treatments it makes more sense for the doctor, himself to convince patients about proposed treatment plans before presenting the finances. The better understanding your patients develop in terms of the urgency, importance of a treatment as well as payment options, the easier it becomes to get their acceptance.
Educate:
Share as much detail about the nature of the diagnosis with your patients as you can and use visual aids to help them understand. For example you can use your monitor to show how many cavities they have, how deep they are etc.
Offer:
Explain your offer as clearly as possible. Be transparent about the economics of your offer. Speak about what the treatment is and how much will it cost.
Urgency (Why Now?)
Make your patients understand the urgency of the treatment by educating them about the downside of delays. For example, you can explain a patient who has cavities that procrastination can lead to root canals.
Follow Up:
Almost 50% of the times patients don’t make decisions at the practice. Instead they leave to discuss it with their spouse, or buy time instead of scheduling the same day. If you do not followup you may lose a lot of opportunities.
Mistake
3: Ineffective followup strategies
Once a patient is convinced of the importance and urgency of the treatment plan, but is not followed up regularly, his interest may diminish over time. This is where automated reminders can greatly help. Increased dependance on manual follow ups through front-office staff or office managers often translates to lost opportunities and mixed messages.
Missed
Opportunities
For example consider a case where Sarah was advised to undergo a deep cleaning to prevent potential oral health issues, but she chose not to proceed. When the office manager tried to follow up, the call went unanswered, and unfortunately, no one followed up again. As a result, Sarah’s condition worsened, leading to periodontal disease, and she eventually sought treatment elsewhere.Â
This situation could have been avoided if a system had been in place to remind her of the importance of her treatment plan. A more efficient process, such as regular follow-ups through text messages, emails, or phone calls, would have kept Sarah engaged. For offices managing 15-20 patients or more, having dedicated tools or support for automated follow-ups can greatly improve treatment plan adherence and prevent patient loss.
Right Messaging is Key
Treatment plan reminders can automate follow-up efforts and ensure the right messages are delivered to patients at the right time. As a practice owner you can customize the follow-up process by educating your patients about the diagnosis and effectiveness of the treatment plan using software like mConsent before sending gentle reminders for follow-up on the treatment plan. This strategic educational approach aligned with the patient's stage in treatment encourages timely appointments.
Follow the Rule of 2s
Dr. Shahid recommends using the rule of 2s for effective treatment plan follow-ups. Send your patients followup messages after 2 days, 2 weeks or 2 months. In case they don’t respond, you can put them on a 6 month retainer appointment.
According to him this has statistically been proven to give the patients enough time to make an effective decision.
Tools to Boost Your Treatment Plan Acceptance Rates
An efficient follow-up strategy inevitably improves treatment acceptance rates. Here are some tools to help you get started.
Free e-book: 7 Touch Blueprint for Boosting
Dental Treatment Acceptance
For practices looking to go one step further, our free e-book: 7 Touch Blueprint for Boosting Dental Treatment Acceptance gives a strategic framework on how to engage patients with intelligently scheduled touch points.
You can download it from the mConsent website to see how automated reminders and personally customized messages can revolutionize your follow-up efforts.
mConsent’s Treatment Plan Reminders
Solutions like mConsent's automated treatment plan reminders are an efficient way to reinforce communication and patient engagement. This makes sure patients remain informed and committed to their oral health journey. Using an automation tool saves time and improves the treatment plan acceptance rates while keeping your practice efficient and ensuring consistent practice growth.
With these improvements in practice operations and management, dental practices can build an atmosphere of trust and rapport, empowering patients to participate in decision-making with regard to their dental health.
