The Problem With Being a Really Good Dentist

You get a new patient in the chair (always an exciting time) and you provide a comprehensive examination and diagnosis to the best of your abilities — skills you’ve spent a lot of time developing, talent that sets you apart from many other dentists.

This may well be the first time the patient has experienced dentistry at this level. You present your findings and the patient responds by saying, with an air of suspicion, “My last dentist never told me this.”

Of course, you know not all dentists are created equal; however, like it or not, to many patients, a dentist is a dentist. If what you’re saying is different from what they’ve heard in the past, they’re going to wonder whom they should believe — the dentist they knew for years or this new one who’s talking about all this stuff they’ve never heard of before?

So what can you do? You can’t very well come out and say their last dentist just wasn’t that good, but you also don’t want to compromise on your clinical integrity and dial back your diagnosis to fit their expectations. This is where the details of your practice culture come into play.

It’s that first phone call, where the front desk person asks the right questions and sets the tone for what the patient can expect. It’s the first impression on arrival, where they’re greeted personally and warmly and given a complete tour. It’s the personalized way their information is gathered.

All this is important so the patient isn’t blindsided when you offer a diagnosis that’s different from what they’ve heard before. In fact, if you do it right, patients will expect that. They’ll know before they get in the chair that this practice is different.

If they’re going to buy into the idea that you’re different from other dentists, it’s important that not just your diagnosis is different, but that their entire experience is different.