What Does it Mean to Be Onstage for Dental Patients?

What does it mean to be “onstage” for my dental patients?

Your patients are the stars of your dental practice, but it’s your show to run. When it comes to cultivating an atmosphere of friendly efficiency, your practice needs to be “onstage” at all times. Patients who come in for treatment have a wide range of personalities and expectations for their dentist. Make that first impression count by focusing on your “stage” and performing well each time. Let’s look at what being onstage means for your practice’s bottom line and patient retention strategy.

There’s no business like “smile business”

Making your patients feel welcomed and appreciated is as easy as starting off on the right foot. Even with the adoption of teledentistry during the pandemic and beyond, dentistry remains a “relationship business”, where doctors are seeing patients face-to-face, elbow to elbow, and speaking and treating them directly. There’s simply no better opportunity to create a customer for life than by showing patients the effectiveness of treatment, the accuracy of their copay estimation, and providing professional, friendly treatment.

 

How can I find out what’s important to my dental patients?

Many dentists may feel as though we know what’s best for patients, but the truth is, they know what’s best for them. Of course, this means following the Golden Rule of treating others how we’d like to be treated, but in a way that makes a difference when we’re onstage. Make your patient feel like they’re the star of the show, and take an interest in their interests and concerns with their oral health or upcoming treatment. Work to alleviate fear and anxiety, even if it’s for something as routine as a filling or a more daunting root canal. Remember, your patient is just like you. We all have our quirks, likes and dislikes. But what brings us together is a shared need to feel safe, welcomed, and comfortable with one another. Start here first.

 

Understanding the end-to-end dental patient experience

Now, let’s get onstage! There’s an easy-to-remember five step process that spells out each onstage step the end-to-end dental patient experience:

1. Patient schedules
   Taking into account personal timelines, work schedules, and times that work best
2. Appointment date and treatment started
   Greeting patients and making a clinical diagnosis
3. Treatment plan presented
   Utilize visual aids, scans, educational and clinical notes to determine next steps
4. Patient reschedules for follow-up or next appointment
   Patient should never leave without booking their next appointment if possible
5. Copay is collected at time of service
   A simple step that helps you to collect 100% of what you’re rightfully owed

Establishing a relationship with your patients starts and ends with each of this steps. They all work together to provide a harmony of onstage behaviors that will help your practice “offstage” too. You can think of it as if one note is off, the entire audience will notice.

The most important onstage behaviors

Be sure to make patients feel known to you and your staff. When someone feels welcomed, it means that they know you know who they are, and have taken an interest in them as a person, not just another face walking through the door. Here are some practical tips for implementing this in your office today:

• Encourage staff to speak with patients about recent vacations or successes, pets, and holidays, and make small notes in your PMS about these topics to help differentiate
• Anticipate the next patient, even if you may not know them as well, and always call them by name
• Break away from your “concentration face” every so often to prevent patients from thinking you’re too busy to notice them in the office

Offstage tasks

These are your daily financial tasks, each one integral to your revenue cycle management and collections. Many of these can be outsourced and put on autopilot.

1. Insurance verification
   Ensure that patients are covered for the treatment during the timeframe before an appointment
2. Claim sent correctly
   Attach intra-oral photos, use accurate codes, clinical narratives, and all appropriate scans
3. Follow up on claims for reimbursement
   Claims hitting 30 days or more in aging should be check every two weeks
4. Post claim in a timely manner
   Reconcile reimbursement EFT in bank statements and PMS
5. Balance collected from patient as needed
   With insurance verification, your patient can know exactly what they need to pay at time of service

 

Outsourced dental billing secures your stage and your collections

When it comes to outsourcing those offstage tasks, why not make it easier for yourself and your staff to perform at their best? Imagine the peace of mind you could finally achieve knowing that your patient and insurance AR is being worked on behind the scenes. All the while, you’re better able to retain patients and provide exceptional treatment day after day. eAssist gives you a suite of bespoke solutions that help your practice succeed in all areas of revenue cycle management, from dental billing to insurance verification. We can help with each step of your offstage process, so you can be your best onstage self for the patients in your office. Schedule a no obligation consultation below, and talk with a Business Development Specialist about what we can do for you. And of course, check out the full Onstage webinar hour below!