Massively increase case acceptance

The system that changes everything

There’s no shortage of courses available to dentists: implants, endodontics, crown and bridge, orthodontics, cosmetic dentistry, occlusion, even botox. All worthwhile.

But if there’s one single ability that determines your success more than any other, it’s how well you communicate with patients. Your clinical expertise doesn’t matter until a patient says “yes.”

Think about the best-run practices you’ve ever encountered. They tend to share the same qualities: consultations that are efficient rather than exhausting, patients who book in for significant treatment, and an impressive financial bottom line. The dentist doesn’t need to talk patients into anything. The patient understands, makes a decision, and moves forward. That’s what great communication looks like in practice.

The good news is that you don’t need to be naturally gifted. This is a learnable skill.

A useful starting point is some honest self-assessment.

• Do your treatment consultations regularly go 20, 30, even 40 minutes?

• Do patients frequently decide to “think it over”?

• Do you find yourself doing more patchwork dentistry than you’d like?

• Have you ever under-diagnosed because you felt that the patient couldn’t afford what they really needed?

If any of these are familiar, the issue is unlikely to be your clinical ability, it’s almost certainly your communication system.

A dentist I coached a few years ago is a good example. She was technically skilled, but her communication was inefficient and, as a result, her practice was only marginally profitable.

After a single day of coaching, her turnover increased by 71% because she learned how to present treatment better. Her consultations became shorter, her patients started opting for comprehensive treatment and her days became less stressful.

The system I teach has four components: Rapport, Analyse and Agitate, Think, and Explain.

Rapport – Gaining a patient’s trust

Rapport comes first, because without trust nothing else works. No amount of clever language will get case acceptance if the patient doesn’t trust you. The encouraging thing about rapport is that it doesn’t require lengthy small talk or a particular personality type. It can be established quickly, and once you know how, it tends to last. When everything is done right, it can genuinely be love at first sight.

There are two distinct sets of factors that determine whether rapport is established: office factors and doctor factors.

Office factors are about your physical environment. New patients in particular arrive with their antennae fully extended. They notice everything: the appearance of your waiting room, the way your receptionist greets them, the smell of the practice, the tidiness of the surgery, the little details that most dentists are too pre-occupied to observe. Each of these details is answering a question in the patient’s mind: can I trust this place? A well-considered environment answers that question before you’ve even walked through the door.

Doctor factors are about you, your behaviour and how you interact with the patient from the moment you meet them. The way you introduce yourself, the way you listen, your body language, your eye contact, the pace at which you speak, All of it contributes to whether the patient feels safe and respected. These behaviours can be learned and refined, and the difference between getting them right and getting them wrong is enormous.

When both sets of factors are working together, rapport isn’t something you have to sweat over. It simply happens and naturally if you get things set up right. And once rapport there, the rest of the conversation becomes much easier.

Analyse and Agitate – Understanding the problem in full

The Analyse and Agitate step is where many dentists struggle. It’s not just about identifying clinical problems (you know how to do that already), it’s about knowing how to communicate what you’ve found in a way that the patient understands.

This point deserves particular emphasis. Your patient will never understand the technical details of their dental problems, but they absolutely must understand the seriousness of those problems. A patient who gets out of the chair with a vague sense that “something needs fixing” is very different from one who understands that their situation is serious and that inaction carries potentially heavy consequences. Bridging that gap, translating clinical findings into felt urgency, is one of the most valuable skills a dentist can develop.

There are a series of techniques you do at every examination that will get patient’s out of their complacency.

Think – Preparing your approach

Before you open your mouth to discuss treatment, there are four things you must have crystal clear in your own mind. Skipping this step, or rushing through it, is one of the most common reasons treatment discussions go wrong. When a dentist hasn’t thought these through, their explanation comes out muddled, the patient senses the uncertainty, and confused people simply don’t commit to treatment.

The four things you need to have settled before you begin are: the ideal treatment option, a compromise option that is less than ideal but still clinically acceptable, the costs of each option, and any warnings or risks the patient needs to be aware of. That’s it, but every one of them matters.

When you walk into the explanation with those four things clearly formed, you’ll find the conversation flows easily and the patient follows you with ease. When even one of them is fuzzy, you’ll feel it and so will they.

Explain – Presenting treatment plan with clarity

Once your thinking is clear, the explanation itself is surprisingly brief. If this step is done well it should take no longer than two minutes and often closer to one. That probably sounds impossible if you’re used to lengthy treatment discussions, but that’s exactly the point. Length is not a sign of thoroughness; it’s usually a sign that something in the process has broken down.

The Explain step has five parts. You begin by describing the patient’s situation clearly and concisely, not technically, just plainly. Then you present the compromise option, followed by the ideal option. At that point you ask the closing question and let the patient decide. Once they have, and before any treatment begins, you cover any relevant warnings they need to be aware of.

That’s the entire conversation. The reason it can be so short is that all the groundwork has already been done. Trust is established and the patient understands the seriousness of their situation. By the time you reach this step, you’re not convincing anyone of anything. You’re simply giving a prepared, confident person the information they need to make a decision they’re ready to make.

There’s more to each of these steps than I can cover here and frankly, the finer details are where things get really interesting. But even understanding the framework tends to shift the way dentists think about their consultations.

Conclusion

If your practice isn’t where you’d like it to be, it may be worth pausing on clinical courses for a while and investing that energy here instead. I have an online course and also do in-office seminars.

The return is significant, not just financially, but in the quality of dentistry you get to do every day.

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