Pressuring patients is dangerous
Never pressure patients into treatment. It is counter-productive and dangerous.
I have always recommended a very gentle process for explaining treatment to patients.
Boiled down to its essence, what I suggest is to make the patient aware of the problems, lay out the treatment options in a fair way and then ask the patient “What would you like to do?”
High pressure tactics are counter-productive
I dislike pressure for quite a few reasons:
It creates stress both for you and the patient.
It reduces treatment acceptance. This sounds paradoxical but the more you pressure patients the more skeptical they become. The less you pressure patients the more they open up to new ideas.
Patients who feel pressured can become hyper-critical of the treatment outcomes.
Patients who feel pressured are more likely to leave your practice.
Patients who feel pressured don’t refer their friends.
A tragic case
That leads on to a story that has recently been in the news.
There have been extensive reports in The Age recently about a surgeon who lost a defamation case against them.
This surgeon, according to the judgement, used fourteen high-pressure sales tactics to get patients to agree to treatment.
Here are four examples of tactics that the Dr used:
using "rosy" marketing material with "misleading" information with "false promises" to recruit patients.
paying secret cash commissions to recruit patients from abroad.
falsely portraying invasive elective surgery as "necessary" to vulnerable, traumatised patients.
deliberately over-booking clinic days to make his practice appear busier.
To read the full list of the fourteen improper sales tactics used by the surgeon click here. (If you are not a subscriber the article is behind a paywall — sorry!)
The patient relationship
What you want to become for patients, is to be their trusted dental advisor. You want them to feel safe.
You achieve that by taking pressure out of the consultation process.
I learned this many years ago from the famous dentist Dr Omer Reed. He was a genius ahead of his time and I am so grateful to have learned from him.
Look objectively at your consultation process with patients.
If you never pressure patients then I give you two thumbs up. But if you find any pressure or attempts at manipulation in the process you put patients through, you might want to rethink.
