First impressions count

The new patient assessment is the patient’s first impression of your dentists, so it’s the time to really showcase your clinical abilities.

However, lots of practices see the new patient assessment as a loss leader and therefore the dentists can often provide a rushed experience. This then doesn’t provide the excellent experience that we really need to wow that new patient.

Get your sums right

The trick is to think differently about your costings. If you’re clever with diary zoning you can ensure that every hour in your practice is profitable by adjusting your hourly rates for all other clinical work to make up for this lost rate in the new patient assessment.

What is diary zoning, I hear you ask… this is a method of implementing a really effective structure into your appointment book that will dramatically support the way you want to work and the profits you want to make. This is an area I have covered extensively in Practice Club, the content is ready and waiting for you!

How interested are you?

How many of your dentists start off by telling the patient to ignore all the things they say during the assessment because everything will be explained later on? In doing so, you are asking the patient to switch off completely and then when you have the discussion about their oral health, they are not motivated or in the right mindset to listen.

I love the quote by Stephen Covey, ‘Be interested, not interesting’ and believe that this relates perfectly to new patient assessments: it’s all about being interested in the patient with regards to their current health and any past treatment that they have had.

I love the co-discovery technique and the way this can completely transform the new patient assessment. You will find this offers superior results, an improved consent process and, most importantly, really happy and motivated patients.

Your chance to shine

Your new patient assessments give you the chance to shine, they should be all about giving the patient a memorable experience so they leave feeling wowed. We know they’ve had a mouth cancer screening, a BPE, and a base chart before but it’s just never been communicated effectively to them.

You don’t need to change anything you do clinically to transform your new patient assessments, you just need to add communication. How can you do this? I will share all of my secrets in Practice Club this year, so join me there to find out more!