MGE’s weekly webletter, Issue 34.
Here is the next edition of MGE’s new weekly webletter. The purpose of this webletter is to provide ideas, tips and suggestions to make your practice more successful.
Feel free to send us your comments and suggestions, or requests for future webletter topics you would like to see covered.
Decision Making as a Practice Owner
By Michael Menkhaus
Vice-President Expansion, MGE
This past weekend I was in the Los Angeles area to deliver one of the seminars of the MGE Effective Management Workshop Series, the Real Solution to Cancellations and No-Shows Workshop to a variety of business owners (Dentists) in that area.
A couple things I observed there got me thinking:
1. Many dentists don’t realize that when they decided to open their own practice they were at the same time deciding to be “business owners.”
2. Helping patients to decide to pursue their needed treatment plan is getting them to take responsibility for their oral health.
Now, in order to make a decision, the person doing the deciding must – to some degree – admit that he or she is responsible for the consequences. Of course, as we go through life and we make some bad decisions and see ourselves and others cause bad consequences, we get a little gun-shy. We start to put off making decisions and become more indecisive in our actions.
But decisions are what lead to action. People who can make decisions and act on them right away are the people who get things done.
As a dentist, it is your job to help your patients to make the right decision. It is your job to take responsibility for their oral health. So first, you must make the decision yourself that you are going to take responsibility for this patFuient’s health and help him overcome any barriers he might have to receiving the treatment plan that he or she needs.
So let’s address some other reasons that might make someone a little gun-shy on making decisions.
As a business owner, many of us were never issued a User’s Guide to navigate that end of it and so don’t feel comfortable making many decisions outside of the operatory. That’s one of the early challenges we address with our clients at MGE: Management Experts, Inc. Getting trained as an executive and business owner is the answer for that.
Next, you should make sure that you’ve taken care of your own dental health. Is your dentistry current? Are you putting anything off or on wait?
I’ve seen many dentists trying to educate their patients on why they need their dental care immediately, while in the back of their head they’re thinking that they’ve been putting off their own care for months. When this happens, it waters down their resolve to help the patient receive the treatment they need. It’s detrimental to case acceptance.
So be a dentist and get your own dentistry done. Then make sure your patients do the same!
I personally don’t agree with the concept that you shouldn’t present full treatment plans, but instead only what insurance covers or only what the patient mentioned that he wants to fix. YOU know what’s best in regards to their dental health. You know better than the patient and the insurance company. So take responsibility for them.
If they don’t think they are in a financial position to pay for it, or they are deathly scared of root canals, or have some other reason not to do treatment, help them work out how they can overcome these barriers and receive the treatment they need. Your patient will respect you and they will get healthy because you will actually do the dentistry they need right now, not “just what their insurance covers.”
Michael Menkhaus provides this general dental practice management advice to furnish you with suggestions of actions that have been shown to have potential to help you improve your practice. Neither MGE nor Michael Menkhaus may be held liable for adverse actions resulting from your implementation of these suggestions, which are provided only as examples of topics covered by the MGE program.
