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Practice Management Toolkit: The Path to a Preventive Practice
Growing the Practice
Now how will prevention grow over time in terms of helping the practice? And the answer is that the more frequently we have patients returning to the practice on a regular basis, the better job we can do in terms of practice productivity, patient communication, and then what grows practices- referrals- happy patients tell other people about your practice, and to create a happy patient, and even though you are appreciated when having your treatment, a happy patient is a patient that does not have a problem and does not need restorative dentistry. So, over time, happy patients who come for prevention tell others because they’ve had a better experience. It’s much more fun going to a dental hygiene appointment than going for restorative dentistry. But I want you to understand that in no way will this diminish the amount of restorative dentistry over time. In fact, by having the preventive patient come regularly, you are much more likely to pick up problems earlier and do a better job and an easier job for your patients.
What about practice income? How will prevention affect that? The answer is that prevention will add a significant new service in a sense to the practice. When we help patients with regular hygiene appointments, hygiene instruction, explain the products they need to use, and have them coming in regularly, we will have a significant increase in practice productivity from patients returning on a regular basis. So nobody has to worry that we are going to see a decrease in restorative care at the expense of prevention. These two areas work together synergistically to help build the practice and give the best quality of care for every patient.
