Conflict is a hard thing to deal with whether it is with loved ones, friends, or your patients.  Every circumstance is different and therefore every situation can be different in how you handle it.  There’s one incident that happened at our office that started out very professional…and then I felt my “mommy mode” take over!  I still laugh about this one.

She was probably in her mid- forties.  A nice enough lady to begin with but first impressions sometimes can be deceiving.  We did 2 crowns on her lower anteriors and the appointment went off without any problems.  She was a new patient to our office, and we routinely explain the procedures that coincide with a crown prep but I have a feeling that she wasn’t paying much attention.  When she was finished, she paid and scheduled her next appointment without incident. Then she came back after hours.  Of course, I was the only one there (I knew I should have left early that day) and when she walked in, it was like she had turned into the Tasmanian devil!  She was belligerent, irate, and had a look in her eyes that my cat gets when she’s eaten catnip.  What was she so mad about?
 
“Susan” proceeded to tell me that she felt “for as much as she paid for her 2 crowns that they should have looked better than that”.  I told her that they were her temporaries and her new crowns were going to look and feel like her other teeth.  She couldn’t quite understand that the temporaries were not her final product!  Her temporaries were quite nice compared to the look of the large caries and fractured incisal edges of her original tooth structure! Now, I consider myself very professional in cases such as this and was quite calm…at first. I listened to her complaints and tried to empathize with her even though she was making as much sense as my 5 year old when he’s tired.  The woman went on and on and I took it, the whole time wishing someone else was at the office to help me out.  Then the bomb dropped.
 
“Susan” decides she’s going to swear at me.  At this point, I had it!  I felt my blood start to boil and my “mean mommy voice” came out of my mouth.  I scolded her like I would my own kids.  I told her that my kids didn’t treat me that way and I certainly wasn’t going to take that from her.  Did I handle that correctly?  Probably not, but after taking verbal abuse from her and then to have her swear at me on top of it,  drove me to insanity!  I have never had my blood boil regarding a patient before so much in my life!

I don’t know what prompts people to act irrational.  We, as professionals, do have to listen to our patients’ complaints with empathy but I was always told that I didn’t make enough money to take verbal abuse from patients.  I guess sometimes I expect to be treated the way I would treat someone else and believe me, if I could have given her a “time out” I would have! 

I would love to hear of other people’s Tasmanian devil stories!   I think we all get them from time to time and just like raising our children, every situation is different.   The goal is to learn from them so that next time you get into a conflict with a patient, you can defuse the situation without losing your fuse!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to go to an office full of mechanical robots?  No conversation, no customer service, and certainly no reason for you to keep coming back.  That’s the beauty of people!  We can make a life experience great or we can make it unemotional and disappointing.

We have such a unique position in our practice to create a patient/ provider bond that is unlike any other profession.  But how do we do this?
 
When it comes to the relationship with our hygienist, it is very personal.  The hygienist knows some of our deepest oral health secrets.  We develop friendships with our hygienist and sometimes even look forward to seeing them!  That’s the key to patient retention.  Finding a way to create a loyalty and an importance for their next visit.  Another important thing to do is to focus 2/3 of your discussion around dentistry.   This creates opportunities for more restorative and cosmetic treatment plans. 
 
Having your hygienist pre-appoint at least 90% of the returning patients prior to them leaving is a brilliant idea that when utilized can increase your hygiene departments’ bottom line.  The hygiene department drives 2/3 of the restorative production and so when the hygiene department goes down, overall production goes down!  Keeping the hygiene schedule full everyday should be a definite priority.  The dollar amount that is lost with every opening in your hygiene schedule is vast and could be very damaging over the course of a year. 
 
Let’s estimate the loss to a solo practitioner per year.  Averaging 16 days per month, this is a neat little formula that you can use for your own practice.
Averaging one open appointment in hygiene per day at $250:
1)      $250 x 4 days = $1000 per week
2)      $1000 x 4 weeks = $4000 per month
3)      $4000 x 12 months = $$48,000 per year!!!
Remember, this is only averaging one open hygiene appointment per day and doesn’t take into effect the loss of restorative dollars generated. Yikes!                                                       
 
There are several things that benefit a patient by pre-appointing their next recall.  They get the day and time that they want, utilize their insurance as much as they can, and most importantly…they get the idealistic care that is in their best interest.
 
Teaching the hygienist the proper verbal skills is the key to your success!  Never ask the patient if they want to schedule for their next recall.  Tell them that you are reserving their next appointment for them now so that they can have the best time and day that fits their schedule.  Create a sense of urgency and stress the importance to return for their next visit.  After all if they wait, that time may be taken and then they might not get their appointment in a timely manner.  The next important tool to use is to give them a reason why you want to see them back.  Whether it will be to double check that pocket that you’ve been watching for them or to make sure that the bleeding areas that they have look better, gives the patient a psychological reason to keep their next appointment.
 
The bottom line is, if you give your patient clinical and emotional reasons to make their next appointment, the bond between your patient and your hygienist may never be broken!!

osteonecrosis