325: Increase Your Case Acceptance With 2-2-2

Podcast Transcript:

Kiera Dent:

Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Dental A Team Podcast. I'm your host Kiera Dent. And I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, filler, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you. We are you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental, and I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress, and create A teams. Welcome to The Dental A Team Podcast.

Kiera Dent:

Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and you guys, I am doing a throwback because I realized this podcast has a lot of episodes. And if you guys don't know, you can go over to thedentalateam.com/blog, or just click on the podcast link, and there is a search box. On your phones it's at the bottom. So you guys can scroll down to the bottom. It's super not intuitive and it irritates me, just so you know. Based on the learning platform it's housed on, we can't change that, but on your desktop, it's very easy to find the search box. You guys can search topics. So if you guys want to learn anything about treatment planning, or you want to learn about cancellations, or you want to learn about leadership, or you want to learn about billing, or you want to learn about insurance, or you want to learn about you name it.

Kiera Dent:

There's a thousand. Okay, that's a lie. There's over 300 podcasts on there for you. And I realized that there's a lot of podcasts that maybe some of our new listeners have never heard, because I know when I start listening to a podcast, I don't usually go back to the beginning, and there's a ton of awesome podcasts at the beginning, but I realized some of us might not go back there. And also some of us may have already listened to it and we're human beings and we've forgotten. So I want to start doing a couple of throwbacks. I'll do obviously a new spin to them, don't you worry. Always here to deliver maximum value, always going to the next level. So this is the two two two follow up. This is going to help your case acceptance go up. This is going to help you have better patient care. And I hope you guys love the two two two follow up. If you're doing it already, high five to you, go leave us a review.

Kiera Dent:

If you're not doing it, go leave us a review of how much you love this podcast. We love that. The [taikas 00:02:30] are able to help this podcast continue on, continue to help other practices, other offices, other team members just like you. So go rate it five stars and share it with a friend. We would love that. And we appreciate you guys supporting the podcast. That way we're able to continue to give back to you guys all this free content. So the two two two follow up is where every single patient who leaves your practice should always leave with an appointment. True or false? Did you answer? Say it out loud? True. You're right. Every patient should leave.

Kiera Dent:

But what happens about those patients who say, "Oh Kiera, I need to go check my schedule." Or, "Oh Kiera, I got to go talk to my spouse." And you're like, "Hey, absolutely. I want you to do that. I would hate to forget about you. So let's just put you on the schedule and if it doesn't work out, you can give me a call and we can change it no problem. But this way I don't forget about you and I don't let you slip through the cracks. Notice the focus is on Kiera Dent. Kiera's going to forget about you. That would be a tragedy for all of us. Everybody wants to feel important. And the reality is I will probably forget because there's so many patients and I don't want you to slip through the cracks." So great, fantastic.

Kiera Dent:

Even if I say that and they don't schedule, it should only be like 5% of your patients, if you're confident with that, you guys say that phrase. Notice I didn't say I would hate for you to forget. No, no, no, it's I would hate for me to forget about you. Kiera is the ditzy one over here. Kiera's the one who forgets. Kiera's the one who's got a hundred different patients that she's got to remember. Truthfully, it would be a tragedy if I forgot about you. So if they still don't want to schedule, guess what? They're still leaving with an appointment, because they'll say, "No Kiera." Most of the time they're like, "Okay, yeah. Put us on the schedule. No problem." If they don't, which I'm saying is literally... It should only be 5% of your patient base. Those patients I still have an appointment with, and I'm like, "Okay, no problem. I'll give you a call in two days just to make sure I answer any questions that you have." Did you hear the appointment that just got set. In five days, what's happening? You got it. They're having a conversation with Kiera.

Kiera Dent:

Hello, Dental A Team. I hope you are as excited as I am, because guess what? May 14th and 15th this year we are running Dental A Team's full team summit for the first time ever. It's May 14th and 15th, a Friday, Saturday, and it's CE training for you and your whole team in your practice. So in the past you've had to fly your whole team to get full team CE, and instead we're bringing the CE to you. You guys, I've attended so many virtual events and I cannot wait, because this is going to be epic of all epics. We're going to teach you guys, with your whole team working together, how to build your dream practice, how to have accountable teams and run effective meetings.

Kiera Dent:

We're going to have breakout sessions with each department specifically. So billing, OM, TCs, schedulers, hygienists, assistants, and doctors. And we're going to round table style learning from the best. We're going to have lessons on leadership. We're having guest speakers come in. You guys, it is going to be epic and I want all of you there. So head on over to our website, thedentalateam.com/events and snag your ticket for you and your team to attend Dental A Team's full team summit this year.

Kiera Dent:

Now I have to make sure I'm speaking with integrity, and that means that I'm actually calling them in two days. This is where the two two two followup comes from. It's two days, two weeks, two months. If you have Dental Intel, plug for Dental Intel, they do a great job with this follow up, it's very easy. If you don't have Dental Intel, it's okay. You guys, we have a treatment tracker. It's an Excel spreadsheet. You guys can get the download. Alex, let's make sure we attach this treatment tracker to it. Otherwise you guys can email us, [email protected]. Happy to help you guys out with it. It's a great, easy way to start tracking your treatment. So I put on there two days. So if today is, let's say, 5/18, I'm going to call you at 5/20. So I'm going to put the date of 5/20, that's a two day follow up.

Kiera Dent:

So I told you I'm going to follow up with you. So I use my treatment tracker every day to make sure I'm following up with patients that I said I would follow up with. You guys, when the iron's hot, make sure you strike. That means when a patient was just in the practice, they're more likely to schedule than if we let them wait and wait and wait until they show up on some report. I can't tell you the reason we came up with this process is because I remember in my practice, I had patients that came in, they had treatment, six months later, they came in, they still had treatment. And they said to the doctor, and I heard this because the doctor was flabbergasted and came to me and said, "Kiera, what the heck is going on?" And I'm like, "I don't know. I need a better system."

Kiera Dent:

The patient said, "Yeah, I had treatment, and they said that they were going to call me and they called me, but I didn't get in touch and then I never heard from them again." What? That is a broken system. That is a bad system. That is something that we've got to absolutely 100% fix. We cannot have that happen anymore, because we have got to fix that. So that's where the two two two followup came. I hate manually tracking this. I'm just going to put it out there. This treatment tracker and I have a love/hate relationship. I love it because it helps me stay organized, I held my word to my patients, and I'm able to follow up with all of my patients. That's why I love it. I hate it because I hate manually tracking stuff.

Kiera Dent:

But that's good, because guess what? Knowing that any patient who didn't schedule, I had to write down on the treatment tracker, because that was a pain that I didn't want to do, guess what happened? Guess what happened? You got it. I naturally got better at treatment planning because I didn't want to write it down. So it was a bad enough pain that I was like, "Oh, I'm just going to get every patient to say yes." That's where I came up with this different verbiage of how to get patients to say yes. "Hey, I would hate to forget about you. Let's get you on a schedule. That way I don't forget about you." We've already talked about finances. We're already committed. They're golden. So let's just take care of that now. Awesome. So that's what the treatment tracker is. So we put it in two days that I'm going to call them, I'm going to leave a message, send a text message if they don't follow up, and I usually leave the voicemail of, "Hey, this is Kiera calling regarding your account. Give me a quick call back."

Kiera Dent:

I send the same text message. That's HIPAA compliant. It also gets them to call you back. So two ways that you guys can do it, and I send a text message right after. Most people look at their text messages. Most people don't listen to their voicemails. I still think a voicemail is appropriate. Or you guys can use Madento. You guys know I talk about them a lot. They're also a sponsor for all of our events and I love them. Check out madento.io. You guys, they have a voicemail drop for unscheduled treatment plans, for recare. I love them. They can make your life really, really easy. They also have a ton of other awesome features, but for this podcast, that's why I love Madento.

Kiera Dent:

Tell them The Dental A Team sent you. You guys will get a discount. You guys will get free voicemail drops. Awesome stuff. So make sure you let them know The Dental A Team sent you if you... Not if, when you call them. I think every practice should have Madento. They're that fantastic. I will put my name on them. They're the leader of the pack right now, and I definitely love them, and every office using them also loves them, so that's a win-win for you guys. So you guys call them or use the voicemail drop and then text the patients as well. So that's our two day follow up. Then I put it for two weeks and then I put it for two months. After two months, I put a note in their account and I'm always making notes every time I make a phone call.

Kiera Dent:

You guys can make dummy codes of these two two two follow ups. So recare call one, recare call two, recare call three. Unscheduled treatment call one, unscheduled treatment call two, unscheduled call treatment three. And you can also put it in the ledger, and then at the end of the month you can run reports to see how many of each of these calls was actually made. So that way you guys are able to truthfully track to see how many calls are going out every single month. And then you can also have a reactivation. So if it's a reactivation or if they schedule off of these calls, you guys, that's really, really, really micro for offices that are already doing the base level. Get more advanced so you can see better tracking, see what's going on. It can help you guys a lot. So that is what you guys can do in that zone. So that's the two two two followup.

Kiera Dent:

Like I said, I know there's a lot of you new to the podcast, so welcome. I want to make sure I start doing some throwbacks for you guys. And also ramping it up and amping it up, so even if you've heard it, they say that repetition is the mastery of skill, so making sure that I've got things on here for you guys so you hear them again, you implement them, maybe the system that fell off, bring it back on. This two two two follow up for unscheduled treatments definitely is going to help you guys get better case acceptance, going to help you guys follow up with your patients more, so you're not Kiera Dent in six months hearing a patient would have scheduled had we just followed up with them. So like I said, every patient leaves with an appointment. Use that verbiage of, "Hey, I would hate to forget about you. Let's just pop you on the schedule. If it doesn't work, when you get home, give me a call. No problem. This way I don't forget about you."

Kiera Dent:

Use that, if that doesn't work, schedule a reminder call. So I say, "Hey, no problem. I'll give you a call in a couple of days. Make sure you don't have any questions. See what questions you've got. And I look forward to talking to you." They'll take off, you call them in two days, voicemail, text. Then you call in two weeks, voicemail, text. Then you call in two months, voicemail, text. And then send a letter to them. You can do the letter on different colored paper if you want, whatever you want. But try this. See what happens. See what your reschedule rate is. If you can get that up. Just think even if a couple patients schedule, this was worth listening to the podcast and it was worth paying your team to follow up on it.

Kiera Dent:

Also manually tracking, make that towards an uncomfortable piece where we don't really want to do it because we're more likely... If we don't really love to do this and we don't really want to do it, that we're able to actually make it something that's not pleasurable so we actually get better with our treatment planning. There's a lot of ways you guys can do treatment planning remember join us on our events. July 16th we have case acceptance, getting the yes. You guys can join us at thedentalateam.com/events. It's CE, so if you guys want more help with treatment planning, absolutely join us for that. I would hate for you guys to miss it. You guys can also attend all of our events. We've got our summit on May 14th and 15th as well. Don't miss that. You guys will love that. You guys, it's going to be epic.

Kiera Dent:

So go get those tickets, but put into play this two two two follow up. Cannot wait to see you guys at our events. Cannot wait to hear how this two two two follow up goes. Like I said, you guys can get the treatment tracker from us. Absolutely email us, [email protected]. Let us know if we can help you. We help a lot of offices implement this because sometimes it's great to hear it on a podcast. Sometimes it's hard to get a team to want to do this. Share this with your team. Teams will love this, because then you have a system in place of how to follow up with your patients, and you're not just waiting to like, "Oh, our schedule is not full. We got a call." You're constantly putting calls out there. Constantly putting... Basically just having a flow of patients that you're in constant contact with to make sure your schedule is always staying full.

Kiera Dent:

All right you guys, that's our two two two follow up. Thank you guys for listening. If you found this podcast helpful, be sure to leave us a review, a five star review. We would love that. Share this with your friends, with your teams. Let's help make this world a better place, positively impact the world of dental. As always, you guys, thank you so much for listening and we'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team Podcast. All right Dental A Team listeners, that's a wrap. Thank you so much for listening, and if you loved today's podcast, go leave us a review. It takes you five seconds and your review helps more offices, more practices, more team members, just like you find out about The Dental A Team. Thank you guys so much for being part of my Dental A Team family.