Episode 673: How To: 5-Star New Patient Exams

 Consultants Tina and Tiff talk about how to nail a 5-star worthy new patient exam, including establishing a relationship, perfecting the hand-off, and building a system based on what works. Diagnoses can’t come before a relationship — that’s how to be worthy of those five stars.

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Transcript:

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0:00:05.8 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 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.

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0:00:51.4 KD: Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and you guys, I'm so excited for consultant takeover. Guys, that was me attempting to sing into this microphone for you and I hope you loved it. Today, consultant takeover, grab your pens, grab your notebooks, bringing in the heat today. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

0:01:10.4 Tiff: Guys, I'm so excited. I'm back with Tina. You know me, Spiffy Tiffy. I never introduce myself. I'm really bad at that. So if there's not an introduction, you know it's me. [laughter] I will always introduce and love on the person I'm with because it's just easier. It's just easier. And Tina, I'm so excited to be here with you. I actually really enjoy... I don't know if you know this or not, because I don't probably tell you enough, but I love talking with you, and I think this is a great platform for us to just be able to chat on something dental-related. But I feel like our conversations are always lucrative and so fulfilling and we just walk away with smiles every time, and so I'm so happy to be here with you. And I love that we're doing this on camera, love, hate, but I love that I get to see you when we do this 'cause it's easier than just talking into the air. So, welcome. Thanks for being here with me today. I appreciate you. How are you?

0:02:03.0 Tina: I am good. I am very excited about this. And I do feel like having that camera perspective just makes it seem that much more tangible. I love being able to see people when they're speaking, so it's great to be able to listen to it on maybe your drive to work, but to actually be able to sit down and watch us communicate with one another, I feel like that you walk away with one more thing.

0:02:22.0 Tiff: I agree. I agree. When I take courses and stuff or Masterminds or whatever, I feel like when they're like this, they're on YouTube or whatever platform, I feel like I'm more there with them than when I'm listening. And I can actually... I feel like I'm more tangibly can picture implementing whatever it is that we're talking about than when I'm just in my car. I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm just a visual person, I guess. Maybe that's what that comes down to, but I retain it better. I love having both modalities, but I hope either one, somewhere you find your fit and everybody loves what we're doing. So today, we're gonna talk about five-star new patient exams, and we're all about getting the five stars, you guys. We want you to get five-star reviews. We want you to give us five-star reviews because we love you, we love what we do, and we like knowing that what we do is producing a really great result. So those five-star reviews help us know that you're getting valuable information from us.

0:03:15.2 Tiff: We want everything in your practice to be that five-star, because we want you to get five-star reviews too. We want you to know what you're doing is producing a really great result. New patient exams are huge. And I'm gonna caveat this with any exam is huge, any exam is worthy of five stars, and so don't forget about your recare patients and your periodics, too. But today, we're generally focusing on five-star new patient exam and really making sure that you're hitting every spot and every point to get that five-star review from the new patient to gain more new patients and help your community. Tina, I'm gonna pick your brain. New patient exam, I think we take it from a doctor's standpoint. We already know it's gonna start with a phone call, it's gonna start with the front office, that's the whole shebang, but what about the five-star new patient exam, chairside, maybe hygiene or dental assistant and doctor exam, do you think is really important that gains that five-star review for them?

0:04:13.3 Tina: Well, I think that if I was going to rate myself on how I feel like I was doing as a provider for an exam is more so my ability to connect with the patient and to build trust. And so that's important with new patients, like what you said, but also ongoing with our current patients. I just think that that new patient exam is really where we first start building it, and maybe that's why we put some of the focus there. But if you connect with me and I can get your trust, then I won. We both just won.

0:04:42.4 Tiff: Totally. I totally agree. I think it's all about that relationship. Because I can't imagine being like, "Oh, you need five crowns," to somebody that I have not built any trust or relationship with. And I think one reason why some doctors shy away from treatment planning, especially for new patients, is because they don't know where the patient's at. They'll say like, "Oh, I don't wanna over-diagnose. What if their last provider... Obviously, their last provider didn't tell them these things." Well, number one, you don't know that. You have no idea if they've just been sitting on these crowns forever. And number two, if they didn't tell them that, that's their problem, the other provider's problem. Now it gets to be your solution. So you get to be the person that gets to help this person be healthier. Don't stand back and allow them to continue being not healthy. Help them to get healthy and be the person who's willing to do those things. So I love that. Build that relationship and that rapport. And part of that five-star new patient or five-star rapport, we'll call it, is making sure that we as a team are communicating.

0:05:42.8 Tiff: So if I've got a hygienist or a dental assistant and I'm the doctor, I want you to give me the relationship. I want you to gift me your relationship that you've already built 'cause you've been with them. Our doctors come in and they're just like, "Hi, welcome to the party. I'm here. You guys have already been here." It's like, I feel like it's coming to dinner later and you're like all of your friends have been at dinner, maybe there's five or six of you, and all of your friends have been at dinner and they've been at dinner for like 15, 20 minutes. They've been talking. There's conversations going on. Now there's inside jokes that are happening that you weren't privy to, and you come in, you have no idea what you're gonna order, you don't even understand the restaurant you're at, and you're trying to interject in these conversations that you haven't been a part of. That's what it feels like, right? And that's like friends that you know.

0:06:29.9 Tiff: Remember those toast things, and so you would go to the Toastmasters and you'd learn how to public speak? Oh my gosh, that's what they're doing, guys. They're coming into this dinner party that they were invited to, but they don't know anyone yet. They know you and you're just dropping them on the doorstep like, "Good luck. Wash my hands of you." So invite them into the dinner party, and then give them the information, give them an in so that they can have a conversation with the people that you're conversing with. Don't let them just sit there trying to figure out how to answer themselves into the dinner party. I always think of that. I'm like, if my significant other took me to a party with all of his friends and we walked in, and then he's like, "Oh hey, I gotta go say hi to this... I got a Marine buddy over here I gotta go talk to. I'll be right back," I'd be like, "Where's the kitchen? Where is the bathroom?" And so you're...

0:07:22.8 Tina: "I need to use the restroom."

0:07:24.2 Tiff: Yeah. "I need an out. I need an out." And so your doctors are coming in and they're like, "Where's the kitchen? Where's the bathroom?" So that part of that five-star new patient exam is handing that relationship off so that your doctor can create that relationship with the patient. Don't leave them hanging. Allow them to create the relationship and pass up anything you're seeing. Help your doctors. Be the support team. Pass off what you're seeing so that they can validate what you've already said to the patient, your co-diagnosis, but then also, you guys, their brains are going buck wild crazy with so many things and they just walked into a dinner party that they don't know anybody at. There's so many things happening, help them get through that so that they can spend the time building that rapport and getting that relationship into place. And also, save yourself some time and save time on that ding-ding exam. You pass off that, you ramp up your communication chairside, your exams get quicker, I promise you.

0:08:18.5 Tina: Yep, it's that relationship gifting. I love that term and I definitely use it a lot, and you said it. But thinking of it from all perspectives too, I don't wanna be the patient that has to... It's a lot for a patient to build a new relationship with every single person I meet in the office, whereas if I was just talking to my hygienist about my skiing trip in Aspen, and then the doctor walks in and they're like, "Hey, she was just skiing in Aspen. We both love that. I also noticed that on the upper right, there's a little bit of decay there, or there's some concerns there. Can you take a look?" You really get to start to lead this conversation and it's like, "We already talked about Aspen. He has some jokes you can throw in, I'm sure, but we're also ready to jump into some of the exam too and that co-diagnosing."

0:09:00.4 Tiff: Absolutely, I love that. Yeah, relationship gifting, I think of it... This is something that all my practices will be laughing, and you can utilize this whenever you want, anybody, but I don't know if you guys remember that, it's called Friendship Bread or sourdough bread, they do it with sourdough bread now, where you build this dough ball and then you take a piece of it and you gift it to somebody else, and then it grows magically, whatever, it grows into their own dough ball so they can make their own bread and you take a piece and you gift it. So I think of this dough ball between me and the patient, and I've allowed this dough ball to grow so big that now I can take a chunk out of my dough ball without impacting my loaf of bread and gift it to whomever is next. So I'm gifting it to my doctor so that he or she can have that five-star new patient exam and really dive into the relationship and the diagnosis. The diagnosis can't come before the relationship. The relationship has to come first. A comfortable diagnosis comes after a really healthy and strong relationship.

0:10:00.5 Tiff: So I think making sure that that relationship is intact, you're getting the information from your team that you need and that you're covering all of your bases. So guys, I don't know if this needs to be said or not, but start on one quadrant, like start upper right, go all the way across to upper left, go to lower left, go to lower right. If you follow that cadence, your team can follow along a lot better. If you're wishy-washy, if you're all over the place, everyone's confused. Even your patients, guys, sitting there are feeling where you're at, and if you jump from side to side, quadrant to quadrant, wherever, you're just willy-nilly all over the place, leaves a lot of confusion and a lot of room for error. So I would just not do that. So make sure you're building that relationship, you're getting that pass off and that you're following some sort of a system. You should have a protocol. And I want you guys to build it. I want you to look at what's working really well, what works for you and your recare appointments, because those exams are really fast. Why are they fast? Because you've got the relationship.

0:10:58.0 Tiff: So how can you create that in your new patient exam really quickly? Utilize your team and create some sort of a cadence to your exam so that you can go through your checklist. If you have a checklist for your exam, you've got the teeth that you're gonna check first, you've got maybe TMJ, you've got your oral cancer screening, you've got your ortho checks, your bite, your occlusion, if you've got a cadence and an order to that and you do it the same every single time, you guys will get better and better, you'll get better diagnosis, quicker diagnosis, and you don't have to stress about things being right or wrong, it just happens and your exams will be faster. So I want you to go through and do that. Look at what your relationship building looks like now. Are you getting that information passed off from your team members? And do you have a checklist that you're using for your exams, especially your new patient exams? That's how you create a five-star new patient exam. Tina, is there anything you think I missed in those action items that they can take away and go implement?

0:11:55.3 Tina: No. I'm excited. I wanna hear about it too. So once you choose what you're going to... How you're gonna follow this, where you're gonna put your focus, and then let us hear about it.

0:12:04.8 Tiff: Absolutely, I love that. I love that. You guys, for reals, we really do check the email. Okay, hello@thedentalemail... At the dental email. [email protected]. We actually do get those. They come to the consultants, we respond. We love hearing from you guys. And share this. Share this with somebody that you think it might help with their exams as well. We want everyone to learn and grow and just be a happy frickin' family. So thank you, Tina, for being here with me. I hope you guys love these takeaways. Tina, I hope you have a great weekend. Whatever day you guys are listening to this on, I hope you have a great rest of your day. And I think that's it. Thanks, Tina.

0:12:41.3 Tina: Awesome. Thanks, Tiff.

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0:12:45.5 KD: And that wraps it up for another episode of The Dental A Team Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.

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