Friday Finish – April 24, 2020
During this pandemic, COVID-19 downtime, how are you communicating with your patients and clients? When the news came out that we had to close our doors, or at least limit the flow of patients to a drip, what were your reactions? Most of our Colleagues went into shock, followed by crawling into hiding. I’m sorry if that’s offensive, but it’s true.
The truth is, doing nothing is like treading water, it’s ineffective, and it tires you out. Sure it’s been a much different climate than ever in my career as a dentist. You could probably say the same thing. But you simply can’t run into hiding and run a business at the same time. Rolling over will not keep you momentum going for now, nor will it prepare you for when your doors can open (hopefully) in a few weeks.How are you communicating with your patients today?
Are you sending emails?
Are you calling them?
Are you texting them?
Are you sending letters?
How about a thank you card?
There are many ways to build relationships with your patients that go beyond dental treatment. Dentistry is what we do, but it’s real people that we treat. One strategy that we’ve been using for almost six months is using Teledentistry to help our patients during this time of quarantine
If you aren’t using teledentistry as a new-patient tool, you are missing out. Not only can it build your patient list, but it keeps your community out of the Emergency Rooms and InstaCare clinics where they are typically referred back to a dentist anyway. It’s a huge waste of time and money to send a patient to the emergency room for a toothache. In my state (Utah), over $51 million was spend in ER visits over a 10 year period, that’s over $5 million per year that could have been prevented or treated in a dental practice. We can do better to save our patients time and money, while growing our practices at the same time.
If you aren’t using teledentistry right now, contact me for my 5-step template that you can implement for your new or existing patients today.
I was also recently featured on The One Thing podcast with Ron Sheetz about this very topic, you can listen on iTunes or Spotify at the links below.
In the meantime, have a fantastic weekend!
If you would like to receive more information like this or provide your feedback, simply send me an email at twilliams@yourpracticegrowth.com and put “Friday Finish” in the subject line, or you can get free Practice Growth tips on my weekly blog here.