I thought I would reprint one of my old newsletters for your entertainment. The newsletters are free and are delivered by email every two weeks. You can sign up for them by going to www.gdpresources.com and entering your information.

Hello again, and welcome to those who have recently joined us

Traditionally, people come to the dentist for one of 3 reasons.

i) a check up
ii) Pain / problems
iii) An appointment for treatment

They worry about coming to the appointment, which takes a lot of courage for some people. They often come to an uninviting, cold building where they are met, often, by a surely receptionist, who may even ignore the patient for several minutes. They then sit, often in a cold waiting room, with the latest in last decades magazines. They often have no idea when they will be seen. When they are called through to see the “dentist” with no real idea of what is to be “done” to them. And this is before the treatment starts. Horrible isn’t it? This might not be how YOUR practice is, but it still represents the reality of a large number of practices out there.

Even when the practice is properly run, it takes a while for the old experiences to be cancelled out, because we are dealing with frightened people. From mild unease to severe phobic reaction, the vast majority of people associate the dental surgery with fear. The main reason being that for the last 100 years, people have gone to the dentist about their teeth, and the pain associated with them. People didn’t know what caused dental disease. They just saw the dentist as someone who fixed things, who repaired teeth, often painfully. And of course there is that god awful scale and polish every six months.
People are also apprehensive about the cost. A lot of people still don’t understand that NHS dentistry is no longer free (for most), and that quality dentistry is now expensive. They still think that all dentists drive flash cars, and live in big houses. The newspapers and consumer programs are regularly sprouting the message that dentists rip you off. The same media then talks about all the lovely treatments available to your teeth, and the large sums involved. Some people get confused. They don’t realise that, yes, dentists often do have a higher standard of living than most people, but they don’t see the other side. What isn’t seen is the large number of dentists who are in financial, medical and psychological trouble. Is there a better way? Of course there is.

The traditional NHS practice worked under the following model: Drill, Fill & Bill. There was no money for prevention, so prevention was not done. Telling someone to brush and floss is not effective OHI. It can take several years, over a number of sessions, to teach the skills needed to look after their mouths. So what happened was that both the dentist and the patient stepped onto a treadmill of decay and repair. The mouth of the patient slowly deteriorated, and so did the health of the dentist. As a profession, we no longer have the highest suicide rate, but we are still pretty close to the top. I think we are now beaten by doctors and psychiatrists. This is not good. Things have to change, but we as professionals have to be the ones to change it.

We cannot rely on the government, because at the end of the day the government will do whatever it needs to get re-elected. We can only rely on ourselves as practice owners. Your practice is a business, and you need to treat it as such. The average practitioner works 5-6 days a week, and treats whatever is booked onto his or her day list. However, they don’t take the time needed to spend time ON their business, something that cannot be done when they are working IN their business. If you are working more than 4 days a week, you are (in my opinion) doing something wrong. You are living for dentistry, not using dentistry to make a living.
And people have many excuses as to why they work more than 4 days a week (I know I used to). But you know what? At one time I worked 5 and a half days a week. Now I work 4 days, and I am making more money than I ever did. And no, I didn’t go private; I am still an NHS practitioner. I just choose to work smarter, not harder. So what did I do?

• I got rid of my abusive, aggressive and unappreciative patients. And I am about to get rid of some more. 3 months notice, bye. This, to me is the big one. This alone can radically improve the profitability of ANY practice. Just think of the time freed up in your appointment book.
• I have excellent staff and pay them as well as I can
• I bought an intra-oral camera – it is a god send
• I offer every patient every option for their treatment
• I formulated an ethical effective sales system, which you can learn more about at http://www.gdpresources.com/products3.shtml
• I take the time to learn what patients want, not what they need.
• I ask my best patients to refer me their friends and family.
• I systemised my practice so that I wasn’t being constantly hassled by my staff over “little things”. We are not talking practice management here, nor are we talking clinical governance. We are talking the basic stuff. You can learn more about these systems at http://www.gdpresources.com/products1.shtml
• I took time out to work on my business so that I could plan for the future.
• When I bought the practice, I made sure I had an exit strategy.
• I joined a gym, and started eating right. You wouldn’t believe what a difference that has made.
• I keep a strict control of my finances, and save up for every major purchase. The only thing I ever bought on finance was an OPG machine, but that is only because it pays for itself.
• I wrote an Emergency management system which again is for sale on my website
  
  I am not trying to impress you. I am trying to impress upon you that there are ways to change the focus of your practice, but it takes a lot of hard work and it takes time. It also takes a complete change in the thinking of the dentist. You are not the only dentist on the planet. If you don’t like a patient, maybe they can be better served by a dentist more in tune with their personality. That old (and soon to be extinct) strategy of registering everything that could breath always confused me. Why treat people you don’t like. No matter how professional you are, the fact that you don’t like them (and that they often don’t like you) WILL affect the way you interact with them. And when something goes wrong, who do you think is going to be the first to sue you?