204 The Truth About Why Patients Don't Schedule

Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Delivering Wow Dental podcast. So, excited to be here today. So, today we're going to be talking about the truth about why patients are not scheduling. Why are patients saying, "We will call you back. We will think about it," and how do we actually overcome that obstacle so that we can actually help our patients get the treatment that we're recommending for them.

So, I remember back inside of my office when I would have so many patients say, "I will think about it. I want to talk to my husband." And as we started to look at why patients were not scheduling, I would ask my team "Guys, do you know what's going on?" And they would say, "Well, you know what, they don't have the money," or "The real thing is that right now, they just don't have a lot of time." Like, "They're really busy right now." And as I started to really think about it, I started to say, "There's actually probably something else."

And so, I actually went on this journey a few years ago to really understand advanced psychology and understand why people actually make decisions and why people don't make decisions. And so, I actually invested in working with some psychologists and also working with coaches who actually teach sales and neuro-linguistic programming outside of the dental industry, interestingly to real estate agents. And I went there with this idea that I wanted to understand, how could framework be created for my dental clients so that they could increase case acceptance. And so, that within my own practice, we could do the same. And what was interesting is once we learned what was the real secret, then all of a sudden our case acceptance skyrocketed. And so, I want to talk a little bit about that process and why our patients oftentimes will not actually schedule and why they probably will never schedule. So, no matter how many times we're actually calling them and saying, "Hey, you remember doctor says that you have that bridge to do," or, "You have that implant to do."

And so, the first thing that I want you to think about is the reason why a lot of people are not scheduling is that they are really confused about how they're actually going to fit it into their budget or how they're going to find the time. And so, what's has been really interesting is understanding this process, that once we are now providing the answer to that question that's actually confusing them and how it has actually worked for other people to solve that same problem. Then all of a sudden, that problem essentially goes away or that issue essentially goes away from them. And so, you might be saying, "Okay, Anissa, what are you talking about?" And so, as we start looking at case acceptance. So, one of the things that we teach in our different frameworks. We've got about five or six different frameworks that we teach for different aspects of case acceptance.

But as we start looking at presenting treatment, one thing that I will always ask the doctors that we work with in the teams is, "If you had to go to the dentist seven times or five times, would that be hard for you or would that be easy for you?" And for many of them, they say, "You know what? That would be really hard for me because I have to see my patients. I'd have to find a time to come in and not have patients scheduled." Or if they work for the dental practice, they say, "It would be really hard because I work in a small business and I have to find somebody to cover for me and that would be really hard." And so, as we start looking at, why is it that patients are not scheduling? I started to really think about the time factor and think that, really, patients are just like us.

They're a business owner. They work for a company. They're self-employed and it's really hard. And so, as we started looking at letting patients know that we recognize that this is hard and letting them know how patients are able to get their work done anyway, all of a sudden, a light bulb started to go off in our patients' minds and in the minds of our clients where all of a sudden they said, "Oh yeah. It's true. It's really hard for me to come for seven visits or five visits." Right. Or even four visits. And so, we started to look at one of our frameworks to really discuss this

and say, "Lots of our patients find that it's really hard for them to come in multiple visits."

"And for you, would it be easier for you to come in one or two visits or five or six?" And letting them know that most of our patients have said that it's easier for them. And so, letting them know that you listened to your patients and now you're offering longer appointments where people can just essentially come, one or two visits, if it's possible, depending on the treatment plan and get it all done and out of the way because the fact is that people really don't want to come to the dentist a lot of times. We get that, right. Then now we let them know that we found a solution for them. Right? You don't have to come in five visits. You could come in one or two. And then from there, in terms of the time, now that you've helped them to overcome that challenge of trying to figure out how they're going to actually get it done, the next thing is to think about the money aspect, right?

And so, asking them, "Now that we know that fewer visits are better for you, is there any reason why you wouldn't be able to come in one or two visits?" And so, for many people, they say, "I'd love to do that but I just don't have the money." And we know that already. And this is all a part of advanced psychology. Again, really understanding the psychology of why people make decisions, which a lot of times, it's just that when you just are confused about what to do, you do nothing. It's almost like, "I've been thinking about painting my house for a while now. And I'm not sure what colors to use. So, I just do nothing and they're still white." And so, that's the same thing that happens.

And so, if now you can have someone to come in. If I had somebody to come in my house and say, "Okay, here's a painter who can do the job for you. Here's different colors that you can select. And by the way, we're going to go and get all of the paint. And then we'll have the painter show up with the paint." Guess what? It's done now because we actually have a solution. Somebody has made it easy for me. And it's the same thing with our practice, right? And so, as we start looking at treatment planning, one thing that we can look at is giving those solutions. So, saying, "We know that most of our patients are just like you. They're not sure how they can fit it into their budget in one day but how they're able to do it anyway is, number one, they realize they have a credit card, perhaps even a zero interest credit card. And so, they're able to get it done that way."

"Or number two, maybe they don't have that solution. And so, we've created a plan where you can just pay a little bit over time." And so, that's another great option or a third great option is that we just make a plan today and decide what you're going to do on each visit, when you're going to come, which day of the month and look at how much you're going to budget for each appointment. And now you have a solution. And in fact, we can actually go ahead and pre-book all of your appointments to actually hold you accountable to getting this done. And so, now you provide three options, which are all really good solutions. And now you can ask the patient, "Which one of these options works best for you?" And so, essentially now, instead of them having to decide and come up with a solution, they're just choosing one and either one of those three works.

Okay. So, I wanted to share those pearls with you. There's lots of different frameworks that we teach that have been really transformational for practices. But I wanted to at least share this one framework with you today here, inside of this podcast, because guys, the reason why people are not scheduling a lot of times is that they just don't know exactly how to actually get it done.

All right. So, hopefully that's helpful for you guys. I look forward to chatting with you in our next episode and if you haven't done so already, make sure that you're joining us inside of our YouTube channel, www.dentalbosstv.com. Lots of great videos and tools for you there inside of our channel.

All right, guys, we'll chat soon. Take care.

Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Delivering Wow Dental podcasts. Now, if you haven't done so already, we invite you to join us at www.deliveringwow.com to take

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Delivering Wow podcast with Dr. Anissa Holmes. We'll catch you next time.