About twenty years ago my new patient
coordinator and I worked out a way to do new patient consultations so that I
wouldn’t be wasting so much time. My patient coordinator would visit with the patient
or family for ten or fifteen minutes until I could come over to see the
patient. This gave my coordinator an opportunity to make small talk and find
out a few things about the patient or family. She also would tell the patient
about the benefits of our office. This had a bonding effect of the patient to
my office.
Finally, when I could come over to the
patient, I didn’t have to go through all of the small talk with the family. My
coordinator has already done that. Everyone was now ready to find out what I
thought about the patient’s orthodontic problems.
I would then have my new patient coordinator
write down the diagnosis as I dictated it to her. Then I would have the parents
come to the chair and give the patient a mirror. I would then show them directly
in the patient’s mouth all of the things I had been talking about.
This did something very important for me.
After hearing all of the things that I had dictated, they were beginning to
feel like “Oh my goodness this is a lot worse problem than I thought”. Even
some of the things I would say like “Class I” would sound bad to them, because
they didn’t know better.
Now, this became a good starting place to
educate the family as to the problems and solutions for this patient. I would
go through all the things that were written down one by one, both good and bad.
I would explain, in as much detail as I could, what needed to be done for the
patient. This included all options that I thought would apply even to the
possibility of extracting permanent teeth.
I would tell the parents or patient that I
needed beginning orthodontic records so that I could make sure that what I was
telling them was the right treatment for the patient. If for any reason I
changed my mind after seeing the records, I would call them back in for another
consultation and show them the records and the reason why I changed my mind.
Now I would have my new patient coordinator
show study models that were similar to the type of treatment that the patient
needed. She would also explain the cost and payments for the treatment.
All of this would take only ten or fifteen
minutes of my time. This “mini consultation”, as Dr. Hilgers would later call
it, allowed me to see up to eight new or recall patients per day for many years
in my practice.
This did two things for me. It eliminated the
patients that were never going to start. It also showed that the patient was
much more complicated than they had ever imagined because they got to hear the
diagnosis and all the problems that went along with it.
The patients were always allowed to ask for a
consultation for any reason if they wanted more explanation about the
treatment. Only one or two out of ten patients would come back, at either their
request or mine, for another consultation. This second consultation took less
of my time than a formal consultation because the family was already bonded to
my office.
By the way, Dr. James Hilgers, whom a lot of you know from his writings and lecturing, took this idea of mine and presented it in some of his lectures. My new patient coordinator, who helped me work this out, had previously worked for Dr. Hilgers and went back to working for him after she quit working for me.
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