Dr. Paul Homoly’s Video Blog
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Dental Patient Verbal Skills
Patient education will not get you to the next level or help you retain patients. The secret to long term success and closing high dollar treatment plans, is patient verbal skills.
When Patients Say No: Case Acceptance Skills
Our goal used to be to educate patients. We still educate, but the higher ground of our goal now is to peak patient confidence. Peak their confidence to coincide with our treatment presentation and financial arrangements. These conversations go so much smoother after...
The Trick To Selling High-Fee Dentistry
What is it about you that patients like? Is it your full-mouth x-rays, or study models, or periodontal probing? None of this is likeable for patients, yet procedures like these constitute much of the new patient experience.
Distinctions in Dentistry: Provider vs Advocate
Your principal role as an advocate is to help your patients make healthcare decisions regardless of their impact on your provider role.
Minor vs Complex
Patients are like kids in that they differ in what motivates them. The trick is knowing what patients’ motives are and how to appeal to them.
Commoditized vs Prescriptive Patient Processes
Let's talk about the distinction between a commoditized new patient process versus a prescriptive one. A commoditized new patient process is one where every new non-emergency patient goes through the same sequence. They check-in at the front desk, they...
Urgency vs Readiness
Some dentists found if they’ve built a habit of routinely creating urgency, they’ll discover chronic care restorative patients will be repelled by contrived urgency and won’t accept their treatment
Process vs. Benefit: Distinctions In Dentistry
Process-centered case presentations don’t distinguish you in patients’ minds. I’ve they’ve heard one; they’ve heard them all.
Sales versus Leadership
An essential distinction in dentistry that many dentists and team members miss is the distinction between a sales versus leadership approach to case acceptance. I remember listening to a dentist present a treatment plan to his nervous patient. After he completed his...
Educating vs. Understanding
Here's a distinction every professional will find helpful. It's the distinction between educating vs. understanding patients. The other day I was in The Apple Store looking for the latest version of the iPad. My interest was in its voice recognition technology. My...
Standard of Caring
Often we unintentionally camouflage our Standard of Caring with conversations about the standard of care. This is the big blind spot for complex care practitioners.
Increasing the Dentists’ and Team Members’ Confidence when Discussing Fees and Financial Arrangements
Part Two: Increasing the Dentists’ and Team Members’ Confidence when Discussing Fees and Financial Arrangements In part one of this series on increasing dentists’ and team members’ confidence when discussing fees, we highlighted the concept of the Crossover Zone™. If...
Money Conversations: Increasing Dentists’ Confidence
Part One: Increasing Dentists' Confidence Early in my dental career I would rather take a fork in the eye than discuss money with patients. I had a subtle way of slipping out of the operatory just before the patient was about to ask me about fees. I’d say, “Mrs....
Case Presentation: Identifying Patient Types on the Initial Call
To discover whether the caller is a minimal or complex care patient, the receptionist needs to be curious — that’s a keyword — and ask about the patient’s underlying condition.
Case Presentation: One Size Does NOT Fit All
Have you ever had a patient who, during or after your case presentation, looked you straight in the eye and said, “Well, thanks, but I’ve got to go home and think about it?” Have you ever wondered what it is they need to “think” about? Chances are they are thinking...
Advocate vs Provider
The traditional case presentation process doesn’t prepare patients well for accepting complete care. This is exactly why dentists have hundreds of thousands of dollars of unaccepted care in their practices and patients abandon their practices never to return from sticker shock.
Are Your Patients Loyal to Your Practice?
Patient loyalty is the seventh and last emotional outcome along the path of emotional momentum. Patient loyalty binds patients intellectually and emotionally to your practice. Loyalty is the culmination of emotional momentum. Loyalty is the result of the preceding six...
25,000 and Up! Confidently Present Treatment Plans
Don’t confuse patient confidence with patient education. Patients need education for proper informed consent. They need confidence to say “YES!”.
Inspiration Is Critical For Complex Care Patients
Inspiration is the fifth step in building emotional momentum leading to treatment acceptance for complex care patients. Inspiration occurs during the post-examination discussion after you've provided hope and discussed your examination findings. Inspiration is...
Hope Impacts 25,000 and UP! Treatment Acceptance
When discussing 25,000 and up cases, at times, patients need more hope than education. After exams, I’d reveal to patients all their conditions and my treatment recommendations which included most of their teeth.
What surprised me was their indifference to it all.
Advocacy Guides $25,000 and UP!
Advocacy is the third emotional outcome in building emotional momentum. It starts during the new patient conversation and continues through treatment presentation. Advocacy is the emotional outcome for patients when they realize your concern about their dental care...
$25,000 and UP: Patients want to know you care
There’s an art to leading patients to talk about how they feel about their dental condition. Show authentic interest in how they feel.
Fresh Thinking On the New Patient Experience and Treatment Acceptance
Are you likable as a dentist? Approaching the new patient experience focusing on procedures; taking x-rays, scans, and study models, doing exams is not extraordinary or likeable.
$25,000 and UP! – Treatment acceptance for Complex Dentistry
At fee levels of $25,000 and up, patients expect and deserve more than ordinary. For you to differentiate your practice and thrive in the high-fee domain of complex dentistry, patients need emotional outcomes from your new patient appointment that signal they’ll be well-cared for.