Your Patients Have Questions – Each of You Should Have the Same Answer

Let’s start with the big story of the week. If you haven’t had a chance to see the study that discusses why dental patients don’t necessarily need to visit the dentist every six months, make sure you check that out as well as the thoughts from Dr. David Rice on it.

Go ahead and click. Both links open in new windows so you won’t lose your spot here. I’ll be waiting when you get back.

OK, now you have some background for what I’m going to talk about below. This study will make the rounds in the news in the coming days and your patients will hear about it. They will also come into your practice with questions about it … or a variety of other dental- and health-related things they hear about on the news or read about in a publication.

They will have questions. Will you have not only the right answer but the same answer as well? What I mean is, will your answer match the answer that every dental professional in your practice would give if that same patient asked him or her the same question?

It’s important to think about this and ensure you all know the facts and know how to respond so mixed messages aren’t sent to the patient. And, you know this as well as I do, the same question is often asked more than once in the dental practice to different people. Different people often give different answers, and that can lead to confusion or the feeling that people in the practice don’t have each other’s backs.

Let me share some thoughts with you below on why it’s so important for everyone to have the same message for this study and every other question that comes down the line. #TogetherWeRise

Note: Photo of “Question Mark” by ryanmilani is licensed with CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Kevin Henry

Kevin Henry

With more than 20 years in the dental publishing industry, Kevin Henry is the former group editorial director for Dental Products Report, managing editor for Dental Economics, and editor-in-chief for DrBicuspid.com. He now serves as the co-founder for IgniteDA, a community designed to empower, enlighten, and educate dental assistants, and as director of marketing for Fortune Management. He has spoken to dental assistants throughout the world, in person and through the Dental Assistant Nation podcast series, reminding them of the important role they play every day in their practice. He is also certified as a DiSC trainer, helping dental practices learn how to understand each other better through personality assessments and training.