The language we choose to use is incredibly important. Unfortunately, if your dental school was anything like mine, you spend years learning all the technical parts of treatment planning and diagnosis but were never taught how to properly share that information with your patients.
Unless we are fortunate enough to have a mentor or a coach who can help us learn to communicate with patients, we never know that some of the common words and phrases we are telling our patients are working against us!
The goal of every dentist is to get their patients healthier than when they walked in the door, but that only works if patients buy into our suggestions and agree to schedule (and show up to) their next appointment.
Here are a few phrases that all dentists should stop saying!
1. “Wiggle Words”
As dentists, we tend to come to our patients from a place of defensiveness. We are so afraid to be told one more time that someone “hates the dentist” or that “we’re only trying to get more money” from our patients. Therefore, we try to downplay our diagnoses to avoid frightening our patients.
How many times have you told an anxious new patient;
- “It’s just a chip.”
- “It’s a small cavity.”
- “You just need a filling.”
These are “wiggle words”, a phrase taught to be by Ignite’s very own Dawn Patrick! These phrases minimize the problems our patients have and our patients hear “you don’t need to fix this or worry about it!”
When I reflected on it, I was using these phrases to protect myself from rejection. If I downplayed what a patient needed and they said no, then they weren’t rejecting my expertise. However, this is actually harming my patients.
I am the expert and the one who knows the true risks of not taking care of these “small” problems. That “small cavity” can quickly become a tooth that requires a root canal or crown.
Using wiggle words is not clear or kind to our patients and we must work to be more direct.
2. “Deep Cleaning”
Using the phrase “deep cleaning” implies the option for a “not so deep cleaning.”
As a patient you bet I’d rather have the not so deep cleaning if at all possible. While it is true that Scaling and Root Planing (SRP) allows our hygiene team to clean deeper into the gum tissues it is more than that.
SRP is the appropriate non surgical periodontal therapy for patients with bone loss and periodontal disease. Informing your patient about the impacts of untreated periodontal disease, showing them the areas of concern on their radiographs, and then advising them that they require “non-surgical periodontal therapy” helps to further your patients dental knowledge and makes SRP seem less intimidating.
If the options are between surgical and non-surgical periodontal therapy, most people are going to sign right up for that SRP!
3. “Simple Extraction”
As dental providers we know the difference between surgical versus simple extraction. However, even the most simple and straight forward extractions is oral surgery.
We are still removing a body part from a person. We are taking a tooth right out of the bone that is meant to hold it in place.
When patients hear us say simple extraction, it sets a certain expectation in their mind for the procedure. Some of the most difficult extractions I have ever done have been billed out as D7140, or “simple extraction”, but the patient and I would have told you there was nothing “simple” about it.
I like to inform patients that some extractions may require me to use my hand piece to help remove bone around the tooth. Sometimes I am able to expand the bone instead.
My attendings in residency always said “think of an extraction like a 10 mm marble in a 8mm hole. You either have to make the hole bigger or the marble smaller.”
Letting patients know that the dental insurances code these as “simple” versus “surgical” but there is nothing simple about removing a body part sets more clear expectations for how the procedure will go and what to expect afterwards regarding post operative pain.
Keep Reading: Setting Realistic Expectations: Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day
