Ghosting the dentist?


The question I mean to ask : Is it OK to "ghost" my dentist ?
The short answer is No, but here comes my longer answer...

For those not familiar with the term, it refers to a way to break up with someone, by ignoring their texts, emails and phone calls. Often there is no warning before this step is taken. I guess the person doing the ghosting is avoiding the messy step of communicating why they want to actually break up since as the as Neil Sedaka's hit song informed us, "Breaking up is hard to do."

I believe that when switching dentists , one should cut all communications with the one being left, even when someone is dissatisfied or angry at them.

Let's go over the most common reasons for switching dentists

  • they are inconvenient to get to ( the patient moved)
  • change of insurance and they are out of network 
  • They are too expensive , not good enough, or the patient is just not that into them.
If any of these is pertinent, then why not communicate a real or made up reason for your switch. It's really common courtesy. Ignoring an old dentist missives is really rude and itself communicates a lack of manners.
  
A second type of reason  is that the patient is mad or unhappy with something their dentist or one of the staff did. If this is the case, most offices welcome even negative feedback since we really want to know because at the end of the day we do not want to turn off any other patients (at least if we're smart)  even if it's too late to make up with our dissatisfied and exiting patient . 

 Many people don't want to have a actual conversation with a staff member about leaving the practice. Hey - man up and at least send a break up text. Ghosting, after all, is cruel and unusual punishment!


from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://ift.tt/2iHwvB2 - http://ift.tt/1SpPbm6

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