After all I've done for them?


Sometimes  dentist's forget we are running a business. We often form personal attachments to our patients and may forget that they are coming to our office for dental work and essentially they are "customers". There is a lot of talk by consultants who advise dentists on business matters about how to successfully run a practice. Our patients are "clients" who come to us to satisfy their dental needs and more and more it is a financial transaction.

Call me old fashioned, but I really feel that the doctor patient relationship can be much more. Our patients, at least those who come back over and over, put their trust in us. After all they know little about dentistry and depend on us for help making dental decisions and judge us on our dental outcomes. Hopefully we help them choose wisely and are able to execute predictable dentistry for them that will stand the test of time.

I have many patients who travel from relatively far away to visit our practice their trip to our office can take more than an hour commute and some come from even further away. It makes me proud that they place such a high value on our office's dental care and really continues to make practiing dentistry seem worthwhile.

Other people who visit can  take our care more or less for granted. It doesn't seem to matter that we have cared for their mouths successfully for decades, choosing a dentist is in part a matter of convenience. Almost like choosing a hairdresser. Some place a high value on their hairdresser as well while others seem to make changes easily,  placing convenience above all else.

Some of my patients who start going to a local dentist sheepishly explain that if they need something major they will come back to us, but for now they are trying out a dentist from their neighborhood. I must confess that when this happens my feelings are hurt and I may for the moment think "after all I've done for them!" but this feeling passes quickly and I realize people go where they want to go, but  the good that I have accomplished is real, whether it is fully appreciated or not. I know what I have done and the ways that I have helped and ultimately that is my real reward. Money is nice, but the feeling of performing a public service is a much a bigger payday for me as well as most of the other highly skilled dentists I know!




from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2019/07/after-all-ive-done-for-them.html - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Help! My Child is Terrified of the Dentist

Image
If you’re the parent of a young child, you know their brains are similar to sponges that soak up everything around them—especially in their first five years, which neuroscientists say is when they’ll do the most learning and developing in their entire life. At this formative time, your child may amaze you with what they notice: your facial expressions, the different tones of your voice, and your habits. If your habits include regular dental visits and an excellent oral hygiene routine, they’ll notice and want to emulate you. If you happen to feel anxious about your dental visits, or you groan when you’ve got to floss and brush, they may synchronize and feel your dread. This could lead to dental fears that stick with them for years—potentially a lifetime! Kids Can Be Courageous If you’re feeling guilty right now, go ahead and put that away as it won’t serve you or your little one. Everyone has some room for improvement, and Coastal Pediatric Dentistry® is here to help show you an
Read more

Going for the Gold?

Image
On the left is the older allow, on the right the new one that my lab has chosen to use The cost of a penny weight of pure gold is currently $79.53. The cost of a penny weight of pure palladium is $130.6. It used to be that palladium was added instead of gold to the precious metals often used for pfms, but now laboratories are finding that palladium is no longer affordable. The lab that I am using has just changed the formulation of the metal it's using to one that has more gold than palladium. I really do not mind, but metals with more gold are softer and often easier for a dentist to accidentally polish off delicate margins. It is important when polishing "higher gold" formulations to exert less hand pressure when performing the final polishing of the crown's margins. Other wise there should be no problem with this change. Traditionally labs have chosen alloys with higher gold percentages for optimal esthetics, since alloys with higher concentrations of
Read more

Tongue Ties: What Parents Need to Know

Image
For a long time, people just didn’t seem to know much about tongue ties. In the early years of my practice, few of my patients had ever heard of a tongue tie. When I pointed out that they or their children might be tongue tied, I was often the very first practitioner who’d mentioned it to them. When I told them that a tongue tie might actually be the root cause of their oral myofunctional issues, or even their sleep apnea , I’m sure that some of them thought I was crazy. But in the last few years, things have changed so much! Initially, there was a small increase in the number of patients who were contacting me specifically about tongue ties. Dentists and orthodontists also began reaching out more frequently to discuss the application of myofunctional therapy exercises to tongue tie treatment. But in the last year or so, that little bit of interest has become a surge of awareness. Tongue ties and their effects on health and craniofacial development are finally becoming mainstream.
Read more