New Patient Wrangler (Part two)?

Enthusiastic referrers can be hard to come by and one never knows in advance which new patients will eventually turn out to be "Champion Wranglers". It happens that it is my basic nature to enjoy interacting with my patients and love it when they leave happy. I like to do good deeds and they are not always rewarded, but sometimes  ... Call it good Karma , they are....

 A year ago new patient came in because she had read a blog post of mine and when interviewing her, she blurted out that she had been to four dentists before and was "so glad she found me at last!".  Now when a patient tells me something like this a red warning light comes on in my brain and I hear over an imaginary loudspeaker "Warning-You'll be next!"

It was immediately apparent that this new patient really wanted to be listened to and I decided to schedule more time than usually needed for her appointments. If an appointment should take an hour , maybe she needed an hour and half (or even two hours).  I should add that she came to my office during a "slow  period" in which I usually had an hour or two each day of non booked appointments.

I wasn't particularly hopeful that our interaction would turn out better than her other  previous dental experiences, but it wasn't going to happen due to my lack of effort and it would make my days more interesting. Her teeth were sorely in need of some TLC and althoug she was extremely talkative, she seemed like a nice lady. If I was patient with her, I hoped that I  could help her  a great deal.

I started slow and did a cleaning and an examination and by initially  by fixing one tooth at a time. I thought it would be a giant mistake to jump in to renovating her mouth with both feet. Instead I scheduled longish appointments and took baby steps. I did a crown on one tooth that badly needed my attention and I was surprised how happy this made her. The rest is history... She has been coming for treatments for almost a year now and has enthusiastically referred her entire family and written 5 star reviews across the internet. I'm not sure how long her "love affair" with my practice will last and probably, if as so often is the case and history repeats itself,  she will eventually become disenchanted with my care, at least for now I am pleased to be able to help her.  She brings my staff and Ibagels and other goodies each time she visits.  We try to schedule her on days when we don't have a hygienist so I can give her my undivided attention and so far this recipe has worked well. Treating people nicely and with respect is never a bad idea, and sometimes it turn out to be extremely rewarding !




from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2018/02/new-patient-wrangler-part-two.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

Lemon Juice – The Good, the Bad, & the Sour

Image
In a great tale of opposites, lemon juice can be both acidic and basic, or alkaline. Read on to find out why people are talking about this, and what it means for your oral and overall health . What is pH and why does it matter? Drinking lemon juice (usually diluted in a glass of water or added to a cup of tea) is a beloved health tonic among fans of natural medicine. Potential benefits include lower cholesterol, lower inflammation in the body, and increased metabolism and energy. Lemon also contains high levels of antioxidants and vitamin C that boost your immune system. On a scale from 0-14, a pH of 7 is neutral (pure water) while numbers below 7 are acidic (unhealthy), and above 7 are basic or alkaline (healthy). Believers in holistic health blame many ailments on the body’s pH being too low or too acidic. Increasing your body’s pH is called “alkalizing.” Lemon juice in its natural state is acidic with a pH of about 2, but once metabolized it actually becomes alkaline with a pH ...
Read more