4- Your Patients

I talked about the fact that every specialist should concentrate on two major sources of patients; referral sources and the general public. A number of specialists tend to underestimate the importance of marketing their practices directly to patients. I believe that most specialty practice (depending on the specialty) should attain at least 30% of their patients directly and not through a referrals. Ideally this ratio should be closer to 50%, even for specialties who are more dependent on referrals (such as Endodontics).

To achieve this goal it is sometimes necessary to think like a general dentist. We must put the same emphasis on individual patient satisfaction. Even if they don't end up referring you patients, at least you will indirectly experience the benefits when they go back to their general dentists with positive feedback about you.

We do a lot in our practices to attract new patients and to keep those we already have satisfied. The systems and tactics we use in this endeavor are based on what we assume our patients want.

The fastest way to success in your practice is to first get to know your patients.

• Who are your patients?
• What do they expect of you?
• Where are they coming from?
• What do they like in your office, and what turns them off?
• Why are some of them upset or unhappy with you?

These questions and many others need to be answered in order to lead your practice toward improvement. The "Office Performance Test" in the Tests and Tools section is instrumental in answering a lot of these questions.

However, before getting to know your patients, you need to recognize an important fact:

You may have your own business, but you still have bosses! Surprised? Don't be. Your bosses' names are in your chart room in the patients' records. Your patients are your bosses. Why? Because they pay your salary; they pay for your home, your car, your children's' college fund and virtually everything else you have or want. So now that you know who your bosses are, treat them like it!

Knowing your patients and being able to see things through their eyes is a wonderful advantage that some doctors enjoy. This is the key in winning over patients' hearts.

If you could just put yourself in your patients’ shoes or if you could read their minds, wouldn't it be so much easier to give them what they want?

Let's try to answer some of these questions. Meanwhile, keep the following rule in mind:

How Do Our Patients Choose Us?

You have to know how patients choose their doctors and what is important to them in order to effectively focus your resources on these issues. There are a number of factors you may assume are what patients, such as low fees, convenient appointment times, billing systems or office location.

But when you ask your patients directly or look at other healthcare professionals and studies on what people care about the most, you realize those are not the issues most important to your patients.

As I mentioned before, being aware of your patients' concerns makes a huge difference. For example, when you know that people care about their doctor's honesty more than low fees, you will find it is better to advertise your honesty and not your low fees!

Let's take a look at what people care about most:

Most of us probably spend a majority of our time and effort on the last column, unaware that it may not be the most significant or effective approach.

You may say: "If that's the case, why do patients ask about the issues in the last column more than anything else?" You are right; patients do inquire about your fees and hours much more often than they ask about your professionalism or your honesty... but do you know why this is?

When a customer wants to measure the quality of a service, price and hours of operation are probably the only tangible and measurable items he can ask about!

Of course patients want to know if their doctor is honest, but how can they put this concern into a question without sounding offensive? You must provide these answers for them either before the questions is asked or by redirecting their other questions to address their true concerns.

Our objective throughout the different sections of this software is to focus on improving your practice, as well as fulfilling all of your patients’ needs and expectations. A lot of us believe that we have clean and nice offices or that we are professionals and do quality work, and most of the time it is true. But what we fail to consider is this:

"Do our patients think the same way?"

Unfortunately, there are often circumstances in which our patients’ perceptions of our practice differ from our own.

Our goal is to match the two.