Why People Don’t Move Forward With Your Treatment Plans

Why don’t patients want comprehensive care?

Why do people go with their insurance coverage over my recommendations?

When I first began teaching technical dentistry, many faculty and other very highly educated dentists, many of whom I look up to, would call me and ask those exact questions.  They wanted to know how I was moving so many people into treatment for comprehensive and complex care.

When we would have a phone call, it always surprised me to learn that many had been through The Schuster Center.  I would hear, “I am doing exactly what you do,” or “I am doing the new patient experience (NPE) just like I was taught.  People just don’t want good care.” “People in this area are insurance motivated.”

Did they really think that is true?  Why was I experiencing something completely different?  I was trying to slow down the number of people wanting this type of care as I was becoming overwhelmed with people seeking it. People began coming from states away — and I wasn’t advertising!

What was missing for the other doctors?

The truth is, we all had a similar process but a different structure and mindset, which led to getting a much different result.

Principle 1: Structure determines or strongly influences behavior.   

Principle 2:  Where focus goes, energy flows.

When you are focused on presenting treatment and getting to yes, it becomes too much about you and not enough about the patient.  By changing your mindset to one of helping the patient clarify their desired outcome and the ramifications of that outcome, you can move into a helper or advocate state, where you facilitate a care plan being created rather than “selling” one.  When we sell, the energy is about us.  If the patient doesn’t buy what you are selling, you feel as if you failed and wasted your time.  When we collaborate, the patient creates the plan that is right for them, at the time, sometimes over time, that gets them the desired outcome.  In these cases, patients often choose options greater than what you would have presented?  When you present plans, often there are judgments about what the person might accept. Or their financial status or you may think about things they have not accepted in the past.  By presenting treatment through a filter of your own perception of the patient, you ignore the ability of the person to comprehend and choose.  You are taking away a piece of their freedom.  By collaborating and creating an environment and structure allowing space and time for learning, you are empowering the other.

Power Fact:  between 60-85% off communication is non-verbal.

Principle 3:  Emotional connection over facts.  People don’t remember what you said, they remember how you made them feel.

A majority of communication is non-verbal.  That means you are often better off saying much less than trying to explain more.  It isn’t the script or the words you are choosing that is leading to people not moving forward with care or choosing their insurance coverage over your recommendations.  When you do speak, you need to be asking the right questions rather than telling and selling.

What came to light through my conversations with these older doctors who considered themselves “masters.”

If you know how to do something complex in dentistry, and you only do it once a year or every other year if you are lucky, are you a master of it?  Or are you a hobbyist or dabbler?  All the technical training in the world doesn’t make you a better dentist if you never get to use it — it makes you frustrated.

The Paradigm Shift I had many years ago was that a full-mouth restorative case wasn’t just 28 crowns.  Every person is treated as special and unique. It is privilege for me to connect with, and determine a path forward rather than selling a plan to them.  Everyone is treated with an evaluation of a system that contains 32 teeth and is part of a whole body — part of a person.

Principle 3:  Every person is a unique individual with their own motivations and obstacles to health.

Having a written philosophy of care that becomes a lens that all decisions and patient experiences are viewed through is essential to transferring that philosophy to the team and to patients.  I embody a Health is first philosophy, first coined by the father of the humanistic care movement in dentistry, Dr. Schuster himself.  This means no definitive treatment until we establish foundational health and the patient takes responsibility for their health.  This isn’t established by you sharing your philosophy and telling your story or entering into co-discovery!  While many think it is and even teach it this way.  When you move on through your process with that belief, you are moving forward with an imaginary agreement and often doing something TO or FOR the patient that you believe they want or is in their best interest.

The process I built is one where we find or develop the patients value for health, where we establish the purpose of the relationship and the patients’ motivational hierarchy, where we enter into true co-discovery, where the patient enters into a self-diagnosis stage, where we identify and plan for obstacles, and finally, we co-create a care plan that includes treatment stages and times, financial considerations and maintenance phases — in other words, a Master Plan.  This doesn’t happen in one visit and a review of findings appointment.

Principle 4: The more complex the care, the longer the consultative process.

Money seems to be a tricky one for most.  In fact many doctors have someone else on their team take care of this one, a financial coordinator, an office manager and some use their assistant. When your focus is selling, consultants and doctors engaged in coaching will tell you to get in front of a mirror and practice saying thirty-five thousand dollars or fifty thousand dollars, and practice being calm and confident.  Pay special attention to your tone and facial expression so they don’t see that you yourself would struggle to pay for this treatment yourself.

Imagine working through a consultative process with a patient, and together, you and the patient build the plan, and the fee becomes thirty-five thousand dollars, and the patient asks you when they can get started and tells you how they want to pay.  A vastly different energy between the doctor and the patient.   It is the power of co-creating and engaging another person through their values, purpose, and motivators.  It is about helping another find their mountain to climb and showing them the way to the summit.

The Red Sea Workshop covers these topics as well as transcending insurance-based care.  The New Patient Experience as well as custom NPE’s, taught in your area, also cover these topics in addition to the Mastery Team Approach to Patient and Case Management and using the Diagnostic Tracker based off Dr. Edwards upcoming book, The Heart of the Matter.

For those alumni interested in a full team approach and a practice reboot, consider a new course by Dr. Edwards called Breakthrough,  taught in your area,  covering all the material stated above in addition to key aspects of the Schuster Center Curriculum.

For more information, write chris@cfpd.com or schedule a strategy session with Dr. Edwards directly using this link:  Dr. Edwards Scheduler