Australians are spending more than ever on luxury brands. Tourism from China and other Asian markets make up about 30% of the $1.8B market luxury market the other 70% is made of Australian residents.
– IBIS report 2015

The traditional dental business model involves three intermixed levels of dental practice (Level 1, 2 & 3) with differing ROI’s (return on time and financial investment)

Level 1:
The classic emergency type practice: Needs driven (Drill, fill bill and extraction of decayed and damaged teeth)

Level 2:
Quadrant and single unit crown & bridge dentistry with practice managers dealing with the patient needs and case presentations through the modern day practice management software systems with 1-2 principal dentists and associates. u Mixture of needs and wants driven.

Level 3:
Comprehensive dentistry offered in a team environment; hygiene driven maintenance and multi disciplinary treatment plans delivered by a highly motivated team.

Purely wants driven with cosmetic and long term reconstructive procedures the norm, typical of prosthodontic and restricted practice.

From the below flow chart, we can see the best ROI with higher gross revenue is in the cosmetic field with wants driven dental demands from patients; as it provides the opportunity to engage the patient in discussions in relation to:

• Hygiene treatment for optimal gum health
• Bleaching and associated anterior filling replacement
• Implant replacement of missing teeth u Orthodontic adult procedures
• Cosmetic makeovers such as digitally designed systems (Fig 1&2)
• Complex cosmetic reconstructive procedures
• Sleep apnoea management (if an area of interest or by referral)

To optimise the patient engagement process and create wants driven treatment, the photographic capture of their intra oral situation including cosmetic, functional and soft tissue issues is taken and displayed to the patient a week or so prior to definitive treatment planning.

This enables the patient to become involved in the co discovery of their own dental condition (fig 3-9) with their intra oral issues as they relate to leaking fillings or weakened teeth, for appearance related and functional issues.

At the case presentation visit 7-10 days later, a definitive written treatment plan is presented and presented with the photographic records as well as a risk analysis for thorough communication of the value of treatment and the inherent risks of no treatment.

The ability to engage the patient in understanding their own dental situation creates a “needs to wants” transition.

Traditionally, clinicians would see an issue dentally, advise their nurse in dentaleze terms and try to explain why a fractured tooth (with no pain) needed to be rebuilt or crowned; whilst correct dentally, it is difficult to communicate in the traditional dental world the patients needs.

By removing the dental talk from the clinical situation and engaging in visual communication, dentists are now able to overcome their somewhat restricted communication skills and replace them with a show and tell situation that provides the patient the opportunity to appreciate and understand the clinician’s recommendations, hence leading to greater case acceptance.

The aim of the dentist using internal marketing systems is to: convert the needs in the eyes of the clinician to a want in the eyes of the patient.

By engaging with the new communication tools that modern technology affords us (Apple Slideshow/ IPhoto), we are more reliant on the correct training of staff, implementation of systems and regular training reviews provided to ensure that the new digital systems are utilised correctly. The role of the practice manager or dental practice consultant is paramount to enable these systems to integrate into the clinic environment.

The environment that surrounds the patient in their clinic visit experience, needs to be complemented by a visual model of a clean, bright and healthy smile … smiles on display.

The environment that surrounds the patient in their clinic visit experience, needs to be complemented by a visual model of a clean, bright and healthy smile … smiles on display.

The best way to engage the patient interested in health and cosmetic procedures is by front of mind awareness of an ideal healthy smile.

This can be achieved by internal marketing with reception wall photographs, clinic wall photos (fig 10-11), before and after photo albums and consistency in the marketing message with all patient communication brochures.

The reception areas, transition zones to the clinics as well as the clinic themselves need to support the subliminal message of health and positive self esteem related to healthy smiles.

Waiting room before and after albums complement the congruency in the message about optimal dental health and resultantly the engagement of patients in seeking the “smiles on display” as something they would like further information on. This is the opportunity for the well trained receptionist and nurse to engage the patients in discussions as to how that can be achieved with the support of intra oral photography and digitally designed smiles as mentioned earlier.

Further articles in this series will provide an overview of:

• The case presentation visit
• Staff training and practice systems
• Getting to “Yes” using digital technologies

Dr Rogers is a practising clinician (The DR Institute), a practice consultant and has spent 30+ years at the forefront of teaching and researching cosmetic reconstructive dental procedures as well as developing marketing products and in office coaching systems to enable dental teams to create their ideal practice.