Planning for Continued Growth and Impact (Dental Confidence and Connection Course)

Okay, you've made it to the last conversation, the last lesson, the last key point, right? And I'm so grateful you've stuck in there. Again, my purpose here in creating this, this app, this, this series of lessons is to provide you the clinician with some keys, some knowledge and understanding and procedures and processes that have been of great value to me. You know, a solid connection, a genuine, authentic connection, human to human connection, right? That allows good communication. And even if communication is missed or doesn't quite happen as well as we hope it would, we can still correct that because of the strength of that connection that we've developed. After the communication happens, we can now collaborate and the collaboration process really involves a give and take. Now, that's not meaning we're bending on ethical issues. That doesn't mean we're giving in to things that we should not do, but it's a give and take of information. And it's a seeking to understand and listening intently with the purpose of understanding and not responding, and listening empathetically with empathy. Once we've connected, communicated, and collaborated with confidence, all of this should be happening with confidence. And that really empowers patient choice. Now, let's jump back to the beginning, which I just jumped over, which is that word confidence. Developing confidence, allowing our patients to build confidence in us is hypercritical. Hypercritical. Doubt destroys your reactions, your interactions with your patients, it just destroys it. So developing a good quality confidence where the patients can trust you and recognize that you are competent through your conversation skills, the way you carry yourself, how you interact with other people. Trust competence leads to confidence, which allows us better connection, communication, collaboration, which all of that empowers patient choice, right? It's all about the individual patient having an opportunity to choose what they want, when they need it, when they want it, according to their budget. Now, sometimes we don't agree with what they choose, but we can't force them, and that's certainly not our purpose. Our purpose is to serve and be available when they're ready. We can, however, provide opportunities for them to more deeply understand why we want to help them and why we want to help them as soon as possible, and that comes down to clearly communicating, concisely, clearly communicating problem, consequence, and solution while allowing time for the patient to internalize the issues, internalize the problems and the consequences, which should then lead to them desiring those solutions, desiring to choose to move forward as quickly as they can. Now, for some, as quickly as they can means they have to save money for months or years. That's their choice. That's the best that they can do, and we honor and respect that choice. For others, they want to try to get it all done ASAP as possible, and that's great. We're happy to oblige insofar as we can fit it into the schedule. Our goal is to inform them of what's happening, provide a reasonable description of how we can help, and then empower and support their choices. That's really what it comes down to. So problem, consequence, solution, when presented within the framework of confidence leading to connection, communication, and collaboration, yields high-quality patient choice. Everything revolves around choice. Everything revolves around supporting choice, and as much as we can, we want to encourage patients to make the choice that is most appropriate for their health, but ultimately, the choice that they make is their choice to make, not ours. The choice that they make is their choice to make, not ours. But I certainly want to say, or be able to say, I've done my best to give you all the information in the most unbiased, informed way, while encouraging and supporting what I feel is the best choice based on my clinical training, education, 20-plus years of dental practice, but ultimately, this is your choice to make. What do you think, and what can I do to help? This is the key, okay? This is the key. So I would encourage you, monthly is probably a good time frame. Once you've made it through all of these lessons, to consider a monthly review of how you're doing in a patient communication, from a patient communication standpoint. I would encourage you to audio record, without violating any HIPAA or PHI rules, audio record conversations periodically that you have with patients. And it'd be fun to enlist a dental assistant or hygienist so that they can record you without you knowing. It's not something that would be posted anywhere, it's just a matter of, you know, recording it in a conversation so that you can then see how you're doing. If we don't self-reflect or analyze what we do on a periodic basis, then we'll really never become any better than we are today. So establish a protocol for yourself, review those communications that you have with your staff, your team, your co-workers, just like you would with your patients. All of these principles will combine to help support patient choice, and as patients feel like they're given the autonomy and the presence of someone who respects, cares for, is connected with them, then the practice will do nothing but grow, because they'll tell their family friends, their co-workers, hey, I had a great experience here. I really didn't like hearing what he told me, but I really liked knowing that he or she was telling me, because they were concerned about my welfare, and I could feel that, and I trust them, and I appreciated the confidence level. And so I want you to go see this dentist that I had such a good experience with, even though I had a bad experience, I had a great experience, right? So the practices will grow, because they're filling, filling constantly with patients who are moving forward with the treatment that we prescribe. They're returning to the office for additional re-care, and they are referring their family, their friends, and their co-workers by reviewing the positive experiences that we've had, that we've had with them. So find a rhythm, find a periodic interval where you can re-evaluate your progress, and then take steps to become a better version of you, so that you can serve those individuals that come to see you, allowing you to create impact and influence in a more broad way that blesses the lives of so many others.