Case acceptance is a key factor that separates high-earning dentists from low-earning ones. While the ideal patient should visit a dentist once every six months, the reality is much different.
According to a survey from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, fewer adults received an oral health check-up in 2017–18 than in 2013, and 1 in 8 people delayed seeing a dental provider due to COVID-19.
So, in an increasingly competitive environment, what can you do to increase your case acceptance? We’ll discuss a few key strategies in this blog article that you can use today.
Get patients ready before they enter your practice
Building a meaningful relationship with your patients is a great way to get them to return to your practice. However, many dentists are busy treating over ten patients a day, so they have no time to get to know their patients.
This is where pre-triaging your patients before they enter your practice is important. It helps you prepare for your meeting with the patient, resulting in a better patient experience. For example, you could get your treatment coordinator to speak to patients before their consultation to get the necessary information, such as treatment anxieties and previous dental experiences.
Thanks to technology, you can even save time and pre-tirage your patient online. Smilo.ai’s Patient Engagement function allows patients to take a picture of their smile and upload it for you before their appointment.
This function also comes with a ‘Design My Smile’ feature, which allows patients to try on their smile at home and see how it will look with treatment. More importantly, it makes patients curious and motivated to get that improved smile from you.
Ease their fears
Dental phobia is very real. Recent studies have found that over 85% of the Australian adult population is at least slightly anxious about painful or uncomfortable procedures. So it’s important to assure your patients that visiting your dental
practice will be a comfortable, pain-free experience.
Fortunately, you don’t have to do this alone. Smilo.ai makes it as easy as possible for patients to view their smile, receive an oral health rating, and make an appointment at your practice in just three easy steps.
Allowing patients to view their oral health rating through an app provides a pain-free avenue for them to to have a virtual dental check-up. It also educates them on the importance of visiting the dentist for check-ups, which will convert them from the couch to your doorstep.
Make it easy for patients to book appointments
Patients who are anxious about visiting the dentist would be even more apprehensive about booking an appointment if it’s complicated. It is pretty common for dentists to lose patients because of scheduling problems, and the last thing you want is for a patient to drop out of visiting your practice because they have issues with booking a slot with your practice.
It also allows you to create specific QR codes for your dental practice, which can be directed to check-in forms, new patient forms, and other relevant documents to improve their appointment experience.
Leverage technologies
The dental patients we once knew are a thing of the past. These days, patients are tech-savvy, convenience-driven, and much more likely to have researched their dental symptoms before arriving in your chair. So what’s stopping you from adopting new, automated technologies into your practice?
Technology helps elevate your patients’ experience and provide the individualized care they deserve, which will boost your case acceptance. With Smilo.ai’s end-to-end virtual dental solution, you can:
- Make your practice visible to over hundreds of patients on the app who are actively searching for a dentist
- Consult patients virtually at a time of their convenience (and yours!)
- Keep patients engaged by allowing them to chat with you and update their treatment progress
- Allow patients to self-manage their records, and you can view it all in an easy-to-use CRM.
Smilo.ai helps Aussie dentist build their case acceptance and manage their practice efficiently. Our virtual solution is trusted by dentists all around Australia to grow their practice. To see how our solution works, schedule a demo with our team today.