What do dentists know that you don’t?
Marketing
What do dentists know that you don’t?
Pleasing patients, community grows business
If you found a way to double your practice in less than five years, you’d jump on that bandwagon. If you could make sure that the new patients you brought in were profitable, even better. What’s the secret? Most physician practices don’t know the answer, but if you talk to the most successful dentist in your market, you might get some ideas.
When Practice Marketing & Management asked marketing and management gurus for advice practices should take in 1999 (see PMM, January 1999, p. 1), one of the most common responses we got was to improve customer service. Peter Boland, PhD, a consultant with Boland Health care in Berkeley, CA, told PMM that one place to look for guidance on how to do that is dentists. We took him up on the challenge.
Don DiGiulian, DDS, is a partner in Branford (CT) Dental Care, a three-dentist practice in a town of about 30,000. In the last five years, by actively marketing his practice and ensuring that patients get the best in customer service, he has grown from seeing patients 36 hours a week himself, to filling 72 hours a week with the three dentists. "We are open every Saturday now, and Friday afternoons," says DiGiulian. "And we do that — and can do that — because we are aware of the market and what people want in this day and age."
DiGiulian has long been interested in marketing and believes he has been "ahead of the curve" in that area. The New England dental market is tough, he says. In his area, the population has been stagnant. The small number of patients moving into the area are offset by the number moving out. "That means you have to be competitive." The best way to do that is to make sure people know your name, he says. "Even if they don’t come to you, when someone asks if you know of a good dentist, your name should be first on their lips."
DiGiulian makes sure he and his partners are active in the community. Along with membership in the local Chamber of Commerce and service clubs, he encourages his partners to take on other volunteer roles, like coaching Little League or soccer teams or working with community groups to clean up local lakes and streams.
He has also made his practice available to day care and elementary schools as a field trip destination, and he conducts programs on dental health in these schools. The practice is available to the schools, day or night, for any emergency.
DiGiulian puts out a patient newsletter four times a year, which he also sends to other dentists in town. "It’s a way to show them what they should be doing," he says. "And it’s a bit like casting bread upon the waters." There is no harm, he adds, in making sure other dentists know his name as a referral source. He also does mass mailings to the whole town about his practice.
By making himself and his partners visible in the community, DiGiulian says the community will know and trust him enough to come into his practice, or at least recommend it to others.
Once in the practice, good customer service and quality care keeps them there. Along with improving access to the practice, Branford Dental Care has increased convenience by offering a wide choice of payment options. Patients can use credit cards, or a "lay-away" plan that lets them pay ahead. They are given discounts for paying cash up front.
DiGiulian also makes it a practice to give patients what they want. Previously, patients who requested a cleaning were required to have an exam first. Now, they are given just what they ask for, but are counseled during the appointment on what, if any, other care is needed for good dental health. The practice believes strongly in patient education — not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because DiGiulian believes that it is a smart marketing move. "The more informed and educated they are the more and better dentistry they will want."
Certainly, DiGiulian’s efforts have been fruitful. He gets 50 to 70 new patients a month, a much higher than average rate for the area, he says.
Profiting from growth
Growth for its own sake isn’t enough. Certainly in medicine, declining reimbursement has meant that seeing more patients doesn’t necessarily mean making more money. Steve Rempas, DDS, has a five-dentist practice, Webster Dental Care, in Chicago. When he started building a new office last year, he wanted to make sure that his business included people who would spend money.
When he made the move last year, about a quarter of the patient base was capitated. The goal after the move was to eliminate all capitated patients. Currently, just 15% of the patient base is capitated. "Insurance companies increase fees for patients, promising that good practices will get a share. But we haven’t seen a cost-of-living increase or any bonuses. And we are an exemplary practice," says Rempas.
Rempas has focused his efforts on creating a state-of-the-art practice. "If you have heard about or read about a new piece of dental equipment, practice, or procedure in the last 10 years, we have it," he says. "We are 100% computerized, our X-rays are digitalized, the charts are in the computer. We are at the forefront of modern dentistry."
He promotes that to his 7,000 patients and the community at large, and over the last five months, business has doubled every month.
Both Rempas and DiGiulian got many of their ideas from John Christensen, president of Chrisad, a Larkspur, CA, consultancy that is regarded as one of the best customer service, market research, and marketing agencies for dental practices in the country.
Christensen, who is just starting to branch out into medical practices, says practices seem to be accepting whatever the insurance companies foist on them because they can’t see another way to grow their practices.
"You need to take a different approach," he says. "You need to go out to the market and find out what they want. That’s what we do with dentists. That way, you can make patients and their employers see the difference in the quality of care and circumvent that whole insurance dictatorship process."
If you are perceived as being superior in your market, adds Christensen, then patients will bypass the insurance and pay out of their pocket, or ask employers for insurance coverage that pays for their chosen practice.
Key to Christensen’s philosophy, however, is knowing what the market wants. "You have to do the research and configure your practice to deliver that. Then you market to gain the largest numbers of the highest-income and best-insured patients. As soon as medical practices understand this, they will take control of their destiny."
Rempas says he truly believes that what he has learned — from 23 years of experience and from Christensen — can apply to physician practices. "We have a lot of doctors as patients. They all send their friends because they never have to wait. We just aren’t late. I tell them all the time that I wish it was the same when I went to the doctor. And it can be."
Sources
• John Christensen, president, Chrisad, Larkspur, CA. Telephone: (415) 924-8575.
• Steve Rempas, DDS, Webster Dental Care, Chicago. Telephone: (773) 528-3300.
• Don DiGiulian, DDS, Branford Dental Care, Branford, CT. Telephone: (203) 448-7444.
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