Unless yours is a highly specialized practice, routine dental exams are a fact of life. It’s a very necessary procedure, but it’s one that can become mind-numbing when most of your day consists of nothing but routine.
Not only that, but routine exams don’t offer much financial gain unless other issues are detected. For most dentists, routine exams are a money-loser when compared to what they could be making.
If you’re good with doing exams and drill and fills, with an occasional flyer into an extraction or a crown, well and good. But there’s more and better out there. You just need to know how to get it.
Let’s Start With The Basics
Low price points attract low-value dental patients. That’s a sad but inescapable truth. But you can see that the principle holds true across other areas of life – cars, for instance, or jewelry, or restaurants, or hotels, or even colleges. People tend to live down to, or up to, their finances.
True, you might get a few “well-heeled” patients who get a cleaning and exam, but those will generally be far and few between. If you stay at lower prices, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting now.
To raise your prices and make the change stick, you’ll need some prep work. Right now, dentists are viewed as being interchangeable; one is as good as another in the minds of most dental prospects. You need to give prospects reasons to choose you and your practice instead of the doctor down the street.
Here’s the short list: people with the ability to be choosy gravitate toward dentists who they like, relate to, trust, and regard as THE expert to solve their dental problems. You can’t create that impression through a list of services that you offer and low prices.
You can become the dentist of choice for the new patients you want via your website and your social media. Have a look at your current website content. You’ll likely see that it’s largely about you and your practice. That’s almost universal, and it’s been dubbed the “we-we” problem. “We have this many years experience,” “We provide these services,” “We have these memberships and certifications.”
If so, you’ll need to completely revise your website content – if not also the design – and take a new tack with your social media as well. Your online presence has to provide reasons for the patients you want to choose you, and those reasons first have to speak to the solutions for their problems.
Make your marketing about the patients first, and you’ll get more of the new patients you want. But that’s not a simple or quick proposition.
It’s A Bandwidth Thing
You’re a busy dentist, and the odds are high that you have neither the time nor the developed skill set to become an online content writer. If you’re extremely fortunate, you might have a team member with the required skill and knowledge, but content creation will be an additional duty. That’s not sustainable long-term.
Your best option is to partner with a reputable, comprehensive practice growth provider with a proven track record of helping dentists grow their practices the way they want.
As a suggestion, have a look around the SmartBox website. Or, if you’re decided that you want more and are willing to explore what’s possible for your practice, schedule a Practice Growth Call.