Dental Practice Heroes
Where dentists learn how to cut clinical days while increasing profits - without sacrificing patient care, cutting corners, or cranking volume. We teach you how to grow a scalable practice through communication, leadership, and effective management.
Hosted by Dr. Paul Etchison, author of two books on dental practice management, dental coach, and owner of a $6M collections group practice in the south suburbs of Chicago, we provide actionable advice for practice owners who want to intentionally create more time to enjoy their families, wealth, and deep personal fulfillment.
If you want to build a scalable practice framework that no longer stresses, drains, or relies on you for every little thing, we will teach you how and share stories of other dentists who have done it!
Dental Practice Heroes
Rewriting Your Front Desk Mindset to Convert More Treatment and Dollars
What if the biggest reason patients delay necessary care isn’t price or insurance, but the quiet doubt in our own voices? We dig into the hidden driver of case acceptance—front desk mindset—and show how two simple defaults transform conversations at checkout: assume the patient can afford the treatment and assume the patient wants the treatment. When that belief is solid, tone, body language, and word choice snap into place, and patients feel confident moving forward.
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Take Control of Your Practice and Your Life
We help dentists take more time off while making more money through systematization, team empowerment, and creating leadership teams.
Ready to build a practice that works for you? Visit www.DentalPracticeHeroes.com to learn more.
Have you ever found yourself frustrated that the patients agreed to treatment in the back, but then they went to the front and they didn't schedule? Have you ever heard your front desk give a treatment plan and you can hear the doubt and the nervousness in their voice? And then you know that these cases are not always being accepted because of the tone of our speech. And it's all because of some mindset traps of the front desk team member. Now I want you to think of some other industries. Imagine a personal trainer who assumes that their client doesn't want to get fit. They're never going to push them, they're never going to challenge them, they're never going to expect any results. Or maybe like a financial advisor. They assume their client doesn't want to invest, can't afford to invest. So they never recommend the right plan. And in both of these situations, the client loses. And it's not because of a reality, but it's because of the professional's mindset. And the same is true in our dental offices. If your team carries the wrong assumptions, patients will not move forward with the treatment. And that's what we're talking about today. Now, you are listening to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast. I am your host, Dr. Paul Etchison, a dentist, a coach, and author of two books on dental practice management. I also own a multi-doctor practice that collects nearly $6 million a year. I practice two days per month. And on this show, I share strategies that help you to build profit freedom and a practice that runs smoothly without you being chained to it. So let's dive in here. I remember one time we had a consultant come into our practice and we were specifically focusing on the front desk. And we did this exercise where we had everybody write down personally, you know, anonymously, what is a lot of money to them? Like if they went to the dentist and they had a treatment, they needed to get some treatment done, what is the amount of copay that would make you feel uncomfortable? And we asked everybody, and as you can imagine, it's different for everybody, depending on how much income you have, depending if you're just a single parent, or maybe you're not married, you're living alone. All these factors come into place because what you think is a lot of money is not what other people will think. So we do this exercise to show that there's no way for us to know. So that brings us to the first mindset shift that we need with our front desk team members. Now, this is not just front desk. We need this for the whole entire team. Everybody needs to be on board here, but we need to always assume that the patient can afford the treatment. I remember back in the day, I might have been 32 years old at the time, and I went and was looking at a sports car. I don't know if it was my midlife crisis car. I don't feel like I was going through a midlife crisis. I just kind of wanted a fast car. But I remember asking if I could test drive one. And the guy said, Are you actually thinking about buying it or do you just want to drive it? And that really rubbed me the wrong way. Because I wanted to be like, bitch, I could afford this thing in cash. But I didn't say that. I was just like, well, I actually want to buy it, but I kind of don't right now. You know, I was offended. Like, how dare you assume I can't afford this car? Now, obviously, I'm 32. It was an expensive car. I wasn't dressed up like I would have oodles of money just pouring out of my ass. But the thing is, I was prejudged and it led to me not buying the car. So there's something I want you and your team to understand. And it's that we do not have the right to decide what is too expensive or what is not too expensive for our patients. If we are prejudging their finances or we're projecting our own biases, like of what we think is a lot of money, that is going to show up in the tone in the language. And when we assume that they can't afford it, we are unconsciously leading them to say no. Now, if we go back to our mission as a dental office, that we want to help as many people as possible. And the way that we help them is we get them to say yes to treatment and we get them the treatment that they need to get dentally healthy. Okay. So if we are using these biases and these projections and they're leading to lowercase acceptance, we are actually harming the patient. Okay. It's not like, oh, well, that's their problem. No, we are doing more bad than good. So the only way to not prejudge is to assume that the patient can afford the treatment, no matter how old they are, no matter what they look like, no matter what they're wearing, where they came from, the way they talk, anything. We cannot prejudge our patients. You do not get to decide for the patient. You do not prejudge them. You do not project your biases. You have to present it confidently, assume that they can afford it, and let them decide. That is the only way to treat people fairly. So make sure that we assume the patient can afford the treatment. Now, our second bias that we're going to talk about is we need to assume that the patient wants the treatment. And I'm talking about up in front. I mean, we got to do this in back as well. Now, if you're one of my coaching clients, you've been through my four hurdles of case acceptance. The first two hurdles of case acceptance are done in the back end by the clinical team. Okay. And that's that the patient has to like us and trust us, and they have to believe that they need what we're recommending. Now, us from an ethical standpoint, we need our team to believe that we would never recommend something that somebody does not need. So if a patient comes up to the front desk and there's something on the treatment plan, they need to assume that patient needs that. And if they don't trust that the patient needs that, I want to have some different conversations with that person. Like, why are you not trusting what we're treatment planning? Like, what kind of ethical breach have we ever had in the past? Like, tell me where this is coming from. But those are the first two hurdles. Okay, so the third and fourth hurdles, those are done by the front dust team. And it's that we need to figure out a way for the patient to afford it, like make the money, the payments work in their life. And we need to figure out a way for them to make it work in their life, whether that be for a different, maybe the schedule in the future, maybe they're gonna schedule a big one visit. You were gonna figure out what is important to that patient. But what we need to assume, we need to assume that they want the treatment. So this means we have to assume that they value the treatment. We can't look at this person and say this person drinks Mountain Dew all day and plays video games. They don't give a crap about their teeth. No, we can't make that assumption. The doctor wouldn't recommend it if the patient didn't need it, and we have to assume that it's yes, they want it. If we assume anything else that is a roadblock to the patient saying yes, it will show up in our speech, it'll show up in our body language, and we will be steering the patient to say no. And if we do that, we are harming the patient because they're not getting healthy to something that they ethically have been diagnosed with and they need. The patient is here at our office because they want to be dentally healthy. Don't assume anything else otherwise. So that's the second mindset shift. We've got to assume that the patient wants the treatment. So, first, assuming that the patient can't afford it, and two, assuming that the patient wants the treatment. So, those are the two biggest things that will make a difference in the way that your front desk team and the rest of your team talks to patients about treatment, but they're hard things to overcome because these are deeply rooted things in their psychology. These are deeply rooted values that they have and ideas about money and ideas about professionals and dentists and all this other stuff that's bound up into this emotional creature that works at your office. So these are sometimes very simple in theory, but sometimes harder to fix at your office. You can't just make two rules around that. You need to discuss these things as a team. You need to do like workshop activities, you need to role play, and you really have to have your team deeply understand how if they are bringing bias into their presentation, they are doing harm to the patient. So, tactical takeaways for this episode. Train your team. The default assumption is that the patient can afford the treatment and the patient wants the treatment. And next, audit the language. Listen to your team present, have them record a few case presentations. Do they sound confident and assumptive, or are they more hesitant, apologetic? Are they like more like, uh, it's gonna be $1,200? Oh gosh, I'm so scared to tell you that. Are they like that? Or are they like, it's gonna be $1,200? How did you want to take care of that? It's gonna be $1,200. How did you want to take care of that today? You know, the confidence that makes a big difference. And role-play some scenarios with your team members so that they have to practice and recognize the assumptions that they're making. And lastly, you know, check your case acceptance. This is a very easy metric to track, and it's also a very easy metric to improve, but it takes a team effort. So, case acceptance, it's not just about what we say, it's about what we believe. If your team assumes the patients want the treatment and they can afford it, everything about their tone, their body language, and their confidence changes and patients pick up on it. So when you shift the mindset, the words work and the treatment gets scheduled. Confidence, it's contagious. Assume the yes, and patients will say yes. And if you're wondering what other things you really should be training your front desk on so that they can be the most effective as possible and your practice can help the most people, check out our coaching options at dentalpracticeherous.com. We are happy to take you through this process of making your practice the best it can be so you can have the best life possible. Set up a free strategy call with me. I'm happy to talk to you about it. Thank you so much for listening today. I really appreciate it. And we will talk to you next time.
