Half of Dentists with Lasers Offer Facial/Cosmetic Treatments

In this survey, three out of four dentists who have purchased a dental laser said they have been satisfied with their purchase. Only 25% have been disappointed by the performance of their dental laser.

Lasers can be used on more than just teeth and gums; they can also be used for facial cosmetic treatments.

Of dentists who have a laser, half of them report that they offer such cosmetic skin services. The other half do not use their lasers in that manner.

Urban dentists in this survey were a lot more likely to be satisfied with their laser purchases than were their rural and suburban colleagues.

This may be because urban dentists are far more likely to use their lasers for facial/cosmetic purposes. Two of three urban dentists use their lasers for facial treatments. One out of two suburban dentists do. Only one in three rural dentists does.

Some dentists really love their lasers, while others are distinctly unimpressed.

• “Once you do laser dentistry, nothing else compares!” (California dentist)
• “Overrated and too costly….” (California dentist)
• “I would like to purchase one for cosmetic/facial purposes too. Especially hair removal.” (Minnesota dentist)
• “If lasers are so ‘in vogue’ in periodontics, why is it dentists, not periodontists, who are buying lasers?” (Florida dentist)
• “I have no need for a laser. A scalpel and electrosurge work just great.” (California dental implantologist)
• “One of the best purchases ever for an orthodontist.” (Michigan orthodontist)
• “Not the cost benefit I thought I’d get. Very high maintenance costs.” (Wisconsin dentist)

Read the complete dental laser satisfaction survey results, or post your own comments on dental lasers

Nine Truths Video #3 Posted!

Dental Practice Marketing:
Multiple Website Strategy

In today’s turbulent marketplace, middle and upper middle class consumers - families earning up to $175,000 a year - are being asked to make decisions about their economic priorities. They are confused and concerned. Out of necessity, they are also staying close to home due to high gas prices.

As dental consumers are forced to make serious health care spending decisions, they are going to focus on the geographic proximity of providers and which specific service they are looking for.

In segment #3 of our 9 Truths series, we are going to start with “Proximity” - how to determine your Geographic Dental Market.  For “Specificity,” we are going to discuss how to use multiple websites to target different high-value dental patient types like Cosmetic, Implant, Orthodontic and of course all the dental specialty patient markets.

For access to all the videos in the 9 Truths series at no charge, click here:
9 Truths of Dental Marketing

Successful Aesthetic Patient Consultations
By Catherine Maley, MBA

It’s imperative to know what your patients want, what they think about you and your staff, and how to set expectations for the greatest amount of patient satisfaction. So I decided to research aesthetic patient consumers personally to learn, first-hand, what they were looking for when searching for an office and physician to perform cosmetic enhancements.

Know Your Target Patient

The 75 aesthetic patients I interviewed had had both surgical and non-surgical cosmetic procedures. The median age was 44 years old. Respondents were 97% were female and were located throughout the US.

My objective was to determine trends and commonalities. Here are some of my findings:

• The main reason both genders were considering cosmetic procedures was to feel better about themselves and improve their looks.
• 90% of the time, confidence in the physician’s ability and staff interaction were more important than price.
• 86% of them referred at least two other people to that practice.
• 40% researched their procedure on the Internet ahead of time so they felt well-informed.
• 75% went for multiple consultations before making a decision.
• 80% felt they knew what to expect from having watched Extreme Makeover, Dr. 90210 and live surgeries and treatments on TV.
• Long waiting times were a recurring complaint .

Variation Among Aesthetic Patients

While the data was interesting, it was also apparent that I could not generalize about patient relations. This is especially true as pertains to people’s preferences; everybody is so different and their perceptions are so varied. For example:

• While some thought an aesthetically gorgeous office indicated pride and success, others found it was over the top and intimidating.
• While some thought the doctors did not spend enough time with them and felt rushed, other patients thought too much time with the doctor made them wonder why the doctor wasn’t busier.
• While some thought the physician thoroughly explained the various procedures available, others felt oversold and confused with so many options presented to them at one time.

The Deciding Factor

Probing further, I asked patients the bottom-line question: why did they choose that particular physician over the others?

The consistent answer, over and over, was that the aesthetic patient felt a “connection” with that physician. Their “gut feeling” or intuition was telling them this was the right physician for them. They had developed rapport. They trusted that particular physician to understand them and give them the best possible result.

Catherine Maley, MBA, is the author of Your Aesthetic Practice: A Complete Guide: What Your Patients Are Saying. As a speaker and consultant, she helps doctors market themselves to cosmetic patients. For free tips, resources and strategies, visit Cosmetic Image Marketing or give Catherine a call at (877) 339-8833.

Scandals, Name Recognition Can Be Good for Business

The publicist’s time honored adage is that “no publicity is bad publicity.” And it turns out that this can be just as true for dentists as it is for rock stars and celebutantes.

It goes without saying that there are some scandals no one can successfully weather. The dentist involved in a scheme to plunder body parts for cash (including the remains of Masterpiece Theater’s Alistair Cooke) didn’t do himself any favors. There’s no bouncing back from certain crimes like murder or sexual abuse. (Genocide and human trafficking are also no-nos!)

As long as you don’t violate any cultural taboos, however, getting your name in the news can be good for your bottom line. I am not recommending you create a scandal for publicity’s sake. But if you do find yourself in the middle of a media maelstrom, just remember the silver lining: name recognition.

Let me illustrate my point with an example.

Dr. Charity, as I’ll call him, was a generous dentist who volunteered some of his time to performing dental work on low-income patients. One of his patients was an indigent woman I’ll call Ms. Patient.

During treatment, Dr. Charity gave Ms. Patient a routine injection of dental anesthetic. This led to an uncommon side effect that’s impossible to predict: the patient’s lingual nerve was hit, leaving her with a numb tongue.

Non-dentists need to understand that no matter how well-trained a dentist may be, it’s impossible to predict the precise location of nerves. In a small fraction of cases, even the most experienced practitioner will inadvertently damage or deaden the tongue nerve. When this happens, the patient’s tongue becomes numb. This usually resolves itself within a matter of hours or days, but some patients suffer long-term or permanent nerve damage. There is no treatment except to wait out the body’s natural healing process.

That is precisely what happened to Ms. Patient. Not surprisingly, she did not enjoy the sensation of a numb tongue. What was more surprising was her reaction: she sued the doctor.

Dr. Charity’s insurance company wouldn’t settle. Ms. Patient’s complication was both minor and routine, certainly no fault of the doctor’s. They believed it was a frivolous claim, and they didn’t want to open the door to further lawsuits.

So the case went court. At trial, the jury sympathized with the poor woman over the rich doctor. Ms. Patient won her case against Dr. Charity. It was plastered all over the local papers.

Dr. Charity called me for advice. “Jim, what do I do?” he asked frantically.

“This is great!” I told him. “Let’s saturate the market. We’ll do a series of patient mail-outs.”

“But what do I do when patients ask me about the case?”

We rehearsed what Dr. Charity would say. “It happens to all dentists about 1 in 1,000 times,” went the spiel. “My insurance company stood behind me. But you never know what will happen in a jury trial.”

In the end, only two patients ever asked. However, Dr. Charity ended up with a lot of name recognition.

“Hey doc, I saw you in the paper!” said one of his many new patients. “You sure got ripped off by that woman.”

So, while Ms. Patient may have won the court case, I’d venture to say that Dr. Charity may have won something even more valuable!

Airport Security Suspicious of Bags with Wires Sticking Out

“Orange alert” turned bright red at the Cincinnati airport recently. The hazmat team rushed to the airport, meeting up with the bomb squad there.

A ramp agent raised the alarm after spotting a suspicious-looking backpack with wires sticking out of it.

The bag was traced back to a dentist from Ecuador. Though he had been traveling on Delta, the bag itself had somehow ended up with Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airline.

Talk about a false alarm! It turned out to be nothing more than a portable dental examination kit.

Read more

Nine Truths Video #2 Has Been Posted!

Dental website marketing starts with search engine positioning or what is often called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for short.  This goes back to the old real estate adage that location is everything. And first page ranking for your local dental practice website is the best start to using the Internet for marketing high-value new patients.

Jim Du Molin
Editor, TheWealthyDentist.com
JDuMolin@drs1.com

Wealthy Dentist Staff Elects Cindy McCain First Lady of Cookies

We recently conducted a highly scientific poll of presidential candidates based on their wives’ cookie recipes.

The clear majority of the staff here at The Wealthy Dentist preferred Cindy McCain’s oatmeal butterscotch delights over Michelle Obama’s shortbread cookies, proving beyond any doubt that Republican cookies taste better. (It turns out that cookie preferences are not correlated with party affiliation.)

“Michelle’s cookies were hard to bake!” said Liz Salisbury, our resident political baker. “Cindy’s were really easy.”

However, McCain’s cookies are a lot more controversial. A media hubbub ensued when it came to light that her recipe is virtually identical to a Hershey’s recipe. Just a few months before, she was allegedly caught passing off a Food Network recipe as her own.

In cookies as in politics, passions and scandals run high!

Bad News…

Wow! I thought our Internet servers were going to melt down when thousands of doctors hit our 9 Truths Introduction video yesterday. I apologize for any delays you may have experienced in loading and viewing the video. If you were unable to access the web page, go to:

The 9 Truths of Dental Marketing

The good news is that the first video in the series has been posted! It talks about how to lay out the six primary goals of an outrageously great dental marketing plan. Enjoy!

Jim Du Molin

What You Can Do To Protect Your Dental Practice!

Today gas price are at over $4.00 a gallon in most of the country. The stock market recently lost almost 400 points in a single day. This summer, the value of the American dollar has dropped to historic lows against foreign currency. And an ounce of gold has risen to almost $1,000.

Register for the 9 Truths of Dental Marketing video tutorials

On top of this, we have a barrel of oil going for over a hundred dollars. Great swaths of the most productive farm land in the Midwest have been submerged by record flooding. And to top that off, politicians on both sides of the aisle are trying to tell us we are not facing major inflation or a recession. Who do they think they’re kidding?

I’m Jim Du Molin, editor of TheWealthyDentist.com newsletter. For over 20 years, my wife Suzanne and I have worked as dental management, marketing and financial advisors with hundreds of doctors and their spouses. We have spoken to thousands of dentists and their teams for almost every major dental association in North America.

Our job in dentistry has been to build wealth and financial security for our clients and friends. Our philosophy is that Profit is the Natural Result of Doing What’s Right for Your Patients. We are retired now from active practice management, so don’t worry: this message isn’t about selling you anything.

This message is to alert you to what for many could be a major slow down in dentistry. For the last ten years, I’ve work on the Internet. Many of you know I’m the founder of the Internet Dental Alliance. I have a passion for understanding the Internet and how to use it to market for new dental patients.

Every month we track up to a thousand phrases consumers use to search for dental information and dentists — phrases like Find a Dentist, Braces, Cosmetic Dentistry, Dental Implants, Family Dentist and Sedation Dentistry. And what we have found is that the number of consumer searches for many of these terms has DROPPED over the past year.

That, my friend, is a major indicator that the dental boom we have all participated in for the last eight years is coming to an end. It is the real-life manifestation of rising gas prices, rising food prices and the rising specter of inflation.

The problem is that dentistry is a discretionary service in the consumer’s mind. It can be delayed, postponed and put off… at least until it becomes too painful. Then it becomes an emergency.

For the last few months, my email box has been swamped with doctors talking about phones not ringing, open schedules and empty operatories. Many of our old dental management and marketing clients have asked us if we can help them through what looks to be the perfect dental storm.

As I’ve said, we are retired. Still, I have to admit I’m as frustrated as you are at what we see happening. So, I talked it over with Suzanne, and we decided to review our video training files for ideas that could help doctors generate more new patient appointment requests NOW!

The result is our 9 Truths series. These video segments were clipped from our Internet Dental Alliance Members’ Insider Guide to Internet Marketing. They range in length from as little as 2 minutes to up to 7 minutes, depending on the topic.

Why Internet marketing?

First, there are still a lot of myths about dental marketing on the internet that need to be dispelled. Second, the Internet is the one place you can still generate high-quality new patients quickly and at a reasonable cost.

And the cost of this training series to you is nothing. None. No-cost. They’re yours at no charge. Our only hope is that they will help you weather the turbulence of the coming months.

To receive the complete series, just enter your first name and email address in the registration box to the right of this video. We will email a link to each video as they are released every few days over the upcoming weeks.

And please remember: “Profit is the Natural Result of Doing What’s Right for Your Patients.”

Register here: The 9 Truths of Dental Marketing.

Malpractice Insurance Says “No” to Formal Guarantees

While dentists feel strongly about standing behind their work, only one in six offers an official guarantee to their dental patients. In this survey, only 18% of dentists reported that they formally guarantee their dental work.

“My malpractice insurance carrier doesn’t want me to guarantee anything verbally or in writing,” said one dentist. “However, if the treatment hasn’t held up due to something I could have done better, I always redo it at no charge.”

Overall, dentists were not enthusiastic about formal guartantees.

• “A guarantee? Are you nuts?” (California dental implantologist)
• “I never offer a written formal guarantee. I do assure patients that I stand behind my work and that any work done will be modified or replaced if need be.” (New York dentist)
• “I feel that a guarantee would just add legal problems with non-compliant patients.” (Tennessee dentist)
• “I stand behind my work 100%. I do not offer a written guarantee. You can’t be responsible for patient neglect.” (Utah dentist)
• “I would not guarantee the sun will come up tomorrow.” (Pediatric dentist)
• “I guarantee my best effort.” (Kentucky endodontist)

Post your own thoughts or read the complete dental guarantee survey results