It is important to tell your patients that as a modern dentist, you wear 3 hats.
One hat is for looking at the wear and tear of fillings, new cavities and gum disease. The "General Dentist" stuff.
The other hat is for dealing with complex cosmetic issues such as a straighter smile or having more teeth. This is the orthodontic or reconstructive or cosmetic Hat.
And the last hat, one that not every dentist knows how to use, is the hat that says you look at how the teeth function and how that affects someones future smile or even future health.
Now, which hats the patient wants you to wear is up to the patient. You have just looked in their mouth and have seen potential issues in all 3 areas. But you are there to provide the level of care the patient actually wants. IF they do not want to hear about function, then that is cool with you. Just let them know that when they chip a tooth again or when they get kicked to the spare bedroom for snoring, you are there to help.
Mac Lee says to his patients that he is taking the "Monkey of Dental Responsibility" off of his shoulders and physically places it onto their shoulders. It is their mouth, their decision, you are just there to help them with what they want, not what they need.
Many people want the info. Some do not. Most are too brain dead to understand the word "HAT".
To educate your patients further, have a variety of ways in the office they can receive information. Run DVD's that explain this on your waiting room monitor. (shameless plug but I sell a couple of these from www.makemesell.ca ), have brochures available, have Power Point presentations available that your team can use to explain treatment options such as "Porcelain vs Plastic Fillings" or "TMD Therapy" or such.
The general public has NO understanding of what we can potentially do. I was at a talk last night and sitting at a table where some lady was going on about her TMJ problems and soon as I said "what a coincidence … I treat that" she proceeded to tell me her's had cleared up on it's own and did not want to discuss it. Everyone at the table had TMD symptoms but one person told me that she had looked into it and her Insurance did not cover it so she would not treat it.
I gave her the "your insurance is great but you have to ask yourself, when you get older, do you want to be using a knife and fork or a blender when you sit down to eat? (Again, thanks Mac Lee)
Made no difference with her last night but the rest of the table laughed.
Hope this helps
Curtis
On 2012-05-29, at 5:22 PM, Deb Shoemaker wrote:
I had one of those days where I decided that I know why only a select group of dentists ever continue their education to be the best they can be. It's exhausting. If I said one more time today that teeth look like M & M's or that there are three ways people lose their teeth... I actually got tired of hearing myself. Why did everyone look like they took a jigsaw ( or insert other tool here) to their teeth? Why did they all have 5mm tall incisors? I decided if I never found ACE and started taking all these "silly" classes that I could just drill and fill. Instead, I'm educating patients and they are looking at me dumbfounded. I'm repeating all these silly metaphors. I'm worried about whether they breathe. I want to go back to being "normal." I don't want to stress how to help them anymore. I want my blinders back.I feel a wine night coming on.Deb(No, I didn't fall off the face of the Earth for those wondering...I've been busy talking about the damn bite.)--
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