A Way to Find More of Your Ideal New Patients

Episode #298 with Dr. Daren Becker

How do you find more high-quality patients who are ideal for your practice? Today’s guest, Dr. Daren Becker, is here to share how he developed a community of specialists and patients that became his ultimate referral source. Kirk Behrendt and Dr. Becker discuss the importance of referrals from specialists, how to ask for referrals from patients, and how to get high-quality referrals more consistently. For advice on finding new patients that will help your practice grow, listen to Episode 298 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

Work with other specialists and create a referral source.

Find specialists who are aligned with your thinking.

If you can't find a community that is aligned with your thinking, develop it!

Build relationships and trust with your patients.

Also build your patients’ awareness and understanding of their issues.

Do a post-treatment celebration with patients — even if it seems awkward.

Mass referrals can be great, but you won't have time to do dentistry.

Ask for referrals from patients you love working with. They will send you similar patients!

Find a mentor!

Quotes:

“The thing that I think I offer to my patients that may not be the routine in a general dentist practice is the idea of working with patients that have complex, interdisciplinary type of needs . . . I think for a lot of patients, their experience [of that] is very disjointed. And what we try to do is make that very congruous and harmonious.” (07:01—07:38)

“If I saw 20 or 30 new patients a month, I wouldn't have any time to do dentistry. I would just be seeing new patients to get five qualified new patients that need what I do — what I love to do. And so, for us, it became a necessity to get the number down to maybe 10 or 12 new patients a month, but have it be like 80% of those are going to be high-quality, highly-referred patients that are coming to me saying, ‘I need what you do.’” (08:48—09:24)

“We basically started working with our specialists . . . We have this group practice mentality, and we get together on a very routine basis — it’s scheduled in Dentrix — that we have a meeting every month, or sometimes more, to discuss and go over whatever the cases are that we have to talk about . . . That has developed into a referral source . . . For 2019, 85% of the new patients we saw were referred to us from one of our specialists. And the rest were referred from existing patients.” (09:39—10:52)

“Doing a comprehensive exam on every new patient, that is my goal for every new patient. Do we hit it 100% of the time? No. Do we hit it 80% or 85% of the time? Yes. But why is that? Because that's our standard. And we try to stick to that, and so that's what patients expect in our office. And now, patients call asking for that, ‘Hey, you saw my friend . . . I want that same exam or experience that they had.’ So, by staying consistent and staying true to your core beliefs, that just becomes what happens.” (17:47—18:39)

“If you want to do more complex interdisciplinary cases and you want to work with a specialist team that is going to refer you patients, ultimately, then you just have to start doing it. Like I say, I was going to these meetings without a single patient to talk about. Back then, we had charts. I would walk in with one chart, no chart — didn't matter. I was going to be there for the conversation of the other cases that were going on. And then, that's how that grew.” (19:09—19:40)

“It’s building the relationship, it’s building the trust, it’s building the patients’ awareness and understanding of their particular issues, concerns, problems. And once the patient has that ownership, it’s so much easier to talk to them because then they come ask...