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Episode 139: The Team Approach to the Patient Practice Partnership
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig4Pk7Nh2t8
Below, we’ve compiled the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 139. To enjoy the full episode with our very own Carrie Webber you can watch on YouTube or listen to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Jameson Files. I'm your host, Carrie Webber, and it's such a pleasure to have you here again today!
Today we want to talk about a very popular subject with our Jameson clients across the country. In fact, when I'm lecturing to groups across the country, the demand for this topic is always at the top of the list. And that is: case presentation. But let’s look at an even bigger and broader scope than that, because really this is all about your patient's experience and the team's approach to what we at Jameson call the Patient Practice Partnership.
What is the Patient Practice Partnership?
Now, why do we call it the Patient Practice Partnership at Jameson? We believe that the patient-centered approach to building relationships with your patients, educating your patients, and ultimately communicating with them about necessary, needed, or even wanted care is the difference maker for you from getting to where you are now and where you want to be, not only as a practice, but as a practitioner who has an ideal vision for your practice.
So when we talk about the Patient Practice Partnership, we're talking about some specific aspects of the patient experience that I want to walk you through briefly today. And these findings are founded in what we see coming from studies by the ADA Health Policy Institute. Year over year, they ask for the top reasons patients don't move forward with treatment or don't stay active in your practice. And guess what? Cost is always the top deterrent, which is probably no surprise to you. The other two that are always right near the top are time and fear. There are some other ones that come up pretty high as well, but cost consistently seems to be the top deterrent.
Now, as we at Jameson consider these findings and look at them from the patient's perspective, we have come up with ways to help patients get the kind of dentistry they want or need. So we have created what we consider the four pillars of a healthy patient practice partnership. And those pillars are where we can measure both success and areas that need to be developed as a team when it comes to how the patients engage with us.
Four Pillars of Patient Practice Partnership Success
The pillars are trust, need, urgency, and value. If patients are not moving forward with treatment or staying active in our practice, more than likely you’re missing the mark on one or more of these pillars. So when you think about the patients that you have in your practice right now, or on your new patient experience, or on your treatment presentations and consultations, think about these four pillars.
whether or not your patients are moving forward, staying active and so on or not is based upon how successful we are in building these pillars.
Do your patients trust you? Do they see the need for the treatment you are providing or recommending? Do they sense an urgency to receive that kind of need, especially when it's in terms of restorative care? And do they see a value in what you bring to the table? So think about your practice from those four pillars. The stronger those pillars are in our patient relationship with our practice, the better we all are in the long run.
How do we build the pillars?
But how can we improve? How do we build these pillars? There are a few aspects of practice building, team development, and personal development that I want to take a look at from not only the lens of what you recognize as needs in your practice, but from the perspective of your patients. When we pivot our mindsets to look at it from the patient's perspective, things may look a lot different. So one of the main areas that we find when we work with practices, or even in our own practice, is that when we're building these pillars, one of the key elements is our practicing of excellent communication skills.
1. Verbal Skills
Yes, of course we know this, we know this, we know this! And yet we see time and time again—areas of opportunity to improve and refine our skills when it comes to how we communicate with our patients. So are you continuously working as a team on the mastery of your verbal skills? And what does that look like? Do we have a clear understanding of the process in terms of what an excellent patient experience looks like? Does everybody on the team understand what that process is, and is everybody aware and aligned with their role within that patient experience process? Are we practicing the process? Are we practicing the conversations? Are we working on those verbal skills together? And are we starting to become comfortable and competent in the flow of an excellent patient experience?
Communication Processes
When we have a flow that we follow consistently, our consistency and success starts to go up as well. So our goals are: getting a process in place, everyone being on the same page and in agreement with the process, everyone on board with their role individually and as a team, and executing that process seamlessly. We need to make intentional room for communication in every aspect of the patient's experience.
How do we communicate when a new patient is coming in and we're doing initial interviews, getting to know them, and finding out what their goals are? What about when we're presenting recommended treatment or a diagnosed treatment, or we're seeing them in their continuous-care type of appointment? We need to communicate and build value and importance of a needed treatment that has not yet been completed. And it all comes down to our communication skills.
Listening Skills
And communication includes listening. So are we using active listening skills in our conversations with our patients? Active listening is the effective and intentional practice of asking questions and listening to answers. This communicating back and forth with the other person helps to make sure that the message sent is the message received.
It's also a perfect way to open the door of communication in areas that maybe you've never had the opportunity to talk to your patients about before. Perhaps there's questions you could start asking that they've never been asked before by a dentist or a dental practice, and that can make a big difference in building trust, need, urgency, and value. So working on our active listening skills, and being consistent in the process of a patient’s experience.
Power Words
And now also working on our vocabulary. We believe there are stronger words that can be used. We call them power words versus weak words. Weak words can diminish value. Power words can build value. When I think about this in practice, as I think about the patient experience, especially new patient experience, we want to build a perception about the type of treatment you provide. This helps them to understand the value of what you’re offering and keeps patients committed to their appointment.
So if you struggle with broken appointments and no-shows, this could be an area where you might want to elevate the vocabulary you use with your patients. If you're using more diminishing words, like “just” or “kind of” or “sort of,” even accidentally, that can diminish value. So look at it as an area where you can build up your vocabulary and be more customer-service oriented in the way that you communicate with your patients.
When we come from a place of high service of excellence and professionalism, even in the way that we communicate with our patients, we can also shift our mindset to what I call permission-based case presentation.
Permission-Based Case Presentation
Now, what I mean by this is very simple. Look for opportunities within the patient's experience to ask permission. For example:
Mrs. Jones, may I have permission as I’m taking photographs and assessing your mouth, to show you any areas of concern that I find? Would that be all right? May I have permission to present to you what I would consider the best possible treatment for the condition occurring in your mouth? Mrs. Jones, may I have permission to show you on this photograph that I'm pulling up right now on the screen, the area of concern that Dr. Jameson has discovered in his evaluation?
You’ll find that when you ask permission to present optimal treatment or whatever it is, the patient is giving you permission, and they are more actively engaged and interested in what you have to say.
Instead of telling them, telling them, telling them; be asking them, asking them, asking them. We're naturally more engaged in a partnership-type conversation, so it can really shift the whole trajectory of the relationship of the conversation. And it helps the patient to feel a sense of control over their situation so that they don't become overwhelmed and find themselves in a state of fight or flight.
So let’s recap:
Have that permission-based approach to the patient experience.Work on a process and a flow that allows for communication to take place in the patient's experiences with you.Use power words more often instead of weak words. And really work on active listening skills.
These are the areas of communication that if you identify them and work on them together, I can promise you, you will see an improvement in your patient practice partnership, and in building those four pillars.
2. Team Engagement
Now, the second area that we can build pillars in is team engagement. We fully believe in a team approach to patient experience, here at Jameson. We need a team approach to practice growth, case acceptance, and so on. The team as a unit is powerful!
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By The Jameson Group, LLC
5
55 ratings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig4Pk7Nh2t8
Below, we’ve compiled the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 139. To enjoy the full episode with our very own Carrie Webber you can watch on YouTube or listen to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Jameson Files. I'm your host, Carrie Webber, and it's such a pleasure to have you here again today!
Today we want to talk about a very popular subject with our Jameson clients across the country. In fact, when I'm lecturing to groups across the country, the demand for this topic is always at the top of the list. And that is: case presentation. But let’s look at an even bigger and broader scope than that, because really this is all about your patient's experience and the team's approach to what we at Jameson call the Patient Practice Partnership.
What is the Patient Practice Partnership?
Now, why do we call it the Patient Practice Partnership at Jameson? We believe that the patient-centered approach to building relationships with your patients, educating your patients, and ultimately communicating with them about necessary, needed, or even wanted care is the difference maker for you from getting to where you are now and where you want to be, not only as a practice, but as a practitioner who has an ideal vision for your practice.
So when we talk about the Patient Practice Partnership, we're talking about some specific aspects of the patient experience that I want to walk you through briefly today. And these findings are founded in what we see coming from studies by the ADA Health Policy Institute. Year over year, they ask for the top reasons patients don't move forward with treatment or don't stay active in your practice. And guess what? Cost is always the top deterrent, which is probably no surprise to you. The other two that are always right near the top are time and fear. There are some other ones that come up pretty high as well, but cost consistently seems to be the top deterrent.
Now, as we at Jameson consider these findings and look at them from the patient's perspective, we have come up with ways to help patients get the kind of dentistry they want or need. So we have created what we consider the four pillars of a healthy patient practice partnership. And those pillars are where we can measure both success and areas that need to be developed as a team when it comes to how the patients engage with us.
Four Pillars of Patient Practice Partnership Success
The pillars are trust, need, urgency, and value. If patients are not moving forward with treatment or staying active in our practice, more than likely you’re missing the mark on one or more of these pillars. So when you think about the patients that you have in your practice right now, or on your new patient experience, or on your treatment presentations and consultations, think about these four pillars.
whether or not your patients are moving forward, staying active and so on or not is based upon how successful we are in building these pillars.
Do your patients trust you? Do they see the need for the treatment you are providing or recommending? Do they sense an urgency to receive that kind of need, especially when it's in terms of restorative care? And do they see a value in what you bring to the table? So think about your practice from those four pillars. The stronger those pillars are in our patient relationship with our practice, the better we all are in the long run.
How do we build the pillars?
But how can we improve? How do we build these pillars? There are a few aspects of practice building, team development, and personal development that I want to take a look at from not only the lens of what you recognize as needs in your practice, but from the perspective of your patients. When we pivot our mindsets to look at it from the patient's perspective, things may look a lot different. So one of the main areas that we find when we work with practices, or even in our own practice, is that when we're building these pillars, one of the key elements is our practicing of excellent communication skills.
1. Verbal Skills
Yes, of course we know this, we know this, we know this! And yet we see time and time again—areas of opportunity to improve and refine our skills when it comes to how we communicate with our patients. So are you continuously working as a team on the mastery of your verbal skills? And what does that look like? Do we have a clear understanding of the process in terms of what an excellent patient experience looks like? Does everybody on the team understand what that process is, and is everybody aware and aligned with their role within that patient experience process? Are we practicing the process? Are we practicing the conversations? Are we working on those verbal skills together? And are we starting to become comfortable and competent in the flow of an excellent patient experience?
Communication Processes
When we have a flow that we follow consistently, our consistency and success starts to go up as well. So our goals are: getting a process in place, everyone being on the same page and in agreement with the process, everyone on board with their role individually and as a team, and executing that process seamlessly. We need to make intentional room for communication in every aspect of the patient's experience.
How do we communicate when a new patient is coming in and we're doing initial interviews, getting to know them, and finding out what their goals are? What about when we're presenting recommended treatment or a diagnosed treatment, or we're seeing them in their continuous-care type of appointment? We need to communicate and build value and importance of a needed treatment that has not yet been completed. And it all comes down to our communication skills.
Listening Skills
And communication includes listening. So are we using active listening skills in our conversations with our patients? Active listening is the effective and intentional practice of asking questions and listening to answers. This communicating back and forth with the other person helps to make sure that the message sent is the message received.
It's also a perfect way to open the door of communication in areas that maybe you've never had the opportunity to talk to your patients about before. Perhaps there's questions you could start asking that they've never been asked before by a dentist or a dental practice, and that can make a big difference in building trust, need, urgency, and value. So working on our active listening skills, and being consistent in the process of a patient’s experience.
Power Words
And now also working on our vocabulary. We believe there are stronger words that can be used. We call them power words versus weak words. Weak words can diminish value. Power words can build value. When I think about this in practice, as I think about the patient experience, especially new patient experience, we want to build a perception about the type of treatment you provide. This helps them to understand the value of what you’re offering and keeps patients committed to their appointment.
So if you struggle with broken appointments and no-shows, this could be an area where you might want to elevate the vocabulary you use with your patients. If you're using more diminishing words, like “just” or “kind of” or “sort of,” even accidentally, that can diminish value. So look at it as an area where you can build up your vocabulary and be more customer-service oriented in the way that you communicate with your patients.
When we come from a place of high service of excellence and professionalism, even in the way that we communicate with our patients, we can also shift our mindset to what I call permission-based case presentation.
Permission-Based Case Presentation
Now, what I mean by this is very simple. Look for opportunities within the patient's experience to ask permission. For example:
Mrs. Jones, may I have permission as I’m taking photographs and assessing your mouth, to show you any areas of concern that I find? Would that be all right? May I have permission to present to you what I would consider the best possible treatment for the condition occurring in your mouth? Mrs. Jones, may I have permission to show you on this photograph that I'm pulling up right now on the screen, the area of concern that Dr. Jameson has discovered in his evaluation?
You’ll find that when you ask permission to present optimal treatment or whatever it is, the patient is giving you permission, and they are more actively engaged and interested in what you have to say.
Instead of telling them, telling them, telling them; be asking them, asking them, asking them. We're naturally more engaged in a partnership-type conversation, so it can really shift the whole trajectory of the relationship of the conversation. And it helps the patient to feel a sense of control over their situation so that they don't become overwhelmed and find themselves in a state of fight or flight.
So let’s recap:
Have that permission-based approach to the patient experience.Work on a process and a flow that allows for communication to take place in the patient's experiences with you.Use power words more often instead of weak words. And really work on active listening skills.
These are the areas of communication that if you identify them and work on them together, I can promise you, you will see an improvement in your patient practice partnership, and in building those four pillars.
2. Team Engagement
Now, the second area that we can build pillars in is team engagement. We fully believe in a team approach to patient experience, here at Jameson. We need a team approach to practice growth, case acceptance, and so on. The team as a unit is powerful!