This issue isn’t new to dentistry—we’ve all heard how much anxiety patients can have about going to the dentist—so as patients slowly start to trickle back into the office, providers in the broader medical community would do well to follow tried and true strategies from dentists and hygienists for overcoming patient anxieties.Right now, providers have a unique opportunity to educate patients on the perils of delayed care and encourage them to change their behavior. In essence, it is our job to convey that dental and medical problems only get worse, not better. They become more extensive, more expensive and in some cases, harder to treat. And neither the dentist nor the patient wants that to occur.
As clinicians, our chairside – or bedside – manner will make or break how patients respond to these conversations. The procrastinating patient provides a critical opportunity for providers to guide toward better overall health. In terms of motivating action and decreasing patient-level fear, here are five steps we practice at Sage Dental to best engage patients in productive care conversations and successfully influence their health behaviors moving forward.
Step 1: Engage through Telehealth
Connecting with your patients via non-threatening virtual appointments is the quickest way to ease the stress of a return to the dental office after a long hiatus. Those appointments, whether real-time or asynchronous, convey a lot about your willingness to help and overall lack of judgment for their state of health. Patients love it, particularly new patients, which starts the process of getting them to pursue treatment.
Step 2: Transform the in-office experience to reflect co-discovery
Providers can utilize newer AI technologies to give patients a tech-forward, unbiased, and pain-free peak into their health condition that goes a long way toward lessening the anxiety of a return to care. In dentistry, we leverage Pearl’s artificial intelligence Second Opinion platform and Dental Monitoring’s SmileMate virtual consultation iPhone scan. These tools also help providers address the fear of judgement patients experience. Using this type of technology creates an unbiased assessment, which looks a lot less like a provider’s judgment or “opinion.” It’s also incredibly easy: using these AI iPhone scanning technologies is as simple as taking a selfie. And let’s face it, patients love selfies. Changing the patient’s perception of the visit changes the overall chairside experience into something far less threatening and less open to interpretation.
Step 3: Take it in bite-size pieces
First, we must address the immediate pain or problem the patient is experiencing. Many avoidant patients may have experienced days to months of acute pain or discomfort, so it is important to spend the bulk of the appointment addressing their immediate concerns with compassion and clinical precision. Providers know this. But the temptation is always there to share the entirety of disease or condition that we see. Patients are not going to be receptive to any home health or in-office best practice messages their providers are sharing until they are out of pain. At Sage Dental, we make a point of building a solid foundation of patient-provider rapport using innovative new technologies and phased goals, which will ultimately help us get important messages across later.
Step 4: Plan ahead together: what got you here won’t get you there
Once the patient is comfortable, take the time to reflect on their oral health (or any other specialty) and share the correlations between overall health. Walk through what caused the issue they came in for. Was it a direct result of neglected or delayed care? Would coming in for the recommended cadence of appointments or screenings have caught this issue before it became debilitating? In most cases, the answer is yes.
Once the patient has a clear understanding of the past behavior that brought them to this point, it is the perfect segue to discuss the current state of their health. Just because you as the provider dealt with their immediate care needs does not mean that their health is 100% restored. Now is the time to discuss any other issues you have observed that are likely to result in future pain or issues if the patient continues to delay care. However, our chairside demeanor is critical to conveying this in a non-judging, forward-focused way. We can’t change yesterday for the patient, but we can certainly improve tomorrow with continued care.
Rather than dictate the patient’s best course of action (something that is sure to alienate them and discourage changed behavior), invite them into a conversation about making a plan that works for them. Start by giving the patient a big-picture view into the state of their health and describing what might become an issue later, while also complimenting them on what they are doing right. In my experience, many providers neglect to point out the positives, and they nearly always exist. Make sure the patient clearly understands that they have options: different treatment plans can be tailored based on the patient’s health, aesthetic and financial expectations. At Sage Dental, we’ve found a great way to share this information with patients is by utilizes newer simulation technologies, and in turn, they often share these images on social media.
Step 5: Share cautious optimism
Finally, it is important to end with caution and optimism. Providers have a duty to communicate the seriousness of delayed care: the patient could wind up in the same (or more) pain than what motivated them to seek care in the first place. Reminding the patient where they started, the pain or issue they were experiencing (and would like to avoid moving forward) can be an effective tool to prompt future change. Remind the patient that without implementing a treatment plan, their health challenges will persist. Share how much you as their provider want them to never experience “something like this again.” End by reiterating your hope that they will work with you to ensure that does not happen, and highlight your confidence that their patient experience will be a positive one as you implement the agreed upon treatment plan.
Whether providers face another pandemic lockdown or not, patients will continue to find reasons to delay their healthcare appointments and screenings. As a result, even when the pandemic is long behind us, providers will continue working to address patient hesitancy and the negative health consequences of delayed care. From cancer screenings to basic checkups to operations, clinicians will need to leverage excellent chairside manner to build positive rapport with patients. Patients will only be persuaded to change their behavior through innovative new technologies, strategic communication and strong relationships. These are key to ultimately elevating their overall health for the better long term.
