John Button, CEO of CollectiveCare Dental, spoke with “Becker’s Dental + DSO Review Podcast” to discuss the “magic bullet” for patient-centered care.
Note: This is an edited excerpt. Listen to the full podcast episode here.
Question: Have you found anything that’s been particularly noticeable or worked particularly well to really make sure the patient is at the center of things?
John Button: Communication, communication, communication. I think it’s critically important. I would also say back when I used to speak to audiences of physicians and dentists and so on, one of the things I often did was ask them to take out a piece of paper and to answer the following questions. I had a list of questions and among them were things like, “Who is your office manager and what does her family consist of? Is she married? Does she have children? What are their names? What is the color of the seat cushions in your reception area?” Now, these were sort of random questions and they’d laugh and they’d write something down and then I’d say, “Okay, don’t hand in your papers. I really don’t care.” But the significance is that if you really engage in your office, with people, if you care about who they are, and if you pay attention to the details so that this work environment is a place that you’re not only living every day, but you’re interested in every day, it makes a difference. So we try to do that within our own practices with our patients and with our staff and so on. So I think from my perspective, if there’s any kind of little magic bullet, that’s as important as anything.