Why does nobody train the clinic's most expensive conversation?

Right now, two clinicians are sitting with the same treatment plan in front of two different patients. Same diagnosis, same proposal, same price. Both patients see the same images on the screen. And yet two completely different things happen. One patient says yes on the spot and books a time. The other says, "Let me think about it." And you never see that patient again.

When you think about the difference afterwards, you might say, "She is just good with people." That is the sentence I want to challenge. Because when we call it "being good with people," something unfortunate happens. We stop training it.

We send people on courses to get better at crowns, implants and endodontics. We buy new equipment and new materials. But the conversation where the patient decides whether the treatment happens at all is the most expensive conversation in the clinic. And we leave it to personality and luck.

Why nobody gets better

When I visit clinics, I see the same thing again and again. The clinician who gets the most patients to say yes is treated as a natural talent. The others are left to watch and hope they work it out over time.

The problem is that you cannot learn from something that lives inside one person's head. If nobody knows exactly what the skilled clinician does differently, nobody else can learn it. The day she moves to another clinic, that knowledge leaves with her. As the owner, building up that part of the work is your responsibility too.

At dental school we learned to treat teeth. We never learned to run a good treatment conversation.

It can actually be measured

It surprised me when I found out that researchers have already done this. A Korean team built a tool that measures the quality of clinician conversations and tested it on around 400 clinicians. Among other things, they looked at three things. Can the clinician explain the treatment clearly? Does the patient feel understood? Is the patient met with respect?

The point is simple. If something can be measured, it can be described. And if it can be described, it can be trained.

A British trade journal asked last year whether communication is becoming as important a clinical skill as the technical ones. I do not think it is becoming that. I think it has been that all along.

I have seen it happen

I once worked with a dentist in a large clinic chain. Measured on revenue, he sat right at the bottom of around 300 clinicians. We did not change his treatments. We did not change the prices. We did not change the patients. For six months we worked on one thing only: the conversation where he presented the treatment.

After that half year he was at the top. Number 1 in the whole chain. Same dentist, same clinical skills, same setting, same working hours. The only thing that had changed was the way he ran the conversation.

How to get started

You do not need to start with a big, polished course. Start with the clinician you know who is best at running a conversation that makes patients want to invest in the treatment they need. Sit down together and ask her to explain exactly how she does it. How does she open the conversation? When does she bring up the price? What does she do when the patient gets unsure? Write it down as a simple, shared guide everyone can learn from.

Then make the training a fixed part of the week. Half an hour every other week is enough. Two clinicians practice the conversation while a third listens and gives feedback. It might feel a little artificial the first few times. So does all training, until it becomes routine.

Why it is the clinic's most expensive conversation

If you never train the treatment conversation, you lose patients slowly and quietly. Some say no. Others say they want to think about it. Some never come back. Then it is easy to believe the problem is the price, or that you are short of new patients. That tempts a lot of owners to spend more money on marketing. When the loss may already have happened in the conversation that took place inside the clinic.

The day your best communicator leaves, she takes all her experience with her. If it was never written down, nobody else can build on it.

One question

If you had to explain exactly what your best clinician does differently in the treatment conversation, could you? If the answer is no, the clinic is not missing a more skilled clinician but a system that turns her patient conversation into something everyone can learn.

One last tip

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Thank you for reading.

With collegial regards,

Jesper Hatt DDS

P: +41 78 268 0078

Mail@HattConsulting.com