There are two words here that concern me.

“Feel” and “might”.

How often have you felt something that is just not what is really happening?

How often have you thought it might be the case and it was not?

Be very careful presuming anything when you follow up patients to make appointments.

I always say the solution to the time consuming problem of having to follow up patients is to make sure you make the patient an appointment in the first place so you don’t have to follow them up.

I know this is not going to happen 100% of the time but it can happen most of the time!

You never want to ever feel that you are annoying your patients.

My thoughts are, if your patient has not got an appointment for their ongoing treatment are they really a patient?

To me a true patient is someone who has a regular dental appointment and goes ahead with treatment when needed.

Why are we so worried about offending a patient who has not said yes to their treatment and has no appointment?

I am sure if the call is handled delicately and assertively then there will be no offence taken.

The aim is to make an appointment for the patient.

Are we so busy worrying about how the patient will feel when we follow up to make an appointment, that we get in our own way of actually making an appointment because of our fear of being annoying?

They have no appointment so if they find you annoying when you call to make them an appointment, then the question would be……were they ever going to make an appointment anyway?

It comes down to the 80/20 rule. Are we too busy worrying about the 80% of the patients with no ongoing appointments needed and not spending enough time focusing on the 20% who always have an appointment, never cancel and are wonderful for our business?

Can you see how much energy and concern is spent worrying about the patient with no appointment when we should have been as worried at the time that they did not make their appointment.

Make every patient’s next appointment at the time and eliminate all of this concern.

This blog  features simple practical ideas that are easy to implement tomorrow in your Dental Office, impacting immediately on your Patients’ Dental  Phone Experiences, and ultimately, improving your practice profitability.

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At present I have availability for only ONE new private client. For more information on how I can improve your Dental Office’s Phone Numbers contact me, Jayne Bandy at  jayne@theDPE.com