Have you seen the most recent ad about electric vehicles, namely the Leaf? Hey, Nissan, the sedation dentists of the world thank you once again for reinforcing patient fears in an original way that also serves your agenda.
Worthy Wives
Alternative Ways You Can Help Your Husband’s Practice
Running a financially solvent and content dental practice is hard work. The challenges of keeping the schedule filled, placating unhappy patients, and ensuring the peace and tranquility between team members are constants that must be adhered to for the greater good of the practice.
None of these responsibilities are taken more seriously than that of the spouses of dentists. These individuals not only have a vested interest in the monetary success of their married dental partners but to better the daily operations and keep ‘the ship sailing smoothly’ as well.
With all of the positive traits and well-meaning leadership dental wives have in mind for their husbands’ offices, there are days, just a tad too many, actually, that your guidance and intentions seem to push the staff’s proverbial ‘button’, so to speak. May I dare say ‘lay the sauce a bit too thick’? If I may be so bold as to offer, ‘Make the employees want to ship you in a box to Africa’?
It’s a difficult pill to swallow, I agree, but I do have some various, and incredibly helpful options, to aid in your demanding role as dental spouse:
Pass out dental office brochures to businesses around a twenty square mile radius, three days a week.
Obviously this will take you away from the practice frequently. Think of it this way – you can hit Neiman Marcus, Restoration Hardware, and schedule appointments with contractors to remodel your kitchen. Just make sure our checks don’t bounce again, okay?
Visit local elementary schools dressed as ‘Rooty! The Giant, Friendly Root Canal Tooth’
I would totally do this myself, but I need to be in the practice so– have fun! There are holes for your arms, but walking may pose a challenge. Oh, and there’s the white stockings and black shoes you have to wear. The staff attached a huge endodontic file to the top of your costume so the little ones understand why root canals are completely awful. Now, the suit gets sweaty and stinky after an hour, so make certain you bring a change of clothes. Come to think of it, you may want to shake it out a few times before you put it on. I thought I saw something crawling in it.
Take some time off
The staff knows you’ve earned it. You come in here, day after day after day, talking and talking, mispronouncing patients’ names then laughing about it, and we just feel like all that hard work deserves some rest and relaxation. In fact, we spoke to the doctor about it at one of the staff meetings. (You were Rooty that day so you missed the meeting.) Anyway, he feels that sending you to a month-long spa getaway is a fantastic idea for your peace of mind and well-being. You’re going to be busy next month – we got a new practice mascot costume for you!
Say hello to ‘Gingie – The Awfully Bloody Gingiva’!
Radiation: Duck and Cover (CYA!)
We know that you want to protect your family from anything that you hear about in the media. Especially radiation. Especially now, with the leaks at the nuclear power plant happening in Japan and with Dr. Oz telling everyone that going to the dentist could endanger their thyroid glands.
Your perception is made reality here at Safe Smiles Dental Care. Are you afraid of the cumulative effects of flying in airplanes, going outdoors, and X-Rays? Good.
Why do we say good? Because the way we nurture your fear of radiation sets us apart from other dental offices. We won’t say, “Oops, let’s re-take that xray; it didn’t come out right” here. We will get it right the first time, because, gosh darn it, we care. And we spent a lot of money on rectangular collimators with little magnets and beepers that tell you that we’re all lined up. And what about “Sorry, the thyroid collar will obstruct our view so we can’t use it”? You won’t hear that in our office either. We’ll just not worry your pretty little head about that part of your jaw.
This is what we call scratching our niche, baby. Our practice is the ultimate low-radiation dental office, and you won’t find this level of concern down the street at Dr. Happy-go-lucky’s practice. No way. We’ll massage your fears away with our assurance that any cancer you get in your lifetime won’t be from dental radiation.
So give us a call today at (990) 648-2130 to schedule your complimentary screening exam. We also offer just radiological services if you prefer to have your dental x-rays taken at our office and then forwarded to a dentist of your choice. But that’s such a hassle. Come on, you know you’d rather stay here with us. Especially when you start seeing these warning symbols posted all over the signs of our local competition:
Stay safe, and we’ll look forward to seeing you soon!
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Yesterday on his network television show Dr. Mehmet Oz defended his remarks back in September about the necessity of lead thyroid collar use during dental x-rays whenever possible by stating that “there’s no good reason not to protect yourself against radiation.” While this is true, the bottom line is about using radiation in a way that leads to best outcomes in our patients, a point that several guest physicians also tried to make despite the protests of Dr. Oz.
Seriously, when you look at the sources of radiation in the world today, why worry about the miniscule intentional amounts? All radiation is dangerous, and it should be limited as much as possible, but the only way to avoid it totally is to dig a radon-free hole somewhere and live like a makedd roll gnat the rest of your life (ummmm. I mean naked mole rat. So hard to get that one right!). Calm your fears with this Radiation Dose Chart that was recently compiled, complete with facts about the Fukushima Nuclear plant (click on the image for full-size).
Another thing that I whipped up here for all you DentalBuzz readers is a Medical Radiation Dose Chart to download and show to your patients that have no idea how much radiation that they may be getting from the more common diagnostic procedures. I didn’t know a lot of it myself, so originally I created it to use in our office but you may find it helpful too. Did you know that it takes 10,000 PA radiographs to reach the annual limit of x-radiation? How many CT scans does it take to reach the limit? I’m too lazy to do all the math but it looks like 1 CT scan equals about 2,000 bitewings (film, not digital) according to this chart.
Regardless, we all have a responsibility to admit that we don’t know what we don’t know. And perhaps Dr. Oz may be a little right; we should do our best to protect our patients from radiation whenever possible, adapting the ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) principle with regards to radiation in dentistry.
Enter the media blitz. Interactive Digital Imaging (IDI) is re-introducing its rectangular collimator with a PR campaign targeting consumers. Dental patients will be encouraged to “Look for the Green Ring” at their dental offices, similar to the “Ask Your Doctor About” style of direct-to-consumer advertising used by the pharmaceutical industry. Originally priced at $1295, the newly redesigned Tru-Align collimator will be offered at $795 with improvements that overcome cone-cut errors and enhancements that make the positioner more user-friendly.
My favorite feature of the Tru-Align system is not that it can be used with any typical XCP holders (but still a good thing – this includes sensors, phosphor plates, and film), but that when you bump up the xray cone to the collimation ring, you get a magnetized lock-on and an audible beep to let you know that you will NOT be getting a cone-cut on that image. BAM! ZAP! If nothing else, the precision of this thing should impress our patients. And if they’re the kind that are really concerned about their radiation exposure, you can spew some factoids about reducing the absorbed dose from around 150 microsieverts to 30 microsieverts for an 18-image FMX series.
What it finally comes down to is having the right things to say to your patients when they ask about radiation, and addressing any real problems that you may be having in your office, like the assistant who has to re-take a periapical x-ray three times in order to get the one that you need. Or making sure that your thyroid collars are actually being Velcroed behind your patients’ necks. Or halting the bacteria-fest breeding on your lead aprons. My bet is that’s the biggest offense of all. Ahhh, a problem for another day…..
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Thanks to these blogs whose articles have helped shape this one:
The ALARA Principle: Dr. Jeffrey Hoos and Michael Razzano on Dentistry IQ
The Digital Dentist Lorne Lavine
Dr. Oz discusses Dental X-Rays and Thyroid Cancer: Dr. Todd Welch at The Science of Dentistry
Hygiene For Realz or corporate hijacking?
Yes, she’s got a dental supply company backing her, and yes, she’s a little green and looks like she’s trying hard to be obnoxious (which she obviously isn’t), but there’s something about DESIree that is utterly fascinating.
Yesterday brought the unveiling of The DEZIree Show, a “just between us” video blog for dental hygienists. Will she be engaging, relevant, and positively bloom in her fun weekly rants so that her viewers want to share her messages and spirit? Or will this be a failed publicity experiment that a corporation is trying in order to find their place in the social media order?
Currently it could go either way. But you should totally root for DEZIree because she seems worth five minutes of your time per week.
Shatner negotiates dental fees
Actually, William Shatner has nothing to do with dentistry. And that’s a good thing.
The familiarity with Priceline’s marketing is a good place to start, though. Mix in a few thousand medical and dental professionals who are willing to try a similar technique to improve their new patient flow and you’ve got a website called PriceDoc.
For an average of about $50 per month for a spot on the PriceDoc website, you can give percentage discounts, allow patients to negotiate for prices, or simply state your fee for specific procedures. Like a porcelain crown. Can you imagine someone on the internet seeing that your crown fee is less than the other dentist down the street, and then coming to you instead, and paying cash?
Or if you put the shoe on the other foot, have you tried shopping for that gall bladder surgery that you’ve been needing for a while?
PriceDoc went national about six months ago, and has yet to post any impressive procedure price wars between healthcare providers. There’s also no way to know if a dentist is as good as they say they are on their advertisement, so it’s difficult to predict whether or not this type of marketing will appeal to those dentists who value quality care over production quotas. Currently the only requirement for setting up a provider account is a credit card.
It’s a great idea in concept, especially for patients without insurance and dentists that prefer consumer-driven care instead of insurance-dictated treatment. If enough healers are ready to take a leap of faith, PriceDoc may become a force that changes healthcare forever.
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In the meantime, consumers already have the ability to price out the average cost of many common dental procedures without having to compare dentists’ fees directly. The website Healthcare Blue Book offers suggestions based on a patient’s zip code, and even recommends taking a printout of the “fair cash price” to your office when an estimate is presented for anticipated dental work. Blue Book prices are generally above standard insurance contract rates, and considered fair compensation for cash-paying patients.
Patients should probably be glad, though, that dentists can’t use the Blue Book in reverse to judge the condition of a person’s mouth beforehand.