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Worthy Wives

April 26, 2011 By Eva Watson 2 Comments

Alternative Ways You Can Help Your Husband’s Practice

by Eva Watson

 

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’!

 

 

 

Filed Under: Fun, Humor, Marketing, Practice Management Tagged With: Marketing, Spouses

Orabrush Big Momma marketing

March 17, 2011 By Trish Walraven 3 Comments

If you have just one guy to act out all the parts in a tongue cleaner sales video, this is what you may come up with:

Great joke for a real actual purchaseable product – also be sure to view the Bad Breath Test video. Me? I’ll just stick with gagging myself with a toothbrush for now.

 

Filed Under: Fun, Humor, Products Tagged With: Marketing, Orabrush, tongue cleaning

Patients won’t even notice it

June 6, 2008 By Trish Walraven 3 Comments

Internal Memo, Bright Happy Smile Dental Associates

From: Dr. Stan Freebie

To: All office personnel at Bright Happy Smile Dental

My dear team:

It is with great joy that I share this news with you! Starting next month, we will begin offering all of our patient services free of charge. This in no way affects your paycheck because our funding will come from generous sponsors instead of from the patients themselves.

Our insurance coordinator, Kathy, will be changing positions in the practice to take over the duty of implementing this new and exciting program. In order to qualify for this sponsorship, we will all need to modify our office routines in the following ways to allow for maximum product placement:

  • When answering the phone or greeting a patient, business personnel will mention the name of the building sponsor. As an example: “Thank you for calling the Bright Happy Smile Dental Associates, brought to you by Comcast. How may I help you?”

 

  • Any items that are given to the patient for use while in the practice (pens, cups, tissues) should be called by the name that is printed on them. Be sure to use the logo name and not the customary name; for instance, a patient napkin will now be called the Red Lobster bib.

 

  • The liquids dispensed in any form, whether from an air-water syringe or a high-speed handpiece, should be referred to as Coca-Cola coolant.

 

  • All crowns, fillings, and inlays/onlays will be described to the patient as dental restorations by Kay Jewelry. The exception to this are veneers; they will still be called Lumineers.

 

  • Patients who come in for preventive maintenance will need to be informed that their dental prophylaxis appointment is now called a Jiffy Lube.

 

  • To reduce no-shows and to improve communications with everyone who visits our practice, Kathy will be collecting the cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses of each patient so that we can send them periodic newsletters, text messages, and appointment reminder emails. Our sponsor’s logos will be included on all correspondence.*

 

I hope that this new series of changes inspires all of you to continue to strive towards dental excellence and office harmony. If you have any concerns about this please speak with Kathy about the policies. I’ll be taking the next two weeks off as I recover from my LA-Inked full-body Google tattoo.

Sincerely,

Dr Freebie

 

*This part of the memo is for real. DentalSenders currently offers the unlimited service for free to all dental practices, as long as you don’t mind the extra product placement on emails sent from your office. There are no contracts, no software to purchase, plus you’ll be able to ramp up your office efficiency by reducing the amount of time spent on the phone confirming patients. Dental Senders integrates with most practice management software programs, and it’s definitely worth a try.

 

Filed Under: Marketing, Practice Management Tagged With: advertising, emailing patients, humor, insurance, Lumineers, Marketing, no-shows

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DentalBuzz explores rising trends in dentistry with its own slant. The speed at which new products and ideas enter the dental field can often outpace our ability to understand just exactly the direction in which we are heading. But somehow, by being a little less serious about dentistry and dental care, we might get closer to making sense of it all.

So yeah, a tongue-in-cheek pun would fit really nicely here, but that would be in bad taste. Never mind, it just happened anyways. Stop reading sidebars already and click on some content instead.

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