Gaining Dental Case Acceptance Using BiteFX

• What factors influence dentists' ability to increase their case acceptance rates?
• What persuades their patients to accept their treatment plans?

Most agree that the key factors are:

1. Patient's trust in the dentist
2. Patient's belief that the proposed treatment is good for them, with "goodness" covering some or all of:
   1. Long-term health of teeth
   2. Prevention of further deterioration
   3. Improved appearance
   4. Short-term fix of a (painful) symptom
3. Patient's understanding of why the treatment is good for them
4. Patient's ability to afford the treatment

The first three factors are closely related:

• If the patient has complete trust in the dentist, then they are likely to believe the dentist is recommending what is best for them and they may not care that they understand what is being recommended – as illustrated in the left hand flow in the figure below.
• However, if the patient:dentist trust relationship has not been established an understanding of the treatment being proposed becomes much more critical.
  If the dentist can clearly communicate why a proposed treatment is required, so that the patient fully understands the need and solution, then the patient's belief in the recommendation is almost automatic and the likelihood of them trusting the dentist has been greatly increased.

With trust, belief and understanding covered, you have to deal with affordability - which may just be a discussion between dentist and patient on timing or agreed upon interim solutions. When the patient understands the need, their determination to make the treatment affordable increases.

How BiteFX helps gain dental case acceptance

For dental cases involving occlusion-based treatments, BiteFX helps the dentist tackle the understanding issue. The most frequent comment made by BiteFX customers is "I no longer get those blank stares" – i.e. their patients "get it". The next step is that patients start taking ownership of their problems because they know what is causing them. For example, patients start making comments like "You'd better not fix my broken back tooth until you have repaired the worn-down front teeth!"

Find out how BiteFX helps you increase dental case acceptance by:

• Reading BiteFX customer accounts on topics like:
  • Increasing practice revenue
  • Communicating an understanding of occlusal disease
  • Describing the dental patient consultation process
  or
• Talk to the dentists themselves by applying for the BiteFX Professional Reference List
  or
• Checking out relevant blog posts such as:
  • Seeing is Believing: Explaining and Handling Occlusal Disease
  • Presenting Occlusal Disease in 3-D for Greater Case Acceptance
  • Triggering Change Part 1: Three Behavioral Hotspots for BiteFX Use
  • Important Dental Treatment Plan Lesson Learned from Pete Dawson