Patient education
Some dentists invest huge time and effort “educating” patients. Is this worthwhile, or is it a fool’s errand.
You don’t have to be around dentists very long for the topic of “patient education” to come up.
The theory is that if we can “educate” patients sufficiently they will want to have their teeth fixed in a comprehensive manner.
Or, to put in a different way, the reason patients don’t demand our best and finest services is that they don’t know enough about what we do and how we do it.
This theory is complete nonsense.
This belief in the necessity of education leads to large amounts of wasted time and effort.
Some time ago I was visiting a dentist who was very highly skilled but who had an under-performing practice.
This dentist did their consultations after work and I was curious why. Why not just do them during the work day and then go home at 5.00pm?
It turned out the dentist took 45 minutes to explain even a simple case because they went into so much detail about how the treatment was done. They did this in the name of “patient education”.
They felt that it was essential to getting case acceptance. When I watched their case presentations, the patients found the huge volume of information totally confusing.
Time and time again the patients said “I’d like to think it over” because they were bored and confused by this dentist.
Let me give you an analogy.
Imagine your car broke down and you took it to the repair shop.
What you want to know is what is wrong, the options with pros and cons, the cost and how long it will take.
“The gear box is broken and needs to be replaced. It will take 3 days and cost you $1,800.”
Perfect!
Now imagine that the mechanic pulled down a wall chart and said: “Let me show you how a gear box works.”
You would think they had gone out of their mind. Who cares how a gear box works? You just want your car fixed.
The same applies to dentistry.
Patients want to know what is wrong, the options with pros and cons, the cost and how long it will take.
If you give them that information they will be happy and 95% will be able to make a decision about treatment.
Spend 45 minutes “educating” them and not only you will have wasted that time, a big majority will not be able to make a decision.
