Wow! That's expensive!

How do you deal with patients who complain about the fee?

You know the ones — you tell them a crown is $1,850 and they go into melt down.I've heard several approaches advocated.

One is to put the patient down with a snarky comment like "Is cheap important to you?" Saying this may win the argument but may also very well lose the patient.

Another snarky comment is to say "Compared to what?" Very confrontational.

Yet another approach is to justify: "We use the finest laboratory and wash out the cavity with yak's tears". This won't get it done either.

The simplest and easiest way is to simply admit that dentistry is expensive. Do this without any defensiveness or justification.

I teach a way of doing this in my seminar that works great.

A dentist I showed it to tried it and the patient said, with a shrug: "OK. Let's do the crown."