671: Part 2 – Top 10 Phone Skills for Tackling the Toughest Patient Questions! – Miranda Beeson

Patients ask the most challenging questions — and your team has a tough time answering them. To help them navigate the most difficult questions they will encounter, Kirk Behrendt returns with Miranda Beeson to finish Part 2 of ACT’s training webinar. Equip your team with critical phone skills to make your practice thrive! To learn how listen to Episode 671 of The Best Practices Show!

Episode Resources:

• Send Miranda an email: miranda@actdental.com 
• Follow Miranda on ACT’s Instagram
  
• Subscribe to The Best Practices Show podcast 
• Join ACT’s To The Top Study Club 
• See ACT’s Live Events Schedule
• Get The Best Practices Magazine for free! 
• Write a review on iTunes

Links Mentioned in This Episode:

Watch Episode 671 of The Best Practices Show: https://www.youtube.com/@actdental/videos

Main Takeaways:

Have preset solutions in place for common patient problems.

Give patients the opportunity to tell you about themselves.

Don't make it easy for patients to cancel appointments.

Angry patients just want to be heard. Learn to listen.

Have conflict resolution simulations with your team.

Start listening to and evaluating your own calls.

Be mindful of the verbiage you use.

Quotes:

“You're going to start to recognize patterns with the problems that patients have. One of them is, ‘I can't get a ride.’ Okay. You, as a team member, should be equipped with a very definitive solution. I like the idea of having a 3x5 card. When somebody says, ‘I can't get a ride,’ we have four solutions. Number one, ‘I'll come get you.’ Number two, ‘I'll send an Uber for you.’ [Ariel] even said, ‘Can you ride a bike?’” (1:23—1:46) -Kirk

“[Patients will say], ‘I can't find a ride.’ That's going to happen a lot. It will. It might happen for larger appointments. I would do this. If I was [on] the admin team, I'd say, ‘Don't worry, I got you. I'll send an Uber for you right now.’ See how that's a very clear solution? They can't say no. I wouldn't make them say no. If they say, ‘I don't want to take an Uber,’ I would say, ‘This is a four-hour appointment. I don't want to tell Dr. Straub you're not coming. I actually will come get you. I'll be there in five minutes. I'll bring you back. You'll be 15 minutes late for the appointment, but you could still make it.’ You see how I'm not going to let you out of this four-hour appointment?” (2:01—2:37) -Kirk

“When it comes down to that solution — you've asked open-ended questions, you've gotten the information about what their chief concern is, what they need, what they want, there is a solution. I'm here to help you. ‘Great news. I'm here to help you, and here's what we can do to help.’ And so, when you talked about your example, they can say that exact thing of, ‘I'm really struggling to find a ride. I don't think I'm going to be able to make it today.’ ‘Hey, I'm here to help you. This is not the first time someone has experienced that. Let's try this,’ and we provide a solution. Again, it's about building rapport. It's about, we're here to serve. So, I'm not annoyed by you. I'm not frustrated by you. I'm here to help you.” (3:04—3:42) -Miranda

“It's really important to make sure that once a problem has been solved, you've developed a solution, you know what the plan is, that you summarize it, and that you repeat it back . . . We want to make sure that we have a summary in place to recap what we've decided, what we've concluded is the solution. You're on board, and I'm on board. Great. We have a plan.” (4:27—4:50) -Miranda

“We want to make sure that we have the right information in our practice management software. This is one of the most simple, logistical parts of phone skills. We want to identify who we're talking to. Pull up their chart right away. Hopefully, we all have digital charts at this point. Sometimes, we're still working with paper charts. But if we can, pull it up right away so we can see a bit of history about who it is that we're talking to.” (5:02—5:26) -Miranda

“We talk a lot in ACT around patient identification. I'm going to be able to see, is this an A patient, a B patient, or a C patient that I'm talking to? I want to confirm that their data is accurate and updated, if necessary. If it's been a while since they've been in and I see it's been a year or a year-and-a-half, ‘Joe, I see it's been a little while since you've been in. I want to take a moment to make sure that we have all the accurate data for you. Are you still at this address? Is this still your phone number?’ Do they have an existing treatment recommendation that could pertain to their call or request? So, perhaps Joe hasn't been in in a year-and-a-half, and the last time Joe was in, we recommended he have a tooth extracted on the lower right, and Joe is calling today with some pain and throbbing on the lower right. We can see that we've already talked about this with Joe and that there was already a plan in place, and we may be able to navigate what the most appropriate next step is without an extra step in the middle so that we can start working on getting Joe out of pain and discomfort.” (5:26—6:21) -Miranda

“This fits into the data piece, but I also think this could fit in multiple other areas of the phone call. If we go through all of that, we make sure everything is updated, all this information is still correct, [we need to ask], ‘Joe, is there anything else that I should know?’ And it might just be, ‘No,’ because this is a closed-ended question. It might just be, ‘No, I think that's everything.’ But it might be like, ‘Oh, you know what I should tell you? I also had surgery about three months ago and I had a stent placed.’ ‘That is really important to know. I'm going to send you a medical history update that may change the timing in which we help you with this problem.’” (6:44—7:20) -Miranda

“Another question that's the same question said a different way is, ‘What else would you like for me to know about you?’ I like that one because I'm like, ‘Okay, there are a couple of other things that are important to me,’ or, ‘I'm a pilot.’ Given the door, they will tell you some very unique things about them that become incredible trust builders or relationship builders as they come into your practice. So, give them the opportunity to tell you something unique about them, or something else that they're dying to tell you.” (7:23—7:57) -Kirk

“If your practice doesn't accept certain insurances or programs, how do you go about asking or letting them know that we cannot accept it? I'm thinking about the situation with Joe that I just mentioned. Maybe Joe tells me, ‘Oh, you know what I have now? I have MetLife insurance. I didn't have that before,’ and maybe we're not a participating provider with MetLife. ‘Joe, thank you so much for giving me that information and letting me know that that information had changed. We do have a different relationship with MetLife than we do with Delta, who you had before. I'd love to share with you what the difference is for you and how that will look here in the practice. Let me go ahead and finish making sure that I'm on the right track for what it is that you need from us first.’ And so, again, I'm going to set that insurance question right over here, and I'm going to come back to it.” (8:02—8:51)

“It's really, really important that unless it's an insurance that you cannot file — like, I can't file Medicaid, or I can't file that because it's an HMO — you do, in fact — you can, I should say — take that insurance. I want to make sure that that's super clear, the difference between we can or can't take it. If they have no out-of-network benefits, it's an HMO or a Medicaid that I can't even file on your behalf, that's very different. That's something that you truly cannot take, versus I'm a fee-for-service practice and I'm not contracted with any PPO plans. I can still take your insurance, so that's a yes. That goes back to our key phrase of, ‘Yes, we do. Yes, we do work with MetLife. It's a little different, what it looks like, but I'd be happy to share with you what that looks like here.’” (8:52—9:38) -Miranda

“Even if you're completely fee-for-service, you have to be an insurance-friendly practice because you can't say the word “no”. People [aren't] even going to entertain it. Even the doctors we support that are 100% fee-for-service, seven out of ten calls are, ‘Do you take my lousy insurance?’ People aren't going to call you with wads of cash going, ‘Hey, listen. I know you don't accept insurance. I've got a ton of money. Can you just prep all these teeth?’” (10:27—10:55) -Kirk

“The worst thing you can say is, ‘No, we are not contracted with [X insurance].’ And then, silence. ‘Well, what do I do now?’ ‘Well, you can look on the back of the card. There's a number, or you can go online.’ Like, what? No, no, no, no, no. We want to say yes. ‘Even if we can't file it, you can still come here. Even if it is one that we can't take because we can't even file it based on the type of plan that it is, you're welcome to be a patient here. We would absolutely love to take care of you. What that means is, we'd be very transparent with your fees up front. We'd help you find ways to approach investments in your care, but it would be your responsibility without the support of an insurance benefit plan. But you're welcome to come here, absolutely.’” (10:55—11:41) -Miranda

“We will break a chain in trust if we commit to something and say we're going to do it, and then we don't follow through. So, do what you say. Offer efficient action, and then do it. If you don't know, say that you don't know. Do not provide an answer that's off the cuff, shooting from the hip, just rolling with it. It's okay to say, ‘I don't know, but I'm going to find out for you, and I'll get back to you within 24 hours with that answer.’ But then, just like point number one says, if you say, ‘I'm going to get back to you within 24 hours with an answer,’ you're going to do it. And I would caution people on “as soon as I can”, because as soon as you can might be three days from now, and to a patient it's an hour from now. So, I would give a specific timeframe that's relative and relevant to what it is that you're getting back to them for, and then do it within that timeframe. And you want to confirm that you've resolved their concern. So, once you place that timestamp on it or this action item to it, does that resolve the concern? ‘Is that going to work for you, Mrs. Jones? What else could I help you with, Mrs. Jones, aside from that?’ Make sure that we're getting a, ‘You know what? I think that's everything, Miranda. Thank you so much.’” (12:16—13:35) -Miranda

“The true nature of what happens up front is it can be chaos. And you, as a dentist, if you're listening to this, this is why systems are so important. One big piece that we as coaches do is make teams develop systems. What I mean by that is that you have these scenarios, and there's nothing better than hearing an admin team member say, ‘Right after this call, I'm going to send you an email,’ and it's already been created. They're not uniquely coming up with solutions all the time, all day long. That would burn me out if I work for you, if I've got to figure out what to do, and then I've got to put it all together, and then I've got to email it or send it to the patient. Get me out of here. You should create well-designed systems that make the team member — it should take 60 seconds for me to send that to you, a click of a button. Could you imagine, I call your office and you go, ‘These are great questions. Now, I'm going to schedule you with our doctor. I'm also going to get you scheduled for hygiene. After I hang up, you're going to get an email from me, and it's going to explain everything we discussed.’ I'm already thinking, ‘You guys know your stuff! You really know what you're doing.’ That's why systems development helps with follow-through. So, make sure you support your teams with great systems.” (13:40—14:56) -Kirk

“[We need] commitment and confirmation that we've solved the problem, that we have a plan. [The patient agrees] and knows what it is, that we've scheduled an appointment. We all are in agreement that this is a commitment that we're making within our schedule. So, number one, first and foremost, is we want to build an efficient schedule for the office first. Before any of the rest of this comes into play, we want to have intentional scheduling built out for the office first.” (15:17—15:46) -Miranda

“[Have] systems for your admin team so that your admin team knows where I schedule a crown, where I schedule a new patient, where I schedule an emergency. And so, it's not this crazy, chaotic, ten minutes of like, ‘Well, what about this? What about that?’ It’s super easy, clearly displayed right in front of your administrative team member that we don't see emergencies at 4:00 p.m. We don't do that here. Now, we don't have to say we don't do that here. What we would say is, ‘We help our emergency patients at 12:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and at 10:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays. Which of those works best for you, patient?’ And so, now we build a couple of these in together, but we're going to put them where we know it fits our schedule best because we've designed that systematically and we don't have to guess. It's right there in front of us through efficient block scheduling. And then, we're going to guide them to that appropriate time because we know where the best time in our schedule for our team and for our doctor is. And then, we're going to provide them with an alternative choice. That's what I did a moment ago with helping that patient to still be in control of the outcome, but we're still going to help them end up where we want them to be. So, they're still going to be in an emergency block at either 12:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or at 10:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays. But they get some level of control over that by deciding which of those options they prefer.” (15:47—17:11) -Miranda

“Never, ever, ever say the phrase, ‘What works for you?’ Don't ever say that . . . And then, the alternative choice — I agree. It is proven that patients feel powerful when you give them two choices. But whoever is teaching this should be banned. Like, don't ever ask a patient, ‘Do mornings or afternoons work for you?’ Don't do that.” (17:18—17:53) -Kirk

“The only exception to [not asking patients mornings or afternoons] might be if your practice had — say someone is scheduling a crown or a new patient, and you have a morning appointment for new patients available that week, and you have an afternoon appointment available that week. You could very well say, to play devil's advocate, ‘What do you prefer, mornings or afternoons?’ because you do have one of each. But if you only see new patients at the beginning of the day and you ask someone, ‘What do you prefer?’ and they like 4:00, well, now you've set them up for failure.” (17:56—18:26) -Miranda

“Sometimes, people will say, ‘I really like morning appointments.’ Great. What does morning mean to you? Because we start at 7:00, but morning for you might be 11:00.” (18:44—18:53) -Miranda

“What happens when [patients] say, ‘I can't do mornings. I can only do afternoons’? Because now, if I'm not a strong administrative team member with confidence in this yet, I'm going to be like, ‘Oh, okay. I'm going to dig through the schedule and try to see if there's an afternoon that looks like maybe I could make it work. It's outside of the block, but they can't do mornings.’ No — what I would say is, ‘I completely understand where you're coming from. Other patients have felt the same way. What I can do, if it works better for you, is look another week or two out to give you more time to prepare your schedule for having the morning here with us. But I do have crown appointments at 7:00 and 9:00, and that's really where we're at. So, if going two weeks out helps, that might allow for you to have a little more time to have flexibility in your schedule and plan things. How does that work for you?’” (19:46—20:37) -Miranda

“People will go, ‘Well, I want to come in tomorrow.’ That's another question that people will often ask with the same concept, is like, maybe your next available is three weeks out. ‘That's three weeks from now. I don't want to wait three weeks.’ ‘I completely understand, but the doctor is going on vacation, and then we have a hygienist out.’ And the patient is like, ‘I don't care if he's going on vacation. I have a toothache.’ Instead, use a simple phrase. ‘I completely understand. We're fully committed until the date I offered you. However, I can put you on a priority list. If something becomes available sooner — I know you're eager to come in — we'll give you a call right away.’ “Fully committed” is a perfect phrase. I have a pet peeve. We talk about being candid about telling people that the doctor is on vacation. Granted, the doctor deserves a vacation — I do believe in that. But I think we have to [say], ‘Our schedule is fully committed,’ even if there are blocks open. This is what people struggle with . . . They're going to see like, ‘I do have time open, though. I know I have this emergency, and my emergency block is already full for today, but that primary tomorrow is still wide open. I could put it right there, but it's not a primary. I'm not supposed to put it there.’ No — we have to look at that blocked time as if it's fully committed. It is not an option unless it's that type of dentistry. And so, the easiest thing to remind ourselves is, the blocks, even if they're open between now and three weeks from now, your schedule is still fully committed.” (20:48—22:24) -Miranda

“One of the biggest issues is cancellations in anybody's schedule. Short notice, same-day changes in the schedule — it's a problem for every dental office, ever. And so, the more that we do these steps that we've tackled so far, all the way from one through seven, and then we commit, summarize, reconfirm, allow them to make the choice in terms of where they end up in the schedule, all of these things combined are going to reduce the cancellations because we've built value, we've built rapport, and we've repetitively confirmed with them over and over the commitment to that time that we've reserved. And expectations should be clear around the reservation from the jump. We want to repeat, repeat, repeat. When you do a self-evaluation, when you're listening to your calls, I would listen for, ‘Did I say three times the date, the time, and the amount of time they're going to be here?’ To me, a minimum of three times. ‘November 14th, 9:00 a.m. We’ll see you for two hours that day with Dr. Awesome. Okay, Joe. Remember, two hours, November 14^th at 9:00 a.m. with Dr. Awesome.’ We want to repeat it over, and over, and over. And maybe your third time is, ‘So, you got that appointment time? What was it, again?’ ‘9:00.’ ‘Perfect. I have that as well. Nine o’clock reserved with Dr. Awesome.’ You're going to lessen the risk of cancellations because they've made, like you said, a commitment to you, their friend, that they trust and have built rapport with.” (22:49—24:11) -Miranda

“The most important thing is that angry patients or irate callers just need to be heard. They just want to make sure that their concern is validated and that they get it out. So, stay calm. Try not to take it personally. Remind yourself this is just the process they need to go through. Listen, listen some more, and then listen a bit more. When they're done, they'll be done. But you have to listen. It's going to feel like you're just taking it on, but don't soak it in. This isn't a personal thing. They just have to get all of this off their chest in order to feel — and you can just, ‘I hear you. What else? I hear you. Oh, gosh. Sorry to hear that. Tell me more.’ And they're going to lay it all out there. But you know that, if you're approaching this intentionally, ‘Oh, this person is upset. I know I'm going to have to let them talk it out.’ It's easier to not absorb it and take it personally. Just listen. Let them talk. Encourage them to talk more. Encourage them to talk more. And then, identify the desired result. At the end, when you feel it trailing off, there's not a whole lot more for them to vent about, what are they really looking for as a result of this call? And you just ask them that. ‘I'm here to help. What are you hoping to get out of this call?’ ‘I just needed you to hear me.’ ‘Great. I did.’” (24:37—25:59) -Miranda

“You're not going to have as many [conflict-based calls] if you're doing a really good job at E – R = C. If you're setting clear expectations, you have systems in place to mitigate, you're not going to have as many of these calls. If there are a lot of these, maybe that's step one, is reevaluating our systems and the expectations that we're laying out there for our patients.” (27:01—27:19) -Miranda

“Every now and then, it's beyond what I can do. I'm the patient relations coordinator. I'm the receptionist in your office. I'm great at these calls, but I asked what the resolve is and there is no resolve. I'm going to probably need to escalate this up the ladder a little bit. We want that to be the last step or the last resort, of taking this to our office manager, or taking this to the doctor if we don't have an office manager. We don't want to just, ‘Oh, I don't feel comfortable with this one. I'm just going to have the doctor call them.’ We want to do the very best that we can to have the confidence, the tools, and the techniques to manage this first. But every now and then, there is something that needs to be escalated in order to help them meet the needs or the requests that they have to resolve the problem.” (27:24—28:08) -Miranda

“Most of the time, the patient just wants to be heard, and they say, ‘I want you to know, and I want you to tell Dr. Awesome that I called and felt this way.’ ‘That's not a problem at all. And actually, what I'll do is I'll mark in your chart here that you prefer this, that, and the other so that next time you come in, we can be more prepared to meet that need for you.’ Usually — usually — in a situation like this, that's enough for them to feel like, ‘They care about me. They heard me.’ The best part is, if you do whatever it is that you put as a note in the computer, the next time they come in, now you've really rebuilt some of that trust that might have broken the first time. Now, every now and then, someone is crazy. Not a whole lot we can do with crazy. But most of the time, it's someone who just needs to be heard.” (28:08—28:50) -Miranda

“What I do hear quite often is, ‘Okay. So, did you want to reschedule that now?’ Two things in that that I don't love. One, ‘Okay’? No, it's not okay! And two, ‘Do you want to reschedule?’ versus, ‘We're going to go ahead and reschedule.’ So, we want to have a go-to response so that we don't just say, ‘Okay.’ We want to make sure that we stay in control of this situation. One of the things that I say is offering empathy, like, ‘Oh, no, Kirk! Heather is going to be so disappointed that you're not going to make it to your hygiene visit today. She was just telling us at huddle how excited she was to see you and to catch up. Are you sure there's no way you can make it?’ That's how we respond to every single person that calls to cancel. We have a, ‘Oh, no. I'm so sorry to hear that. Are you sure you aren't going to be able to make it in today? I know Dr. Awesome was looking forward to your visit. I know you've already had to move this a couple of times, and it was really important to you.’” (29:00—30:00) -Miranda

“Sometimes, someone is going to give you the next step of like, ‘I really can't. I got called into a mandatory meeting at work. I legitimately will get fired if I don't go to the meeting. I feel terrible, but I just can't.’ And this is the next bullet point of determining if it's avoidable or unavoidable. If it's like, ‘It's really nice out, and I decided that I'm going to hit the beach today,’ that's avoidable, and they're telling us that they don't value us as much as taking the day off. But if their car tire blew out, or their dog has to go to the vet emergency appointment, their kid is home sick, puking, they didn't anticipate that. There's nothing we can do about that. That's legitimately an unavoidable reason for someone to cancel. And we would, again, not with, ‘Did you want to reschedule now?’ ‘Well, I can understand that that's unavoidable. Let's go ahead and take a look a couple of weeks out and find another opportunity for you,’ or, ‘Let's take a look at what our next opportunity is and reserve that time for you now,’ not leaving it open for them to possibly not reschedule.” (30:01—31:01) -Miranda

“Now, if [the cancellation is] avoidable, this is where we come in with the cancellation fee conversation of, have one, but don't use it. So, I would say, ‘Well, I'm so sorry to hear that. It is a beautiful day. I wish I could be going to the beach today too, Kirk! I'll tell you what. We do have a cancellation fee for broken appointments within 24 hours. But let me chat with Dr. Awesome. You haven't broken an appointment before. Let me see what he thinks, if he wants for me to charge that or not.’ Hold. ‘May I place you on a brief hold?’ Hop back on. I didn't talk to Dr. Awesome. He's given me the authority and autonomy to make these decisions as an administrative team member. But I get back on and I say, ‘Dr. Awesome really wanted to let you know that he appreciates you calling and letting us know. He is disappointed he's not going to see you today. And again, this is the first time you've done this, so he is going to waive that broken appointment fee. But please know that we do request 48 hours business notice prior to changes, so in the future that would be really helpful so that we can recover that time.’ And so, we're using it kind of as a threat. We're not necessarily applying it. I always say if we're going to charge a cancellation fee right off the jump, we have to be willing to lose that patient. So, it has to be someone who has repeatedly broken your trust and the value in your care for you to say this is happening.” (31:02—32:14) -Miranda

“There is zero value in a cancellation fee. It's the fastest way to get a one-star review and a scathing review from a patient. You're not making any money on the $75 or $100 . . . And it’s not fixing the problem at all. So, just stop. Don't ever charge a cancellation fee. It's a waste of time, and it's collateral damage to your brand.” (32:20—32:41) -Kirk

“[A cancellation fee] doesn't make for less cancellations. And ultimately, what you need is less cancellations, not $55 when someone doesn't show up.” (32:43—32:50) -Miranda

“A lot of people will try to send an email to cancel. You can have an automatic reply that goes out when you receive an email that says, ‘Thank you so much for reaching out to our team. Your message is really important to us. If you are messaging us regarding an appointment change, please know that we don't take cancellations over this email. We would need to talk with an office team member,’ something to that nature. I agree with you that you have to make it as hard as possible for someone to cancel an appointment. And not hard like you're a bulldog, and you're mean, and you're not nice about it. It's just, like I said before, ‘I'm so sorry that something has changed in your schedule since you reserved this time with Heather. Heather is going to be so disappointed. Are you sure there's nothing that you can do?’” (33:55—34:40) -Miranda

“When someone is sick, there's nothing you can really do. The only thing I would say to mitigate that is reschedule their appointment. A lot of times — that's the double side to this — try to salvage that as much as you can. But if you can't, do reschedule the appointment. Don't allow for it to remain unscheduled, because now the amount of legwork on the back end in order to recapture that person through follow-up systems down the line is going to be so much harder. And people sometimes are legitimately sick. After COVID-19, it's been a lot harder because people found out how much easier it is to cancel when you're sick. We might have, years ago, said, ‘Oh, it's just a sniffle. Our team wears PPE.’ We don't do that anymore. If someone is sick, we don't want them in the office passing that on to everyone else. So, that's the avoidable versus unavoidable cancellations, and that's what we have to think about around, how do we identify them as patient A, B, or C? If they're canceling because they're sick, there's nothing they can do. If they're consistently not showing up because they forgot, that's another story, and we have to start putting them in a different category within the practice.” (34:49—36:05) -Miranda

“That's why data is so important. You can keep data on this. There are people that value what you do, and there are people that don't. People that don't will habitually cancel, and you'll already have that in your computer so you can make decisions about not rescheduling them. And the big thing about a cancellation — this is so important — is that a cancellation is not no profit — it's negative profit, and you're kicking the can further down the road, and it's twice as hard, and you already don't have the bandwidth on your team to equip your front desk team or admin team with another person. So, you want to make sure that if these are made — and I love how Dr. Straub has his team members say, ‘Oh, that was a three-hour appointment. Let me go get Dr. Straub and tell him you can't make it today.’ You'll be surprised by how many people go, ‘Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! I think I can make it.’ So, you don't want to let them off that easy, in that respect.” (36:06—36:54) -Kirk

“It is a great idea to put a patient on hold, especially if you’ve got a lot going on at the front. The patient is trying to tell you something. They're trying to cancel a three-hour appointment, and you’ve got Missy standing right in front of you. You need to give your full attention to the patient that's trying to cancel [the three-hour appointment]. And so, ‘Can I put you on a brief hold so I can give you my full attention?’ is a great way to say you're going to go to the consult room and you're going to address this privately. And you also don't want Missy to hear what you're going to be saying to the patient, for a lot of different reasons.” (36:59—37:27) -Kirk

“If we have really specific systems — so, specific is terrific. Vague is the plague. That's what we say around ACT — that helps to create confidence and support your administrative team from day one to know, ‘What do we say up here? How do we manage cancellations? What's the most important thing that I collect from a data standpoint for new patients in this practice? What are the different ways new patients come in?’ We have all of that documented and systemized so that they feel supported from the very beginning, and it's not left up to interpretation, in the same way that we develop those loose scripts, and we pass that along to those new team members as well as part of their onboarding so that they know the way in which we conversate around these things with patients. It’s great to even have some recorded calls that are awesome that they can listen to to get an idea of what we expect things to sound like on the phone. And devise a plan for skills practice and interactive exercises. Role playing is another way to say that, and people sometimes don't like to do that. But the more comfortable you get handling a challenging question with your teammate in a practice scenario, the more confident you're going to be. When that person is actually on the phone, on the other end of the line, you know exactly what to do and what to say because you practiced it time and time again.” (37:49—39:05) -Miranda

“I'm a huge, firm believer in skills practice and having specific scenarios, keeping a list of the things that you struggle with the most, bring it to a team meeting, calibrate together. It's the same concept — I'm a sports person. I played volleyball. I'm not going to get as many kills in a game if I haven't gone practice, after practice, after practice perfecting my approach and my arm swing. I'm not going to handle a new patient phone call as well if I haven't practiced the different objections or questions that might come up during a new patient call. If we practice handling an irate caller, my teammate decides they're going to call and be upset about something, I'm going to get a lot less emotionally flooded when it happens in real life if I've had an opportunity to work through some of those feelings and questions ahead of time, and I feel more prepared when it’s game time.” (40:58—41:54) -Miranda

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction.

0:44 Solutions for when patients say, “I can't find a ride.”

3:00 Tell patients, “I am here to help you.”

4:53 Systems for patient data management.

6:38 Ask patients, “Is there anything else I should know?”

7:58 Q&A: How to talk to patients about insurance you don't accept.

12:05 Systems for follow-through.

14:59 Systems for commitment and confirmation.

18:55 “Fully committed” versus “Doctor is on vacation”.

22:43 Systems for reducing cancellations.

24:18 Systems for handling difficult calls.

28:52 Systems for navigating cancellation calls.

37:33 Ways to support new team members.

40:23 Simulate scenarios with your team.

42:44 Evaluate your own calls.

44:49 Q&A: Should you fill a block one day before?

46:21 Q&A: Reschedule appointments for sick patients.

46:30 Q&A: What to do for common no-show patients.

47:01 Q&A: Is there a self-evaluation sheet template?

47:56 More about the Best Practices Association.

50:02 Last thoughts.

Miranda Beeson, MS, BSDH Bio:

Miranda Beeson, MS, BSDH, has over 25 years of clinical dental hygiene, front office, practice administration, and speaking experience. She is enthusiastic about communication and loves helping others find the power that words can bring to their patient interactions and practice dynamics. As a Lead Practice Coach, she is driven to create opportunities to find value in experiences and cultivate new approaches.

Miranda graduated from Old Dominion University, and enjoys spending time with her husband, Chuck, and her children, Trent, Mallory, and Cassidy. Family time is the best time, and is often spent on a golf course, a volleyball court, or spending the day boating at the beach.