If you’re wondering why I’m discussing personality disorders, I’m not, although sometimes it can seem like I’m dealing with dual personalities. Right now I’m especially discussing large, extremely busy practices where there never seems to be enough time to get everything done. We’ve seen a number of changes in how these practices are run over the years and most of them are really excellent, constructive changes. We are, however, starting to see some less than constructive changes as large dental practices start to mimic large medical practices and insurance companies…and this is where the dual personality comes in.
If we were to sit in the lunch room of these large dental offices for a few days and listen to the conversations I can guarantee you we would hear someone complaining about how it’s impossible to reach a live person at their doctor’s office or at the insurance companies. Everyone, including the doctor, laments the fact that they cannot reach a live person to ask a simple question. They’re routed from choices of # 1, 2, 3 or 4 in a never ending circle that eventually ends with them leaving a message and hoping someone will call them back. It makes everyone absolutely crazy how impersonal and uncaring these offices and companies have become!
Now we switch out of the lunch room and into the office’s monthly staff meeting. Here we listen to the doctor and staff discuss, with great anticipation, the new phone service the office has just purchased to route calls to various staff members and take the phone answering load off everyone’s shoulders. WHAT?? Didn’t we just discuss in the staff lounge how much we loath being on the receiving end of that type of fully automated system? Yet now we want to serve up that exact same system to our patients. This is the dual personality I mentioned earlier….it’s awful if we have to deal with it, but just fine if our patients have to deal with it.
We’ve come so far with automation in our daily lives that now we want to use it to keep our patients from “bothering us.” Not only is this not good patient care, but it’s also a signal to your patients that you’ve become too busy for them and they need to look for another dental office. This is a great thing for the new guy on the block who is getting all your patients, but not so good for you as you see your large patient base dwindling.
I saw a commercial on television recently for a nationally known company with the same actress (just dressed differently) both making the call to the company and answering the call to the company. The commercial’s point was that they would treat you the way you would treat yourself. My point is that the pendulum is beginning to swing in a different direction and automation is no longer being seen as a great convenience by the general public. They want to talk to a real person who will treat them the way they themselves would like to be treated. Sometimes keeping up with the times means keeping up with the pulse of the public just as much as keeping up with technology. You might want to consider getting your dual personality together to keep your single minded patients happy and in the practice.
