Keeping Treatment Recommendations 'Top of Mind'

Most offices that I work with have some form of continuing care system in place to keep their patients active in hygiene. What is often missing is a structured system to keep patients with restorative needs active in the practice. Putting a follow up system in place to track those patients is a critical part of improving your case acceptance process.

When a patient leaves your office, life happens. Your treatment recommendations become a distant memory. They may not even think about your recommendations again until they make their next hygiene appointment. What you need is a solid system to make sure they remember not only your recommendations but also the risks to NOT getting treatment – and I’m not talking about a sticky note system.

You need a systematic approach to following up with patients to ensure that they follow through on getting the treatment they need – just like you do with your hygiene continuing care. This is especially important for patients with restorative procedures that require multiple steps like a root canal. Because we all know that there are risks to not taking that restorative process through to completion. In order to communicate effectively, I recommend that you use a combination of written and verbal communication to kep your treatment recommendations top of mind until the case is completed.