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Home>Business Resource Center >Industry Solutions >Dental

Use this section to keep up with news on topics impacting your profession. Subject areas include practice management, staffing, patient relations and much more. Besides culling these articles from leading news sources nationwide, we update them on a regular basis.

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• Videos Help Reduce Patients’ Fear of Dental Injections
  

  By Donna Domino, Features Editor, Dr. Bicuspid

  A computerized video tool designed to reduce fear of dental injections has the potential to help patient stop avoiding dental care due to fear, according to a new study in a supplement of the Journal of Dental Research.

  A quarter of adults report a clinically significant fear of dental injections, and 1 in 20 say they avoid dental treatment due to such fears, according to the study authors, from the University of Washington School of Dentistry.

  “While systematic desensitization is the most common therapeutic method for treating specific phobias such as fear of dental injections, lack of access to trained therapists, as well as dentists’ lack of training and time in providing such a therapy, means that most fearful individuals are not able to receive the therapy needed to be able to receive necessary dental treatment,” the researchers wrote.

  To address this issue, they turned to a computerized treatment approach: computer-assisted relaxation learning (CARL), which uses systematic desensitization to reduce dental injection fear. Through a series of two- to four-minute video segments, CARL introduces cognitive and physical coping strategies. The patient is then shown a model successfully managing anxiety while being presented with increasingly invasive aspects of a dental injection.

  This dentist-blind, parallel-group study, conducted in eight U.S. sites, compared CARL with an informational pamphlet in reducing fear of dental injections. It is the first randomized control trial of a computerized treatment for dental injection fear, according to the authors. Previous research has shown that CARL effectively reduced dental injection fear after program completion and at one-year follow-up.

  The researchers used newspaper ads to recruit people who reported fear and avoidance of dental injections. The ads ran in the communities of eight participating dental practices from February 2008 through June 2010. After arriving at the assigned dental office, participants received study information from a dental staff member, then completed three surveys about anxiety and fears regarding dentists and needles on a computer.

  A total of 68 participants completed the study. Half viewed the CARL videos and half were given pamphlets with information about patient comfort, topical and local anesthetics, and postoperative pain management. Of the 34 CARL participants, 12 (35.3%) subsequently got injections, while 6 (17.6%) of those who read the pamphlets received injections.

  Only 26% of participants who completed the study returned for an optional dental injection. Due to the small overall proportion of participants who got injections, the study was not able to fully assess the primary outcome of self-reported anxiety during injection and so did not achieve statistical significance, the researchers noted.

  However, participants who viewed CARL reported significantly greater reduction in self-reported general and injection-specific dental anxiety measures compared with control patients (p < 0.001). While twice as many people who saw the video subsequently opted to get a dental injection, it was not statistically significant.

  “CARL ... was successful in reducing self-reported dental fear related to dental injections compared with an informational standard of care,” the researchers concluded. “Since CARL does not require involvement by trained therapists or special training for dentists, it may increase access to this therapeutic approach to a wider proportion of the population, improving access to dental care and better oral health.”

  Source: DrBicuspid.com, June 13, 2013 (http://www.drbicuspid.com)

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• Dental Practice Marketing Firm Reveals Strategy to get New Patients from Internet
  

  By Chris Forsey

  Dental practice marketing company, Learner Park, released the details of 5 critical elements that a dentist should have as part of their online marketing strategy in order to get a steady stream of new patients from the internet.

  NEWS RELEASE

  (Newswire.net) Salt Lake City, Utah - The 5 components that makeup the core strategy of what Learner Park now provides to its clients, can be used by any dental office to create a steady stream of new patients from those who are actually looking for a dentist online.

  “With the yellow page era behind us, technology has changed the way consumers look for a new dentist,” said Phil Forsey, lead consultant at Learner Park. “Almost everyone now uses search engines on computers and smart phones. And because 89% of consumers don’t look past the first page, dental practice marketing has become extremely more competitive. If your marketing strategy doesn’t keep up with search algorithm changes, reputation reviews, and consumer offer trends, your practice will struggle.”

  “There’s a lot of talk, out there,” Forsey said, “but only a handful of firms really know what they’re doing”

  Here are the five critical elements that will have the biggest impact and should be a major part of a dental practice marketing strategy in order to get a steady flow of patients from the internet.

  1. Irresistible Offers: Groupon proved to the world that an irresistible offer gets people in the door. If you don’t have a hard-to-resist offer front and center on your website, the visitor you paid good money to get there just left.
  2. Reputation Marketing: Everyone reads reviews. As part of your dental practice marketing you should be monitoring and actively cultivating your online reputation. One bad review can cost a dentist thousands of dollars. A lack of good reviews can have the same effect.
  3. Pay Per Click: Once a good offer is in place and you have control of your reputation, a properly set-up pay-per-click campaign will constantly and profitably generate new patients IMMEDIATELY, as soon as the very next day.
  4. Search Engine Positioning: Now that you’re generating patients immediately with your pay-per-click campaign the next goal of your dental practice marketing is to get found in the organic and maps section. This is done with a consistent monthly search engine optimization effort. Aggressive efforts by Google to ensure the best search results means this will take a while, but will give your dental practice marketing and your practice itself long term stability and equity on the internet.
  5. Dynamic Call Tracking: Highly complex call tracking is now available and can tell a business exactly how every new customer found them right down to the keyword they typed into the search engine. This makes the entire difference in being able to hold your marketing dollars accountable and allocating them to the most profitable campaigns.

  According to Forsey, these 5 elements are critical for any dental office serious about getting more than enough new patients from the internet.

  Source: Newswire.Net, May 23, 2013 (http://www.newswire.net)

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• Sheri’s Solutions: How To Find And Hire New Employees
  

  By Sheri B. Doniger, DDS

  How do you hire? Do you have a set procedure, or do you leave most of the hiring to a current team member to implement? As a team leader and the CEO of your practice, it is wise to have a protocol in place for when you need to either add or replace current employees.

  The new employee acquisition always begins with an advertisement. Our newest friend to the office appears to be Craigslist. For a mere $25 (greater Chicago cost quote), you can place an ad without the costly price of print. Historically, we placed ads in the local newspaper with limited circulation. We had to submit our content “on time” or our ad would be relegated to the next issue, which potentially would be a week later. Craigslist has immediacy, and Craigslist reaches the same (if not wider) audience you are looking to reach.

  When seeking a new employee, it is important to be concise, honest, and clear in your ad. Listing hours, duties, and the particular work and education experience the job requires is paramount. This may seem perfunctory, but you would be surprised how many ads I have seen with a very minimalist look. How do people find you? How do prospective employees know what you expect if the position isn’t well-defined in your listing?

  Be honest. If you are only looking for part time, say it. If you are not looking for seasonal help, explain it. We will say, “Serious inquiries for permanent part-time employment only (not temporary or summer employment). Please respond via email. Please forward salary requirements along with resume.”

  One other item we include is salary expectation. If you have a ballpark idea of what the applicant has in mind for the position and if it is way out of line from your potential starting salary, this may give you pause for a follow-up screening email.

  Keep records of your advertisements. If you found the perfect employee with one specific set of words, try utilizing it again. With a service such as Craigslist, they retain all your classifieds, so all you have to do is some minor edits and you are ready to go.

  As with any application online, you have the ability to retain anonymity. Responses may be emailed to a blind email address, if you choose not to have your contact information out there. Some offices may be attempting to hire a new employee in anticipation of terminating another one. I once heard that an office received a resume from one of its current employees for a new position with what the person thought was a different dental office!

  After your online ad is posted, responses do come in. It is telling as to which person actually read the advertisement and who is merely sending out responses to all in a certain type of category. It is also interesting if respondents send a cover letter, include one in their email, or merely send a copy of their resume.

  Although we are quite specific in our ads, we still receive inquiries from all sorts of folks. With this economy, we recently had responses to a job posting from college grads in communications and economics -- all stating they wanted to change their career to dentistry. Some said they were seeking a dental assisting position to get more experience prior to beginning dental hygiene courses in the fall or as a preamble to dental school.

  One person actually responded, “Your search is over! You can stop looking! I am the perfect candidate.” Although our advertisement stated “experience in dental required,” this candidate went on to state his attributes: health advocate, trainer, mixed martial arts, nonsmoker. A perfect fit for some position, perhaps, but not for ours.

  With these applicants, they truly did not read the requirements set forth in the advertisement. Think about reading instructions for, oh, let’s say, a new bonding material. Reading and following directions are highly sought-after skills in a dental office.

  Once you have a pool of potential applicants, screen carefully. If you wanted “experienced” and no one qualified applied, decide if you are willing to train someone. Does this person have any translatable skills? Does this person appear to be heading in a different career direction and your position is merely a space holder with a paycheck? Finally, do you start your search over again? These are all questions you have to consider in the new-employee search. Most of these things depend on how quickly you need a new team member.

  When you find the perfect group of applicants, you should contact them via email or phone to do further screening and decide if you want to set up an in-person interview. Do you need to respond to all applicants at this point? That is a matter of personal preference.

  Placing the appropriate advertisement for team members is the first step in a new employee acquisition. This is one of the key components in a truly effective search for the perfect team member. It may be frustrating and stress-inducing to hire a new employee, but having procedures and a policy in place will make the process a little easier.

  Sheri B. Doniger, DDS, practices clinical dentistry in Lincolnwood, IL. She has served as an educator in several dental and dental hygiene programs, has been a consultant for a major dental benefits company, and has written for several dental publications. Most recently, she was the editor of Woman Dentist Journal and Woman Dentist eJournal. You can reach her at donigerdental@aol.com.

  Source: Dr. Bicuspid, May 10, 2013 (http://www.drbicuspid.com)

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• Why Social Media Is A Powerful Marketing Tool For Your Practice
  

  By Glenn Lombardi

  Like it or not, social media platforms such as Facebook and Google+ have become mainstream communication tools for businesses. Never before has connecting and sharing real-time information with like-minded users been so easy, fast, and effective. Now, well into 2013, new trends in social media are opening doors to even greater exposure for dental practices.

  Most dentists today know they need to use social media as a major player in their marketing strategy. They’re just not completely confident in how to incorporate it effectively. Here are a few ways your practice can benefit from embracing social media as a critical part of its marketing plan.

  Your patients use social media

  A plain and simple fact is that your patients are participating in the social sphere every day to connect with their friends and the businesses they love. According to a study by Pew Research, 69% of online adults were using social networking sites as of August 2012. More than 625,000 people join Google+ every day. As of October 2012, there were more than one billion monthly active Facebook users.

  For many, logging into Facebook or sending a Tweet is second nature, a part of their daily routine that lets them share and learn from other users with just the click of their mouse or a tap of their phone. For dentists, it’s a powerful vehicle that can encourage interaction with existing and potential patients. Bottom line: Your patients are online, and therefore your practice needs to be online, too.

  Social is now mobile

  Mobile usage is accelerating the growth of social media, as more people find and consume information on smartphones and tablets. A survey by Google revealed that 60% of U.S. smartphone users in 2012 said they visited mobile social networks daily. This is up from 54% in 2011. According to Facebook, 604 million monthly active users were using Facebook mobile platforms at the end of last year.

  This means that a growing number of mobile users will have even more opportunities to connect with your practice more frequently. Now any content you share on your social media sites can easily be consumed and shared by patients and their contacts on the fly. Don’t forget to optimize the content you share, such as blogs and service information, for mobile devices to ensure optimal readability across all types of web-based devices.

  Social media expands your reach

  Finally, since dentists thrive off of word-of-mouth referrals, your practice cannot pass up the opportunity to get even more patients from the newest version of word-of-mouth -- social media. Social media is a great tool for connecting with your existing patients, and so naturally, it’s also a highly effective platform for reaching new patients and generating referrals. That’s because all of your fans and followers have their connections -- many hundreds of followers within their networks.

  So if one of your Facebook followers (a current patient) with 200 friends shares one of your Facebook posts with his or her contacts, your one post has now reached those 200 people. Here’s the viral effect. Suddenly, you have thousands of people visiting your Facebook page and website. These are people who otherwise would have never seen it. The more content you create and share, the more likely others in your network will share your information, acknowledge you as an expert in dentistry, and hopefully, seek you for their dental health care.

  As you seek new and improved ways to interact with patients and make new connections with prospects, make sure social media is playing a vital role in your marketing mix. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other popular sites are growing. Without your unique social presence, you will miss out on a powerful opportunity to grow your practice via online word-of-mouth.

  Proper and consistent use of social media is the key, and building a strong following is not an overnight occurrence. It takes time. Work with your website provider or an expert in social media for dentists to avoid common missteps and integrate a solid social media plan with your website that yields powerful results.

  Glenn Lombardi is president of Officite, LLC, a provider of dental websites and Internet marketing strategies, including social media, search marketing, reputation management, and mobile websites. Officite has built thousands of websites that have generated more than a half million new patient appointment requests since 2002.

  Source: DE, Dental Economics, April 26, 2013 (http://www.dentaleconomics.com)

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• Dental Franchises Show Steady Growth
  

  Great Expressions Dental Centers, which has 200 offices nationwide, is one example.

  By Tom Walsh, Detroit Free Press

  DETROIT - At some 60 Great Expressions dental offices in Michigan - and 140 more nationwide - the profits from filling cavities and getting braces for the kids ultimately help to fund the retirement of hundreds of thousands of municipal workers in Canada.

  Great Expressions Dental Centers, founded in Michigan and headquartered in Bloomfield Hills, is an impressive growth story, with about $275 million in annual revenue and a spot on Inc. magazine’s list of America’s fastest-growing private companies. About 600 of the firm’s 2,300 employees, including dentists and hygienists, are in Michigan.

  That growth is being fueled by a fast-moving industry trend toward consolidation of dental practices.

  Indeed, the Great Expressions track record was so attractive that OMERS Private Equity, a unit of the giant $55 billion Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, bought a controlling interest in Great Expressions in October 2011. The return on OMERS’ investments is what pays for the pensions of about 420,000 Canadians.

  Rich Beckman, CEO of Great Expressions since 1998 when the firm had about 25 offices, said the evolving business model and growth strategy allows dentists and hygienists to focus full-time on patient care, while businesspeople like him handle the financial and administrative aspects of running a complex, highly regulated health care enterprise.

  “We accept all insurance plans. We want to be the patients’ dentist for life, we want them to come to us for all their family care, their kids’ braces, and we do that by trying to have reasonable prices,” Beckman said.

  Great Expressions is one of about 20 large dental service organizations (DSOs) in the U.S., doing a combined $6 billion to $7 billion worth of dentistry, Beckman said. That’s still only a small slice of a fragmented, $110 billion-a-year industry.

  This corporate intrusion into a field long dominated by solo practitioners is not without some controversy. Some Internet sites are peppered with gripes that DSOs pressure dental staffs to boost patient volumes, and a few large DSOs outside Michigan have been accused of performing expensive, unnecessary procedures on children covered by Medicaid.

  Beckman said any undue pressure on dentists and hygienists to rush through appointments or do unnecessary procedures to boost revenue would be counterproductive by destroying long-term family loyalty to the brand.

  Mert Asku, dean of the school of dentistry at the University of Detroit Mercy, said several factors are driving the trend toward corporate consolidation in dentistry:

  The industry is graduating fewer students.

  A growing number of those new dentists are women, 34% of whom don’t practice full-time during the first 20 years of their careers.

  Back office complexity related to billing, insurance and regulation is ever-increasing.

  The rising cost of education means newly minted dentists are graduating with $200,000 to $250,000 of education debt at a time when the credit crisis has made financing more difficult for a solo practice.

  “Great Expressions,” Asku said, “hires a lot of our alums, because they are practice-ready when they graduate.”

  Dr. Walter Knysz Jr., a University of Detroit grad, founded Great Expressions in 1982 and sold the last of his stake in the 2011 OMERS deal. Last year, he founded a new entity, Unified Smiles, also based in Bloomfield Hills, to provide various support services to independent dental practices.

  For Beckman, the goal at Great Expressions is to keep growing annual revenue to about $500 million, mostly by acquisition. He has about 15 company-built stores, including a new location in Midtown Detroit.

  And why build there? “I wanted a location here as soon as I heard Whole Foods was coming to the area,” Beckman said, referring to the market slated to open in June. “We want to be part of what’s going on here in Detroit.”

  Just as he wants to keep taking the business model on the road, to Great Expressions locations in Florida, Georgia, New York and other frontiers.

  Source: USA Today, April 7, 2013 (http://www.usatoday.com)

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• Dental Practice Offers Same-Day Appointments
  

  By Cindy V. Culp

  A Bellmead dental practice trying to build its business is finding success with a promise to provide a same-day appointment to anyone who contacts the office before noon.

  Acre Wood Dental, 4000 Bellmead Drive, has been open since 2011. But in the past few months the practice has begun a concerted advertising push to attract new patients, marketing director Dan Johnson said.

  The office decided to try out the idea of same-day appointments after finding no other dentist in the area makes that promise, Johnson said. Since many of its first-time patients were already people needing immediate dental help, the idea seemed promising, he said.

  "When people are in pain, they want relief fast," Johnson said.

  The same-day appointment promise keeps the clinic ’s scheduling clerk busy, Johnson said. But so far, the practice has been able to manage. Occasionally, its two dentists must work late, but they are willing to do that, he said.

  In fact, the clinic has extended its hours to 7 p.m. two nights per week after repeated requests from patients for appointment times after the end of the workday, Johnson said.

  Another approach the clinic has tried is giveaway drawings for items such as an iPad. It has also ramped up postings on Facebook to target younger customers. All of that has been done with the help of a Georgia-based consulting company that focuses on the dental market, he said.

  "Most dentists do typical phone book advertising," Johnson said. "But we understand that for us to grow, we have to go outside of that. You have to be willing to spend some money to make some money."

  So far, the practice has been pleased with the campaign ’s results, Johnson said. It is getting more than 30 new patients a week and plans to open a second location in Temple soon, he said.

  Dr. Ben Johnson, one of the dentists at the practice and the brother of its marketing director, said marketing is increasingly discussed at professional conferences.

  In years past, dentists tended to view marketing as beneath them. They were content to get new business from referrals, believing enough patients would materialize if they offered quality service, he said.

  But younger dentists are more open to advertising, said Ben Johnson, who graduated from dental school in 2009. He attributes that to the profession becoming more business savvy and to the fact that dental education has become more expensive.

  "Twenty years ago, you could buy a practice and afford the type of slow growth that comes from referrals," Johnson said. "Now, someone coming out of school may have $400,000 of debt and that ’s before they buy a practice for $500, 000," he said.

  Dr. Scott Stafford, program director for professional development curriculum at the dental school at UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, offered a similar perspective. A bigger debt load can cause young dentists to need more patients. Plus, solo and small practices increasingly have to compete against chain dental practices, which tend to be good at marketing, he said.

  "It is kind of a changing landscape out there," Stafford said.

  Dental schools are bulking up course offerings related to the business side of dental practice to help address the changes, Stafford said.

  But many dentists are still more comfortable with sticking to patient care, so hiring marketing consultants has become a trend, he said.

  "They don ’t want to just throw money out there," Stafford said. "They are looking for a return on investment."

  One longtime local dentist who has embraced some of the newer marketing trends is Dr. Donna Miller, who owns Creekwood Dental Arts in Woodway. She has practiced here for 27 years and has always done some advertising, such as in local publications, she said.

  But during the past few years, Miller ’s practice has put a lot of energy into its website and waded into social media. Employees are involved with those efforts, but they are led by a consultant, she said.

  "The dental market is pretty tight right now, so you have to try to get your name out there," Miller said.

  The practice has gotten a good response from its Web page, Miller said. Its Facebook page has also gotten a fair amount of activity, in part because of contests that have offered prizes like a Sonicare toothbrush, she said.

  Still, Miller said, she ’s not convinced such efforts are the best way to generate a stream of new patients.

  "The best referrals are still from another patient, someone who has been there and knows what it ’s like, versus advertising," she said.

  Source: WacoTrib.com, Central Texas, March 15, 2013 (http://www.wacotrib.com)

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