Episode summary
How to Get Patients to Say Yes to Treatment
The Dentist Money Show
· · 14 min · Hosts: Christine Uhen
Summary
Christine Uhen argues that practice growth depends on two linked levers: diagnosing enough dentistry and then getting enough of that treatment accepted. She says diagnostics are ultimately the dentist’s responsibility, but the clinical team can strengthen co-diagnostics by helping patients understand what is happening in their mouths through X-rays, images, scans, and aligned case reviews.
Her main point is that case acceptance targets only make sense relative to production goals. If a practice wants $100,000 in monthly production and only accepts 90% of what it diagnoses, it still falls short unless it diagnoses more than $100,000. She recommends tracking the numbers objectively, not by gut feel, and using historical acceptance rates to set a realistic diagnostic target.
For improving acceptance, she emphasizes relationship-building, discovering whether the patient wants aesthetics, function, or health, and framing treatment in language tied to that goal. She also says case acceptance happens at the chair, where the doctor should confidently give an estimate and prepare the team to handle financing and scheduling.
Key takeaways
- Christine Uhen says diagnostics and case acceptance are “very intertwined,” so practices must manage both together, not as separate problems.
- She says the dentist owns official diagnostics, but the team can improve understanding by helping with co-diagnostics through X-rays, images, scans, and case reviews.
- Uhen says the correct diagnostic target depends on the production goal and the historical acceptance rate; if acceptance is 50%, the practice must diagnose about twice the goal.
- She says patients usually want one of three outcomes: aesthetics, function, or health, and treatment should be framed around the outcome they value most.
- Uhen says case acceptance happens at the chair, where the doctor should present the rough cost and let the team handle financing and scheduling.
Notable quotes
“Diagnostics and case acceptance are very intertwined”
“the truth is diagnostics is ultimately the responsibility of the dentist”
“What patients are looking for is one of three things. They're looking for aesthetics, function, or health”
“Case acceptance happens at the chair. That doesn't happen at the front desk”
“you need to wrap up this conversation with a closing line as you're presenting the treatment”
How the episode opens
Hi everybody. I'm Christine Yuan, business strategist with Dennis Adviserss. And I'm back again with part two of our productivity points. And I'm going to add in a third one, too. We're going to do both points two and three, diagnostics and case acceptance. Stay tuned.
Consult an adviser. Conduct your own due diligence when making financial decisions. General principles discussed during this program do not constitute personal advice. This program is furnished by Dennis Adviserss, a registered investment adviser.
Welcome back everybody. I'm happy to be here again. This is Christine Euan, the business strategist with Dennis Adviserss.
And we're moving on in our series of education that we're calling the five points of productivity. Last time we talked a little bit more in detail about the patient base and how at different points in the business, it's important to pay attention to different numbers of how many patients and annual patient value, things like that. We're moving on today to points number two and three.
We're going to do these together. Diagnostics and case acceptance are very intertwined. How much should you have in terms of each statistic?
What's good? What's bad? There's so many different pieces of information.
You've probably read articles that said if you're not at 90% case acceptance, something's going wrong in your business. So, we're going to break down some of this data and hopefully get some clarity for you. So the truth is diagnostics is ultimately the responsibility of the dentist.
Official diagnostics. You're going to have some team members shared their concern or push back with you a little bit about I can't diagnose. I'm not a dentist.
And they're right. They can't officially say what's good or bad or going right or wrong in somebody's mouth. But what they can do is help patients understand what's really going on in their mouth.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- diagnostics
- case acceptance
- patient communication
- treatment acceptance
- cost discussions
Watch the episode
Watch “How to Get Patients to Say Yes to Treatment” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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The Dentist Money Show, this episode and its artwork belong to Dentist Advisors - Financial Planning and Investment Management. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
