What is Your a Practice Purpose?

To more than satisfy patients every day should be the mission and purpose of every patient-centered practice. So in that regard, how are you doing?

The question: “How good are we at executing the Purpose of the practice?” can only be answered by looking at the practice from the OUTSIDE…from the point of view of the patients EXITING your front door.

It is important therefore to remember that what your patients are truly interested in is related to THEIR values, THEIR wants, THEIR experiences with you, THEIR reality – not yours.

No dental practice can be everything to everyone, yet many try and fail. And that is why so many patients leave dental practices unhappy. They do not feel heard, or they feel like their true issues are never being addressed… that every time they return, they feel like they are just being “sold” something else.

Patient-centered practices must begin by answering two questions:

“Who are we trying to serve?” and “How can we best serve them?”

And if you can’t deliver on the second question every day, you don’t have much of a business model – do you?

On the other hand, practices which are highly dependent on insurance don’t need to bother too much with either of these questions. Rather, they should ask: “What do the insurance companies need?” and “How do we deliver to the insurance companies what they want every day so that we get maximal payment from them?”

Where on the continuum between “patient-centered” and “insurance-centered” are you today? And toward which direction are you moving as insurance companies increase their demands and lower their reimbursements?

Paul A Henny, DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, ©2016