How can patient feedback help in improving your healthcare practice?
by Growth Plug
The profession of healthcare is a vast one. It has various streams with its individual line of work, dedicated to catering to specific needs of patients. However, if you’re a doctor or a dentist, how would you know that you’re doing a good job? How would you make sure that your patients are completely happy and satisfied with the treatment? Confusing, isn’t it?
According to a study, 67% of patients do not revert back to their doctor about how effective the treatment was. About 23% of them seek treatment from a different doctor as they weren’t satisfied with the treatment given by the previous one. What could be the solution to this issue?
Well, it is impossible to find out whether the treatment you have given has had any effect on the patient or not, without asking for their unfiltered feedback! Feedback is critical for physicians to understand how their patients perceive them.
A major fraction of patients say that they wouldn’t be comfortable expressing their dissatisfaction with the treatment to their doctors. This would help neither of them. It screams out that the two most important things in a doctor-patient relationship are ‘Giving feedback’ and ‘Receiving it’! Such is the importance of feedback in any business that involves customer satisfaction.
Why is Feedback Important?
Here are some of the ways by which feedbacks prove to be essential to every doctor who wishes to improve his/her quality of treatment and interaction with patients:
Feedback helps understand patient needs
Feedback plays a major role in improving the quality of treatment. Having a clear picture of what the patients expect from you and whether or not you have delivered them are the two main reasons why you should seek patient feedback.
There could be several aspects that the patient would expect from you, but is not entirely comfortable disclosing, such as,
- The quality of treatment
- The level of comfort in your practice
- Financial and billing aspects
- Doctor-patient interaction
- Disclosing the exact physical condition for which they seek medical attention
Without knowing what your patient likes and dislikes, there is no way you’ll be able to implement the required changes and make your treatment techniques better. Always remember one thing; patient satisfaction is of utmost importance to ensure their retention and also in new patient acquisition.
Patient feedback can massively boost your online reputation
Imagine yourself to be a patient with a severe back ache. You’ll browse the internet for ‘Best doctor to treat back ache’ in the area of your dwelling. Your search engine would display a list of doctors based on the best online reviews and ratings. Meaning, that doctors with a higher rating are displayed first compared to the ones with a lower rating. This is where online reviews and ratings become important in boosting your online reputation.
Positive online reviews can help you in attracting new patients, as well as retaining your existing ones. On the contrary, negative reviews have the potential to ruin your business completely. It can deter prospective patients from seeking medical help from you.
According to a study, about 85% of patients trust online reviews as much as they trust a personal recommendation from a friend or a relative. This proves that it is essential for patients who are satisfied with your treatment to share their experiences and rating on online platforms. This would help increase your popularity, which would, in turn, attract more patients to your practice. Once all of this is working in a virtuous cycle, healthcare practices will see increased revenue and growth.
Feedback helps you connect better with your patient
As a doctor, it is important to establish a mental connection with your patient. It is one of the surest ways to ensure patient retention. Feedback need not necessarily be in the form of online reviews. Asking your patients about their satisfaction with the treatment, making sure their medical condition has been dealt with, following up with them even after the treatment, having casual talks with them during the treatment and making sure they relax, etc. will help you establish a good mental connection with them.
Feedback improves the quality of treatment
This is perhaps the best thing about receiving feedback. Doctors and dentists have a very small window where they can try and connect with their patients, understand their medical conditions and address their needs. In certain situations, this won’t be possible due to time constraints and busy schedules.
In such cases, you won’t be able to adequately interact with the patients and ensure their satisfaction, find out if the patients’ medical conditions were solved, if the patients felt you rushed through the treatment procedure if there was anything you could do to better your treatment procedure, etc.
Hence, make sure he/she gives you honest feedback. It can either be in-office or online. This way, you’ll know what improvements you can make to the way you treat and handle them. Providers should always be striving to specifically understand how their performance impacts how patients perceive the quality of care given.
Feedback creates an open communication platform
As stated above, most patients are not comfortable with disclosing their feedback directly to their physician. Sometimes, they could also have feedback about the support staff working in the facility. Feedback acts as a channel where patients can express their views about every aspect related to the office and also the staff.
This provides an opportunity for continuous improvement of yourself as well as the supporting staff in your office. Discuss the feedback with everyone concerned and make sure the changes are made. The best strategy to stay relevant is to build a culture of open communication amongst staff of all levels and continuous improvement where any idea that might benefit the practice is debated.
When it comes to feedback, negative feedback will be more helpful to you and your practice than positive feedback. It offers huge scope for improvement and lets you know what changes can be made to offer a better patient experience. Feedback is the only foolproof way for physicians to truly become patient-centric.
- Published in مقالات
5 Dental Email Marketing Ideas That Work Exceptionally Well
by GrowthPlug
Every dentist knows how important it is to stay in touch with their patients. Email marketing is a great way to connect with your patients and promote the services you offer. It’s also an excellent method for acquiring new patients. With that in mind, we’ve compiled some email ideas and strategies that will help you reach out to your audience more effectively!
1. Reminders and confirmations
New technologies in the dental field are always evolving and changing, which is why it may be time to think outside of the box when sending appointment reminders. A recent study has found that adding personalization to an email appointment reminder increases the chance of attendance. Your patients will appreciate a little extra effort in their inboxes on occasion, and you can offer them something new as well by including videos about oral hygiene tips such as flossing or how to keep teeth white between cleanings.
2. Dedicated emails
Image source: Lady Lake Smiles
How often do you send promo emails to your list? Dedicated emails are promotional messages that highlight a single promotion or offer to encourage people to take advantage of the deal. An example would be an offer for a free whitening treatment, which is perfect for dormant patients who haven’t been in a while and want new memories before they share them on social media.
3. Newsletters
Image source: White and Healthy
Newsletters are a great way to keep in contact with your patients and make them feel like they’re part of the family. Newsletters should be sent out about once per quarter, though this is largely dependent on how many new procedures you offer or if there was anything major is going on that year. If not, then it can be every other month or as infrequently as once every six months. The key here is to stay consistent, so people know when their next newsletter will arrive.
Some ideas for newsletters include:
- A dental news update
- Tips & tricks for maintaining oral health at home
4. Lead nurturing emails
Lead nurturing emails are sent to prospective patients and differ from dedicated ones. The goal is to inform readers about your healthcare practice and convince them that it’s the right place for their dental care needs. These carefully timed sequences usually come attached with a free offer – such as a cleaning or consultation session.
5. New blog distribution
Blogs are a great way to broadcast your latest content. Emails announcing new blog posts may then be sent as frequently as you’d like but are commonly sent weekly, bi-weekly or monthly when there is more than one piece of content in different categories for patients to enjoy. However, you should ensure that the blogs are relevant and cater specifically to what type of buyer persona is receiving them – keeping these things in mind will ensure success as opposed to time-wasted crafting messages no one wants.
The Bottom Line
If you want to maximize your chances of success with email marketing for your healthcare practice, it’s important that you maintain a regular presence online.
And don’t forget about branding! The more often someone sees your name and logo, the better they’ll know who is behind those messages—which means higher retention rates for patients over time.
- Published in مقالات
3D Printed Crown Lengthening and Reduction Guide
Dr. Faraj Edher and Ms. Ariana Aram
INTRODUCTION
Digital workflows are becoming more popular in dentistry, offering benefits such as improving communication, aesthetic planning, patient education, efficiency, and predicting treatment outcomes.1-4 Intraoral scanners and computer-aided design (CAD) tools allow for the development of virtual diagnostic files and 3D printed models. Past studies have shown that digital impressions are equally as accurate as conventional impressions.5-9 Three-dimensional printed guides have been used in dentistry for a variety of indications, including implant placements, oral surgery, endodontics, and orthodontics.10
This case highlights an innovative technique utilizing a digital workflow to improve the efficiency and predictability of treatment outcomes. Virtual smile design and CAD were utilized to fabricate a 3D printed guide that acted as both a preparation reduction guide and a gingivectomy guide.
| Figure 1. Patient’s smile at consultation visit. |
CASE REPORT
A patient presented with a chief complaint of a fractured veneer on her maxillary right central incisor and expressed overall dissatisfaction with her 10-year-old porcelain veneers on both maxillary central incisors. She disliked the short and square-shaped appearance of the teeth and the black triangle between them.
Clinical examination confirmed the fractured veneer, in addition to a space in the midline interdental region and a larger-than-ideal width-to-height ratio for both central incisors (Figure 1). Additionally, there was staining on the left central incisor veneer margins on both veneers.
| Figure 2. Keynote smile design (template and treatment visualization). | Figure 3. Virtual wax-up and gingivectomy planning. |
Treatment Planning
The different treatment options were discussed with the patient, which included gingivoplasty of the maxillary central incisors to improve the width-to-height ratio and subsequent placement of new veneers on the centrals. Alternative options included orthodontic treatment and increasing the width-to-height proportions of the adjacent anterior teeth. These options were presented, and the patient decided to proceed with gingivoplasty and new porcelain veneers.
| Figure 4. Reduction and crown lengthening guide design. |
Clinical Protocol
During the consultation visit, the dimensions and aesthetics of the central incisors were visualized directly on the patient’s photograph through the use of virtual smile design. Figure 2 shows how applications such as Keynote or PowerPoint can be used chairside to show patients potential treatment designs and outcomes during the consultation visit. Such a platform allows the dentist to superimpose a template that can be adjusted to the patient’s anatomy. For this case, the template was used to elongate the crown height and reduce the black triangle between the centrals. The incisal edges were maintained in their original positions. The design was reviewed and approved by the patient. In this case, the virtual design allowed us to communicate to the patient the width-to-height ratio challenge for the central incisors and the interdental space in the midline.
The software also aids in communicating with the lab regarding the proposed design for the teeth (Figure 2). For simpler cases, this technique can be an effective and efficient way to initially visualize treatment options. More complex cases, such as full-arch rehabilitations, may necessitate more sophisticated virtual smile design software.
During the consultation, an intraoral scanner (TRIOS [3Shape]) was used to create digital models. The lab could then use the digital models to plan the new, ideal position of the gingival margins and create a virtual wax-up for the central incisors (Figure 3).
| Figure 5. A 3D printed crown lengthening guide and reduction guide. | Figure 6. Comparison of the initial smile design to the final veneers. |
A reduction and crown lengthening guide was designed virtually and 3D printed (Form2 [Formlabs]) (Figure 4). The 3D printed guide was used to ensure a precise gingivectomy procedure using a soft-tissue laser (Waterlase [BIOLASE]). The old veneers were removed, and the 3D printed guide was used to assess the amount of additional reduction needed to achieve the required prosthetic space for the new veneers (Figure 5).
After the gingivectomy and preparation were completed, a final digital impression was taken and sent to the lab for fabrication of the lithium disilicate veneers based on the virtual wax-up. The patient was then seen for bonding the veneers to the teeth. Figure 6 shows the close resemblance of the initial virtual smile design to the final veneers.
CONCLUSION
The benefits of using virtual smile design technology are multifold: communication, predictability, and efficiency. When patients are able to visualize potential treatment options in the context of their own smiles during consultation visits, they are more engaged in their care and more confident that their goals are aligned with those of their clinicians. Having such information from the consultation gives patients more opportunity to ask questions earlier on in the process when changes are simpler to make. Digital technology also enhances communication between the clinician and the lab technician. Using digital technology in innovative ways allows for more predictable clinical outcomes and improved efficiency of treatment.
- Published in مقالات