1. GETTING THE MOST OUT OF
YOUR PATIENT INTERACTIONS
It has now been well established in the dental profession that the use of patient education has many benefits – among
them, increased case acceptance, saved time, consistently explained procedures in nontechnical language, development
of patient trust and confidence, and help with informed consent.
In many practices, multimedia presentations have become the preferred method of patient education delivery because the
information is presented in a visually interesting way, which makes the information even more useful since we all learn
and remember information better when we see as well as hear it.
And multimedia patient education’s effectiveness is heightened when used with an intraoral camera or digital radiography
so your patient can see the current situation as well as a solution, and thereby becomes a partner in the decision-making
process instead of feeling that he or she is being “sold” on a procedure.
All and all, multimedia patient education is an effective tool in the case presentation room, operatory, and reception area.
And…
Patient education can also be used as an effective marketing tool – to reinforce a treatment plan in the home, to promote
aesthetic and other procedures, and to introduce the possibilities to potential patients.
“Hi, honey, I’m home. We need to spend a couple grand on my mouth.”
Your patient’s spouse may be resistant to the cost of a procedure, even if the patient has a clear understanding of the
procedure and is able to reiterate the necessity for it.
However, if you send your patient home with a written treatment plan and a link to your dental web site that has
multimedia patient education on it, the patient will be able to share this information with family members.
The multimedia patient education becomes an accepted third-party authority and the family is included in the process of
treatment plan follow-through.
“Can you do this for me, too?”
Multimedia patient education can also show your patients additional possibilities of what you can do for them when they
view the other tutorials. There’s a good chance that they will ask you about Veneers or Implants for themselves or their
spouses or Sealants for their children.
This “soft marketing” is even more effective if you have put together your own “Before and After” Smile Gallery so patients
can see the results of your work on others.
“Hello, my name is Doctor…”
Point-and-click multimedia patient education on your web site? Sure, why not? How better to introduce your practice to
prospective patients than by having this featured on your web site. You and your practice will be seen as state-of-the-art,
caring, and open. If you have Internet connectivity in your treatment rooms, the Web-link subscription is a cost-effective
patient education solution. No web site? No problem! DigiDentist will provide a FREE portal for your Web-link
subscription.