4 Steps You Can Start Now To Increase Case Acceptance
Written by: Scott J. Manning, MBA
Are you one of the many dentists who assumes that your patients know the value of comprehensive dentistry? They do not. This is the main reason patients must “think about” their treatment plans before they give a resounding “Yes!” and follow through. It’s also why your office experiences a financial rollercoaster rather than a steady flow of income each month. The good news is that it’s possible to transform your practice and increase case acceptance with higher-value dentistry by focusing on patient awareness and their perception of value.
How? You start before a patient even walks through the door!
Implement these four critical stages of interaction to increase case acceptance and profitability and turn single visits into long-term relationships:
1. Use Your Pre-Exam to Set the Stage.
Don’t ignore the valuable window of influence before a patient comes into your office for an exam and clinical experience. You must put pre-work into place to build awareness so that patients arrive at your office thinking differently about their oral health. Specifically, instead of a patient coming in for “a quick checkup” or “to fix a tooth,” they arrive primed to have a bigger conversation about their overall health, function, and long-term well-being.
Case acceptance increases when you prepare your patients in advance of their appointment.
To do this, send them videos explaining your comprehensive approach, welcome packets that reinforce the importance of whole-health dentistry, and other documentation that supports your messaging. For example, instead of just saying that you’ll “look at that one tooth” or do a “simple checkup,” you say: “Today, we’re going to assess your overall health. You made a great decision by coming in, and we’re excited to guide you toward your best outcome possible.”
This approach instantly changes the patient’s mindset before you even begin the exam.
2. Expand Vision and Self-Diagnosis During the Clinical Experience.
While your patients don’t understand clinical terminology, they do understand ranking and scales. With this in mind, ask them: “On a scale of 1–10, how healthy do you feel your smile is?” and “What would a 10 look like for you?”
If they say they’re at a 7 or 9, this opens the conversation for you to respond with how you can get them to a 10. From here, you can break their dental health down into other rankings: gum health (1–10), tooth structure and strength (1–10), bite and occlusion (1–10), and smile aesthetics (1–10).
When you involve your patients in their diagnosis, they become invested in the outcome. They notice gaps they are missing and focus on the bigger picture of their overall health. Now, acceptance shifts to the positive.
3. Plan Treatment as a Whole Solution.
Stop presenting treatment in fragments such as one filling today, maybe a crown in a few weeks, or considering ortho “if you’re interested.” This way, patients think of treatment as optional instead of essential, and you kill case acceptance.
Instead, present the full picture upfront with one comprehensive treatment plan, no “optional” visits broken down into separate segments, and a clearly defined path from problem to solution. Most importantly, do not offer price breakdowns by visit. Show patients the total solution and end result, not a piecemeal list of procedures. Then, you break the link between collections and production and eliminate the financial ups and downs that your practice experiences. If done correctly, these outcome-based treatment plans sell themselves. Just help your patients understand the “why,” and the “how” becomes easy.
4. Create Lifelong Patients Post-Visit.
Your job is not finished when you complete treatment. The post-visit experience is the most profitable stage of the patient journey and includes the following:
- Schedule treatment they did not commit to while in the office. You cannot let the patient’s health opportunities go unaddressed.
- Maintain a structured follow-up process. It’s not just a simple checkup on their treatment—you want to reinforce the value of their decision.
- Appreciate and surprise your patients. Make patients feel special and part of the practice with small touches they aren’t expecting.
- Turn happy patients into advocates for your practice with referrals, reviews, and testimonials.
With these extra steps, you build a relationship-based practice (rather than transactional) that delivers sustainable success for you and your patients.
Transform Your Practice by Mastering This Formula.
If you want a thriving practice, don’t diagnose or “present” dentistry. Educate and influence instead. Guide patients through a designed journey from awareness to understanding and from hesitation to action. Lead patients to better health decisions.
Master this, and you’ll see higher case acceptance, profitability, predictability, and control. Your practice will never be the same!
Get your copy of Scott J. Manning, MBA’s new eBook, “Private Practice 2.0, Welcome to the New Era of Dentistry,” at no cost at https://dentalsuccesstoday.com/privatepractice2/.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Recognized by thousands of dentists across North America, Scott Manning is an accomplished author (“The Dental Practice Shift” is the #1 most requested book in dentistry) and a highly sought-after public speaker. For almost two decades, he has dedicated his life to inspiring and motivating dentists worldwide to create wealth and lifestyle-based practices. Today, when he is not sharing his positive messages worldwide, he loves to travel and spend time with his beloved wife Kristen and daughter Saylor. To learn more, visit https://dentalsuccesstoday.com.
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