Using Dental Software Technology to Overcome Patient Fears

Posted by Rajpatil on July 20th, 2016

That is an enormous opportunity for the dental community. Literally billions of dollars in revenue are sitting on the table. The key question remains: how do you make your practice appealing to these 81 million people?

The first step in answering this is actually another question: Why aren’t people coming to the dentist? One of the primary factors is dental anxiety. While it is impossible to guarantee a 100% pain-free dental experience for everyone, there are measures dentists can take to help ease patients’ fears.

When thinking of the most intimidating Dental Software tools, you don’t need to look any further than the anesthetic syringe and the drill. No patient loves getting local anesthetic injections.  Even stoic patients who don't fear "the shot" don't love that lingering numb feeling.  Given that the noise alone is enough to make some patients go running for the hills, minimizing the use of the hand piece provided another obvious opportunity for me to improve my patients’ experiences.

Patients were beginning to hear about erbium dental lasers and associate them with less painful procedures, so in 2008 I decided to add one to my practice. I soon had some startling realizations about the limitations of the technology. First, the analgesic effect wasn’t consistent and second, procedures took significantly longer with the laser which reduced efficiency in the practice. Due to this lack of predictability, I was using the dental laser on less than half of the hard-tissue procedures in my practice.

I didn’t want to ‘bait and switch’ my patients by promising them an experience I couldn’t regularly deliver, so eventually I limited operative use to small carious lesions.  Over time, I realized that if the laser didn’t meet patients’ expectations, it would erode the trust I’ve built, reduce the number of patient referrals, and therefore, my practice’s growth.

Unique wavelength enables me to deliver virtually anesthesia-free and blood-free procedures to more than 90 percent of my patients. Removing the drill’s noise, sensation and requisite numbness has allowed me to virtually reinvent the patient experience at my office. With production and patient referrals have significantly increased. Not only are people less afraid of coming into my office, but I’m also able to perform multi-quadrant dentistry in a single visit because the dental laser doesn’t require me to use anesthesia in the majority of my procedures.

Source: http://www.dentalcompare.com/Featured-Articles/176059-Using-Dental-Technology-to-Overcome-Patient-Fears/