AADOM DISTINCTIONcast: Treatment Presentation – Making it Easy for Patients to Say Yes to Treatment
Unlock the key to more successful treatment plan presentations! Join us for an insightful session with Brandi Williams, MAADOM, designed to help dental managers empower their teams and encourage patients to say “yes” confidently to treatment.
We’ll explore the common barriers patients face—fear of cost, dental anxiety, lack of trust—and provide practical strategies to overcome them. Learn how to foster open, transparent conversations by simplifying explanations, using visual aids, and training your team to handle financial discussions with ease and empathy.
By addressing these concerns head-on, you’ll build trust, boost case acceptance, and remove the discomfort often associated with financial conversations. With role-playing scenarios, we’ll offer real-time practice to ensure your team is ready to confidently discuss treatment options and flexible payment plans.
Help your patients feel at ease and motivated to move forward with their care! Don’t miss out on this opportunity to transform your treatment presentations.
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Sponsored by: Patterson Dental
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Read the Transcript Now!
Savanah: Welcome to DistinctionCast, where AADOM showcases the best and brightest minds in the dental industry from within our Dental Management Association. I’m Savanah Carlson, Director of Member Services here at AADOM, and thank you for joining us today.
AADOM DistinctionCast is more than just insights into dental management. It is a dynamic platform that’s used to amplify the voices of AADOM’s distinction holders, providing them with the opportunity to educate and inspire their peers.
By tapping into this expertise from our AADOM distinction holders, who are in the trenches of everyday management, AADOM aims to empower and support these leaders as they navigate the challenges and opportunities of running a successful dental practice.
Before we meet AADOM’s DistinctionCast Educator for today, we have a few words from our sponsor.
Sponsor: At Patterson Dental, we see your glow, AADOM stars. And we’re here to make it even brighter with resources, support, and solutions designed just for you. Like CarePay+ – our newest patient led financing solution. And don’t forget sparkly giveaways throughout the year because who doesn’t love more bling.
To see what’s new and enter to win one of our frequent giveaways, visit PattersonDental.com/AADOM.
Thank you for all you do office managers! From your partner, Patterson Dental.
Savanah: I’m so excited to introduce AADOM’s DistinctionCast Educator, Ms. Brandi Williams.
Brandi recently received her AADOM Masters status with an AADOM’s Distinction Program.
She’s the president of Oklahoma Society of Dental Professionals and AADOM’s Dental Professional Learning Network, and she’s a proud member of Women in DSO. She serves as VP of Growth at Catalyst Dental Allies.
With 29 years in dentistry, Brandi excels in steering successful practices and teams. She’s exceptional at patient care and aims to blend her group practice appreciation with AADOM’s mission of fostering collaboration and synergy.
Welcome, Brandi.
Brandi: Hey, welcome. Thank you so much. Sounds pretty exciting! I sounded like I do a whole lot more than what I feel like I’m doing right now. So, thank you for that.
Savanah: That was just a snapshot of what you do. I personally know you and you are way more than that little bio. I promise you.
Brandi: Thank you. Thank you.
Savanah: You’re welcome.
Before we begin with today’s DistinctionCast, I do like to ask all of our educators as being DistinctionCasts – Distinction Holders: You recently received your Master status, your MAADOM within AADOM, and I just want to know how has going through that process and reaching that achievement helped you excel in your role?
Excelling as a Dental Office Manager with a Masters
Brandi: Well, it’s definitely encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone. I normally would not just submit articles for publication if I hadn’t been working towards my Master’s from AADOM. So that was new for me. And I really enjoyed it, so much so, I think I submitted more than what I actually needed to, to get my Masters.
So, that has definitely brought me out of my comfort zone and made me a lot more comfortable with presenting and coming up with ideas and putting them down on paper and sharing them with others.
And because of that, now I’ve been asked to speak at a couple of different groups or for a couple of different groups. And that’s opened doors that had not been opened before. And I really think that’s a direct reflection of my status with AADOM.
Savanah: And it also opened the door for you to be an educator in our DistinctionCast series. So, I’m so proud of you for stepping out of that comfort zone and really propelling yourself and your career.
And with that, I am gonna hand over the floor to you.
Ways to Help Patients Say Yes to Treatment
Brandi: Alright, well thank you so much for having me today. I’m really excited. I kind of jumped on the opportunity to talk about treatment presentation because it’s one of my favorite things to do in my role.
And it wasn’t always that way. I was really comfortable on the insurance side of things, and I had some doctors kind of pushed me over towards treatment presentation, and I reluctantly went there.
To find out that I really love it, it’s really the relationship part of the patient experience that you don’t always get with the insurance side. So, I’m really excited to share some of my tips and tricks and what I found to have, what I found to be successful treatment presentation. So, we’re going to talk about making it easy for patients to say yes to treatment.
And we’ll talk about:
- Strategies to encourage treatment acceptance
- Identifying barriers to dental treatment
- Removing stigma around candid financial conversations
Positive Presentation
And we’re going to start off with positive presentation. And this almost seems a little elementary or basic, because it’s one of those—that’s too easy and it sounds really easy, but it’s not always easy for everyone.
I go into a treatment presentation, completely assuming that we’re doing treatment. Why wouldn’t we? I’m not nervous about presenting treatment. I’m not nervous about talking to patients. I go in there with a positive, excited attitude to help our patients.
And I really think, as cheesy as that sounds, it makes a big difference. When you walk in to speak with someone, if you seem a little timid or unsure or embarrassed, patients can read that and see that. And I think that can change how they feel about saying yes or no to treatment.
So, I get excited. I’m so excited that I get to come tell you about what you need and how we’re going to get it done. And I just assume they’re going to say yes. And I think that’s a big reason why patients say yes.
It’s All About How You Say It
So, it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. And I think we can look at something as simple as saying, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
When it’s a coworker that asks you that and you say, “I’m fine,” it means something totally different than maybe when your spouse asks you that, you say, “I’m fine.”
So, I think simple phrases can express genuine reassurance and difference or even conceal distress depending on the tone. So, it’s all about your tone, your expressions, and your body language.
And effective communication requires not only choosing the right words, but delivering them in a way that aligns with the message.
Common Presentation Barriers
So, sometimes we create barriers for our patients, preventing them from getting the treatment they need and they want. I’ve recently even seen on the AADOM forum, somebody asking about overcoming patient barriers.
There are patient barriers, finances and time and value. But I often see that we sometimes can create barriers for our patients.
I have the opportunity to work with 45 office managers. So, I see managers that are very new in their career and some that are very seasoned, with thirty plus years. And this is something that I see across the board where we are getting in the way of our patients saying yes. Not objections that they’re throwing up, but objections that we inadvertently are creating for patients.
So, if we want to talk a little bit about those common barriers. And the first one is empathy versus assumptions.
Empathy vs. Assumptions
One of the things that we do great as an office managers and treatment coordinators are creating relationships with our patients. And because we’re kind of the first line of defense, we often hear a lot about what’s going on in their life.
So, Mrs. Jones may have already told you about her fixed income and her son’s fixed income. Her niece and her cousin and her daughter’s dog that died. And I mean, you’ll hear the whole gamut of what’s going on in her life. Probably more than what you bargained for, but you feel like you know a lot about Mrs. Jones before you even had the opportunity to even talk about treatment.
And it’s great that we can be empathetic and we can relate and love on our patients when they come in. But what I see happening is that we can also make assumptions based on some of those stories that the patients share with us. And I think it’s really important that we don’t do that.
And if you just kind of reverse that role, and think about if you were at the doctor’s office, and maybe they knew some things that were going on with your life personally, would you want them to make a decision on a test or a service that they were providing because they’re assuming that maybe you can’t afford it or they don’t want to put that on you right now? Maybe they’ll talk about that later.
And I think it’s really important that while we have empathy for our patients, we don’t assume that they don’t deserve the opportunity to make a decision about their treatment. Even if it’s something that you may feel is elective or not necessary, we offer patients the opportunity to make that decision for themselves.
Fear of Rejection
Another common barrier that I see is fear of rejection.
Maybe you’ve gone in and presented a treatment plan before and the patients we’re not ready to move forward. And so you’re like, “I don’t think I want to do that again.”
I see this a lot with third party financing. If you go in and you recommend like, “Could you signed up with CareCredit or Sunbit” and it doesn’t go through, then people are like, “I don’t want to do that again. That was an awkward conversation.”
So rather than have to deal with that fear of rejection, we just don’t say it anymore. We don’t bring it up. Hopefully, the patient doesn’t see any flyers around the office or anything that will prompt them to ask about it because you just don’t want to go back there. So that is another common barrier that I come across.
Lack of Value and Urgency
This is something that is a great tool to talk about with your entire team. Are we creating urgency and value with what we’re doing?
If we’re selling patients, “Sure, it’s fine for you to do that when you come back in 6 months” or “Well, if it’s not hurting, you don’t have to do it now.”
I think it’s very important that we create value of what we do. Everything that we do, there should be value to it. And then a sense of urgency.
I think it’s a great thing to say, “You know, Mrs. Jones, I know this tooth isn’t hurting right now, but I would hate for that tooth to break over the weekend and you’d be stuck all weekend in pain. The doctor would like to get you back just as soon as the schedule allows, so we can get that taken care of.”
So make sure that you’re creating urgency and showing the value of the services that you guys are offering your patients.
Insurance Mindset
And then the last barrier that I have is having an insurance mindset. And I see this even times when the office doesn’t participate with insurance, that we get really focused on how much insurance they have that year, even if we’re not accepting the assignment of benefit. But we’re building treatment plans and building appointments around insurance.
And if a patient, if that’s important to the patient and they’ve expressed that, then I think it’s our part to make sure that we’re mindful of that. And we’re helping them if that’s a genuine concern, helping them maximize their benefits.
But, we sometimes put that insurance mindset on our patients. There are things they don’t typically know about prior-offs some pre-offs. They don’t typically know about downgrades. Those are things that we’re building into a lot of the verbiage.
So, I recommend, again, offering everything, giving the opportunity for the patient to decide.
I know I always want to be mindful and make sure that we’re maximizing our patient’s benefits that they’ve paid for. But I don’t want to just say, “Well, we’ve got to stop here because your insurance stops here.” So that’s another common barrier that I see.
And I just added this quote by John Shedd. I just felt it was pretty relevant for this topic of common barriers:
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”
And I just wanted to make sure that you know that you are prepared. You’ve got the tools in your tool belt. You can do this. It might not feel safe always, but that’s not what you were built for. You are here to help your patients get the care and the treatment that they need and that they deserve.
Next, this is one of my favorites.
Payment Plans Versus Financing
I’ve been doing this for a really long time. I’m on year 30. I think my bio said 29, but I’ve actually hit the 30-year mark. And I think CareCredit has been around that entire time. There have been several other financing companies that we’ve worked with throughout the years.
And I feel like often when I say the word financing in front of patients, I get a quick, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to finance anything. I don’t want another credit card.
And just over this last year, we had a speaker come in and talk to us—Genevieve Poppe—and she really helped me shift my mindset from financing to payment plans. And when you spin it that way and think about it that way, it just is a lot easier to digest. It just doesn’t sound so icky—so car-salesmany, as a payment plan.
So, she had mentioned, you know, if a patient asked, “You guys take payment plans?”
A lot of times our response is, “No, but we work with Sunbit” or “No, we work with Cherry.”
And she said, “If you work with one of them, then that’s your payment plan. You do accept payment plans. And that was just a really big shift for me and it totally makes sense.
Yeah, we do take payment plans. We have a great payment plans for our patients through XYZ.
So that’s something we’ve really focused on as a group this year is changing our verbiage and it’s made a huge difference in the amount of patients that were able to help.
I’ve been tracking how many contracts that we have completed this year with our third-party vendors, and it’s been so much more than years before. And I really think it’s just because of the way that we are framing that now.
So, when a patient asks, “Do you take payment plans,” instead of thinking, “Oh, they can’t afford our treatment. We’re just going to have to start with phase one,” I’ve changed that around to, they’re just asking, “How can they fit this into their budget?”
That’s not necessarily, they can’t afford to do it. Just how do I make this affordable for them?
Ready to see the full version of this DISTINCTIONcast and elevate your skills?
Join AADOM now to access the full content and a world of resources. Your next big step is just a click away!
Learn About the Presenter:
Brandi Williams, MAADOM
Brandi is passionate about leading and developing successful dental practices by sharing her zeal for exceptional patient care and over two decades of dental industry knowledge. Brandi is an energetic leader with a 29-year tenure leading operations, developing teams, acquiring and transitioning practices, exceeding financial and performance goals, and pioneering growth strategies within dentistry.
She is the Founding President of the Central OK Chapter of the American Association of Dental Office Management (AADOM), which recently transitioned to The Oklahoma Society of Dental Professionals, a Dental Professional Learning Network (DPLN). She serves on the Dental Professional Learning Network Advisory Board and is a proud member of Women in DSO.
