Sally McKenzie

The topic of marketing raises numerous questions. How many ads should I buy? Should I give away refrigerator magnets or key chains? Do I need those fancy, full-color brochures? Is a website really that important? Exactly how many new patients will I get if I place an ad in the newspaper? Should I offer a discount? And, in the minds of many dentists, the most important question: How much do I have to spend?

While dollars can quickly become an issue, some dentists will spare no expense. They are convinced that if they just get the right jingle on the radio, the perfect prose in their ads, or the most vibrant colors on their brochures they will unleash a flood of new patients, better patients, more patients that will happily line up for the doctor's dental services. They eagerly pour thousands into big-bucks marketing "campaigns" convinced that they can buy all the patients they want with clever ads, gorgeous brochures, or witty radio jingles.

Oftentimes these practices will see terrific initial success. Patients are flowing in. The schedule is full. The doctor is happy and convinced that the marketing campaign was just what the practice needed. Then the cancellations begin. The patients don't schedule the recommended treatment. They took advantage of the whitening offer, but never returned. A few months down the road little has come of the grand marketing investment as the "new" and the "better" patients have moved on to the next bigger and better offer. Leaving the doctor totally baffled as to why this brilliant campaign produced utterly dreary results.

What went wrong? Too often practices consider marketing as a purely external activity. Dental teams overlook the very foundation of practice promotion. Your most effective marketing begins at the front desk, winds its way into the treatment rooms, and travels the halls daily. The success or failure of your practice marketing plan rests not on the "what" but on the "who."

Before you pour more money into external advertising and promotion, shore up your internal marketing and you'll significantly increase the chances of that short-term campaign yielding long-term results. Make the most of your practice's "marketing representatives" - the staff. Start by preparing the team to successfully promote the doctor, each other, the services, and the office as a whole.

Jan Keller

Getting paid on time is vital to the success of any dental practice. You can increase your chances of making sure this happens with patients by following a few simple guidelines.

Communicate your payment and collection rules clearly to patients. Provide written confirmation of how patients have agreed to manage payment of their treatment. Use a Truth In Lending (TIL) form for all negotiations and include clear written information regarding your expectations. The patient should receive a copy of the TIL form while you keep and file the original form.

Tip: Make sure billing statements include a telephone number customers can call or website address customers can access with billing questions and a pre-addressed envelope.

Tip: The faster statements are sent; the faster you will receive payment. It is best to give the patient a billing statement (not just a walkout statement) on the day of service showing them treatment, their payment and any balance statement, including a personal thank you for their prompt attention to handling their account.

Follow through on your payment and collection terms

If your policy is that late payers will go into collection after 60 or 90 days, then you must stick to that policy. A team member designated as the accounts receivable coordinator should call patients who do not follow through with the payment negotiations. Accounts of those who exceed your payment deadlines should be penalized and/or sent into collection, if that is your stated policy. Trojan (www.trojanonline.com) offers professionally written letters that can be sent to your patients to help with your collection efforts.

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