In order to mitigate the fear of being at the dentist’s office, many of you go out of your way to make the patient as comfortable as possible. Sometimes there’s video games in the waiting room, sometimes there’s TV’s on the ceiling above the chairs. While it’s certainly a good practice to make patients as comfortable as possible, how many patients are you retaining, and how much money are you really losing?
As medical professionals, you tend to be very nurturing and want to make your patients comfortable because that’s who you are, but from a business perspective, patient comfort is about retaining patients. Patients will keep coming if they feel welcome and comfortable in your practice, and they may recommend you based on their comfort. However, there is a point where comfort has reached a limit. If patients are satisfied and happy with you, investing more money in comfort doesn’t make financial sense.
If patients are happy with you and your staff because they perceive you as being welcoming and gentle when working on their teeth, then adding flat screens to the ceiling isn’t going to give you any return on investment. If patients are happy with you as you are, is adding a massage function on the chair really necessary? However, if you have a lot of patients who are a bit queasy around dentists, then maybe a TV, massage chairs, or video games in the waiting room really are necessary. Have a good understanding of who your patients are to provide them with the best comfort, if that can be done by painting the office a calming color and making sure to greet them by name when they arrive maybe the flat screen on the ceiling can wait.
In order to mitigate the fear of being at the dentist’s office, many of you go out of your way to make the patient as comfortable as possible. Sometimes there’s video games in the waiting room, sometimes there’s TV’s on the ceiling above the chairs. While it’s certainly a good practice to make patients as comfortable as possible, how many patients are you retaining, and how much money are you really losing?
Medical professionals tend to be very nurturing and want to make their patients comfortable because that’s who they are, but from a business perspective, patient comfort is about retaining patients. Patients will keep coming if they feel welcome and comfortable in your practice, and they may recommend you based on their comfort. However, there is a point where comfort has reached a limit. If patients are satisfied and happy with you, investing more money in comfort doesn’t make financial sense.
If patients are happy with you and your staff because they perceive you as being welcoming and gentle when working on their teeth, then adding flat screens to the ceiling isn’t going to give you any return on investment. If patients are happy with you as you are, is adding a massage function on the chair really necessary? However, if you have a lot of patients who are a bit queasy around dentists, then maybe a TV, massage chairs, or video games in the waiting room really are necessary. Have a good understanding of who your patients are to provide them with the best comfort, if that can be done by painting the office a calming color and making sure to greet them by name when they arrive maybe the flat screen on the ceiling can wait.