The Real Reason Patients Say ‘I Need to Think About It’ by Dr. Bob Marcus

Helping patients understand the ‘why’ behind treatment recommendations with simple, visual explanations

by Dr. Bob Marcus

Let’s have some straight talk
In many offices, the “treatment plan” a patient takes home is a printout from practice management software: a column of procedure codes and a column of fees. The treatment coordinator’s role is reduced to building a financial plan. We still call it a treatment plan, even though the conversation is almost entirely about money. When the patient hesitates, we reach for the usual conclusions: The patient can’t afford it and needs a discount, a payment plan, or a smaller phase of treatment over multiple insurance years.

After nearly 30 years in private practice, I can tell you those conclusions are often wrong. When treatment is presented as a commodity, patients behave like shoppers. “I need to think about it” doesn’t always mean the price is too high; sometimes it means we didn’t build enough value.

Patients want more than a description of their condition and a bunch of numbers. They want to feel understood. They want to know we’re on their side.


Many ‘treatment plans’ are about money, not treatment
Years ago, my office presented cases the conventional way. I explained treatment chairside, and the patient went to the front office, where the conversation revolved mostly around money and insurance. More often than not, the answer was “I need to think about it.”

So I changed our approach. I sat down next to each patient and showed simple visuals on an iPad. Everyone on my team used the same visuals, and we started prioritizing the benefits of treatment, not the costs. Of course, we still explained the costs, but our case acceptance improved dramatically.

From that point forward, I continued to expand the quality and number of visuals. Soon, I realized that other dentists could benefit from this as well. DDS GP was born. What started out as a few visuals has grown into a collection of illustrations covering a wide range of diagnoses and treatments.

Here’s a challenge: Eavesdrop on what exactly happens in your office. Is the conversation at the front truly about treatment and costs, or only about costs?


Making treatment easier to understand
DDS GP is an iPad app with more than 225 patient demonstrations. Slide a finger across the screen and an animation shows a condition worsening or a treatment unfolding step by step. Draw directly on the illustrations to personalize them, then save the marked-up screens and share them by email, text, or printed handout: a treatment plan the patient can actually understand.

Perio demonstration: One of more than 225 interactive patient demonstrations.

All-on-X demonstration: Complex treatment concepts can be explained with simple, interactive visuals.

Two design decisions matter more than any feature list:
• Illustrations, not photos: Visuals are drawings, not photos or clinical videos. In our experience, illustrations can convey the problem and the solution clearly without evoking the same reaction that clinical photographs sometimes do.

• No voiceover: There is no voiceover, and that’s intentional. The moment a recorded narrator starts talking, that voice can become the expert in the room, and the personal connection fades. In DDS GP, you are the audio. Your words, your pace, your empathy.


You and the patient versus the problem
The iPad itself changes the geometry of the conversation. You’re not clicking through slides across a desk or pointing at a monitor “over there.” You’re sitting shoulder to shoulder, sharing the screen, working together.

That subtle shift creates a powerful dynamic: It becomes you and the patient versus the problem, not you versus the patient. Treatment stops feeling like a pitch and starts feeling like a partnership.

When patients truly understand their condition, they stop asking about price and start asking when they can schedule. That trust carries forward: fewer cancellations, stronger word of mouth, and a practice culture built on open communication.

DDS GP is used in more than 14,000 offices across 65 countries. An annual subscription is $499 and includes use on unlimited iPads at one location. To learn more or start a free trial, visit ddsgp.com/townie. Dentaltown readers can save $100 on their first year, bringing the annual subscription to $399.

This content is sponsored by DDS GP App.
For more information, visit ddsgp.com/townie.

Bob Marcus, DMD, practiced general dentistry for nearly 30 years and now works as a dental consultant and speaker. He created DDS GP in 2010 to solve the case acceptance problem in his own practice, refining it chairside before releasing it to colleagues. A Townie since 2003, he is passionate about case acceptance as the key to practice growth.