DMD Staff

For my day job, I write internal communications for the marketing department of a financial firm. But I freelance a little on the side for this fine website and a few others. I would like nothing better than to freelance full-time. I love to write, and while traditional print journalism has changed dramatically, the opportunity to write online has more than made up the difference. So why do I hang onto the corporate job? Because freelancing is only half about writing. The other half is about selling yourself to prospective clients. I find that I much prefer the writing aspect to the sales aspect.

Dentists running their own practice for the first time often discover a conundrum that they may not have anticipated: As a practice owner or partner, you are no longer just a dentist. You are now a business owner as well. With that territory comes the added challenge of not just practicing great dentistry, but also running—and, if you’re ambitious, skilled, and lucky&mdash;

Your comfort level with suggestive selling

As with many small businesses owners, you may find yourself in the sometimes difficult position of suggesting services that patients don’t necessarily need to maintain their health, but may want anyway. Teeth whitening is a good example, but there are many others.

This concept is more art than science, of course, and your willingness and effectiveness in engaging in suggestive selling will vary widely depending on your personality and many other factors. But no matter your comfort level, there are some strategies you can pursue to help you find the balance.

1. Know your own strengths and weaknesses.

 If you’re a great dentist and a terrible salesperson, consider leaving the “suggestions” to other members of your staff or other dentists working in your practice. That’s not to say that you should just throw up your hands and say, “Nope, building the business isn’t for me.”

 Even the very best salespeople don’t exit the womb with sales skills. There are a ton of advanced learning courses that can take you through sales basics. Remember, too, that you’re a dentist first. You probably don’t want to come off as a used car salesman. But some very basic training on techniques that could help you build the business may really help you.

 One of the first things you learn in sales training is how to read the needs of your customers, and adjusting your techniques based on those needs. Engaging your patients in good conversation shouldn’t be done for the primary goal of add-on selling, but it most certainly is an add-on benefit of actually listening to your customers and understanding their needs.

 Nobody likes to be guilted into doing anything. Telling your patients about your teeth-straightening services is one thing, but giving a gory demonstration of the long-term effects of having some teeth out of place is less likely to lead to a sale and more likely to lead to a damaged relationship with your patient. Empathize with the patient, where appropriate, and avoid using pejorative terms or condescension.

Articles

Striking the balance between patient care and building a business.

The Dentist as Salesman: 4 Tips for Improving Your Approach

 can bring an undeniable sense of anticipation. But it can also bring some uncertainty. Certainly, you’ve heard the horror stories of those who retired and then immediately regretted that decision. Perhaps someone you know lost their sense of purpose, missed practicing dentistry, or had a health scare shortly after retiring.

 can bring a high level of uncertainty for anyone, but dentists face particular challenges and issues that can make this a time filled with anxiety. You’ll be thinking about a host of questions. Some are relatively mundane, such as, “How much fishing can I do before going out of my mind?” Others are much more substantial: “Will I be in good health when I retire?” or “Will I be able to sell my practice for a good price to a good person—someone I’ll feel good about recommending to my current patients?”

No question is bigger than this one: Will your retirement income last and allow you to live in something approximating your current lifestyle? As people are living longer, this is an increasingly important question, and the answer can be difficult to predict, because estimating what your daily, weekly, and annual costs will be takes some legwork and can be unpredictable. Here are some things to consider.

If you own part or all of your dental practice, hopefully you haven’t eschewed saving for retirement, assuming that your practice will be worth enough to carry you through your retirement years. If you are doing that … stop. Make sure you have a more viable saving and investment strategy. Yes, you may have a very profitable practice that will bring a large sum on the market. But many factors will be at play when the time comes for that sale, including the supply of dentists in your area, the success of those practices, local demographic changes such as the departure of a previously big employer or industry in the area, overall property values, local property and business taxes, and many more. Many if not all of these factors are beyond your immediate control.

So what can you do? First and foremost, have some savings and investment alternatives that won’t change in value if your practice does. Next, keep a close eye on the overall financial health of your state and municipality, any economic or political climate changes that may change the value of your practice or your asking price, and the overall market for practices and other similar businesses in your area.

If your practice appreciates in value over time, fantastic. That will translate into a bigger nest egg when the time comes to sell. But if values are going in the wrong direction, you’ll have an opportunity to increase your other savings and investments. Even if the general trend in value is going up, don’t necessarily assume it will continue in that direction. The economy is cyclical, and movement in the markets can have significant downstream effects on property values and the selling prices of business enterprises. Don’t panic; just be prepared, and always have a Plan B.

, and transportation won’t go anywhere when you retire. In some cases, these basic expenses might go down, such as auto maintenance you won’t need as regularly if you aren’t making that hour-a-day commute back and forth to the office. But other expenses might increase. With more free time on your hands, you may pursue expensive hobbies or dine out more often. Consider how you envision your retirement lifestyle changing when you estimate your basic expenses, and plan accordingly. Don’t forget to consider changes that may affect your lifestyle, such as the arrival of grandchildren.

With more free time on your hands, you may get the sudden urge to take that African safari or that 

 you’ve always avoided because you were never free to play suddenly becomes more attractive. If you’re finally going to start that lucrative antiquing side business you’ve always dreamed of, that could become costly as well. Talk through with your spouse and kids what your expectations (and theirs) are for your retirement.

Healthcare should be considered in this category as well, particularly as you get later in retirement. Your expenses may shift from travel and hobbies early on, to more healthcare expenses later. Health savings accounts and other savings vehicles can help you prepare for this shift. Talk to a trusted financial advisor as you near retirement, and join a community of other retired persons to learn what challenges they faced and how to overcome them.

Figuring out how much income you will need in retirement may give you peace of mind, but it could do the opposite also—creating stress as you realize that you may need more than you think. Better to open that closet now and address it as soon as you can. Your future self is depending on you.

Getting closer to retirement can bring an undeniable sense of anticipation. But it can also bring some uncertainty.

Back to Basics: Getting Close to Retirement

LeBron James may be the best basketball player on the planet, but he couldn’t bring Cleveland its first championship in decades on his own. Not even the best dentist can run a practice alone. In 

, we looked at four key steps you should take to make sure your team is the right team. Now, let’s take a look at another key question: When is it time to staff up?

 As a people manager, you probably understand the importance of giving regular feedback to your team members. What may be a little less obvious is the need to make it a two-way feedback loop. In the classic comedy 

, the Carrie Fisher character says, “Everyone likes to think they have good taste and a sense of humor, but they can’t possibly all have good taste and a sense of humor.”  

Most dentists probably think they’re running a ship-shape, positive, finely-tuned dental team. But, frankly, you may not be. If there’s grumbling beyond the normal “woe is us” that’s endemic to nearly every workplace, talk to some of the team members about their workload. Then take some time to observe whether staff members really are at capacity. 

Staffing up doesn’t have to mean adding team members. 

You may have existing employees or contractors who are willing to work more hours, and you may need to consider whether having more people on might translate into better patient care.

Respect your staff by making sure they’re put in a position to succeed.

 This means making sure you are “fully staffed at all times. You and your partners will have to determine what “fully staffed” means. Yes, there is a magic number of staff needed to make everything run perfectly and efficiently. Schedule too many, and you’ll be inefficient and run the risk of having staff become de-motivated. Dip just one team member below that ideal, and you run the risk of throwing everything out of whack. The phone is ringing but no one can answer it. A patient’s visit is over, but he or she needs to make another appointment and no one is at the desk at the moment. A team member looked at the break schedule wrong and now two are out at the same time, leaving patients waiting twice as long for their appointments. Communication is breaking down all over the place, and patients heading for the exit door aren’t showing their pearly whites. 

Be prepared with a back-up plan if there is a call-out or an unexpected absence. 

How many temporary staff shortages are caused by a last-minute call-out? Given that it happens often, why don’t you have a plan in place for when it does happen? (It 

Once your team is in place and running smoothly, make sure everyone is on the same page and that everyone’s first priority is the care and satisfaction of your patients. If your patients see happy, motivated, and satisfied staff, they’re more likely to reflect those same characteristics as patients.

Staff are the most expensive, but also most important, part of a dental practice. So how do you know when you need a bigger team?

Is It Time to Staff Up?

The best dental office and basketball teams operate like an intricate ballet: many members, each doing their individual job, in service of a larger goal. The point guard (you!) is essential, but if the power forward can’t get a rebound, the game may go the other way. You may be the most valuable player of your dental practice, but it takes the coordinated effort of the entire staff to achieve your practice’s goals. 

Here are four essential tips for building and keeping a great staff.

1. Hire for people skills, train for clinical skills.

 “People skills” means more than being friendly and knowledgeable with patients; it also involves the team member’s ability to self-motivate, come to work with a positive attitude, and work well with the other members of the team. Yes, it’s great if a prospective team member comes with great clinical skills. But those skills can be taught or developed through experience. The general attributes of positivity and motivation can be encouraged, but it helps if you hone in on these attributes during the interviewing process.

2. Invest in your staff, and they’ll invest in you.

 This concept isn’t unique to dental offices, of course, but it can be particularly important in an environment where the staff might feel like they’re only a support person for the point guard. Actively solicit feedback from your staff regularly about matters trivial (what small token to offer child patients) and momentous (e.g., what new services your practice might offer to patients or what additional training they’d like to pursue). Investments in people don’t have to always be monetary. Sometimes they can be as simple as giving people the opportunity to make a contribution or have a voice within the practice. 

3. Watch and listen to staff interactions with patients. 

Do this both when the staff member knows you’re looking and listening, and at some times when they might not know. This isn’t spying and it shouldn’t make you uncomfortable; it’s making sure the face that the staff puts on for the patients is the same whether you’re in the room or not. 

4. Don’t be afraid to part ways with staff who are not working out. 

Bad morale can be as infectious as good morale, so if it’s clear that a staff member isn’t playing well with others or pulling their weight, consider making a change. If team members who are working hard and staying motivated see that colleagues who are putting in half the effort face no consequences, their motivation is likely to dip. You should never make quick or uniform decisions about hiring or firing, but you shouldn’t become paralyzed into inaction when it becomes clear that a problem is festering and may lead some of your better team members to shop their skills elsewhere.

In Part 2, we’ll look at how to decide when to staff up.

Having a great staff is essential for an office to run smoothly and win repeat customers. Here are four tips to assemble a top-notch team.

4 Tips for Building and Maintaining a Great Dental Staff

If you’re currently in the market for life insurance, you may have noticed that competition in the sector and a number of other factors have led to very low rates. Still, depending on your health and age, you may still find the costs somewhat prohibitive. Let’s take a look at some ways to bring the costs down, no matter your personal situation.

There are certain factors that go into the cost of life insurance that are beyond your control. They include age, gender and overall health, although of course the latter is at least somewhat determined by your lifestyle choices. Still, there are some factors in your control, and these are the factors you’ll want to try and take advantage of to secure the best policy at the lowest possible cost. 

Your current health condition and health history are the first thing a life insurance company will want to measure, of course, because this is likely to be a big determinant of your longevity. Life insurance providers have deep expertise in determining which health conditions present the greatest risks, and they apply premium amounts accordingly. But each company may place different emphasis on which conditions present the most risk to them. Why? It can be based, in part, on the number of people with certain conditions that are already part of the insurer’s pool. 

This is why it’s a very good idea to shop around for a life insurance policy rather than take the first policy that’s offered to you. For a patient with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, for example, the condition is going to make obtaining life insurance significantly more expensive. But 

 more expensive can vary widely from insurer to insurer. And if you don’t have diabetes, but you do have high cholesterol or if you are a smoker, you can address those health factors either prior to obtaining life insurance, or even after you’ve secured life insurance. For example, if you’ve recently lost a lot of weight or quit smoking, talk to your life insurance provider about whether you could see a reduction in your premiums.

In an ideal world, you’d reduce your risk factors prior to securing a life insurance policy, but if you aren’t currently carrying life insurance, don’t use the “I’ll be healthier next year” excuse to avoid securing it. 

If you’ve never sought life insurance before, you may be surprised by how detailed the questionnaires and vetting process are. Life insurance companies, for example, will want to know if you engage in any risky behaviors, such as skydiving or driving a motorcycle, and they’ll even consider your driving record and whether your occupation puts you at greater risk of harm—unlikely to be a big factor for a dentist. Still, if your hobbies may cost you more, you’re better off admitting to them upfront anyway or just curtailing them. Lying on a life insurance application makes most policies moot.

You’ll certainly pay too much for life insurance if you secure too much coverage. How much is too much? You won’t know until you do a thorough needs assessment, which should include an in-depth review of your current financial situation, your short- and long-term financial goals, family finances and needs, and then considering those factors alongside what your family would need should you no longer be there to provide income. 

Sounds simple enough, right? Perhaps. But there are so many variables at play here that it might be worth it to talk to a financial advisor or certified financial planner—many of whom are intimately familiar with life insurance products. 

For example, are you aware that insurance premiums are often discounted at different coverage thresholds, such as a $1 million policy? In other words, a $750,000 policy might not only be a quarter of a million dollars less, it may also cost about the same, because you typically see premium breaks at quarter million dollar intervals. Again, shop around a bit.

One note we must always mention when talking about life insurance: beyond cost, consider also the claims-paying ability of the company. That’s legalese, but what it means is that Newfangled Trust may be shiny and new, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be around to pay a claim when you need it. Look into any life insurance provider’s history, profitability, and future prospects.

Depending on your age, health, and other factors, life insurance can get pretty expensive. Here are some ways to reign in your costs when buying a policy.

Making Low Life Insurance Costs Lower

Maybe you don’t want to retire early. Maybe you love being a dentist so much that you’re willing to maintain your practice into your late 70s or early 80s. Maybe not. Maybe your health won’t be so great by then. Or maybe you’ll just be ready to put the tongue depressor away. How can you prepare now for an early retirement?

This doesn’t have to get particularly complicated. If you want to retire early, start saving and investing early—and save and invest A LOT. Save everything you can. Make sacrifices today that will allow you to call it a career by age 60, 55, or even 50.  Drive a used Datsun, or forego the car&mdash;and the auto insurance&mdash;altogether by taking a bike or public transportation to and from work.

Remember eating out? You’ll still have the memories. Each week, put aside the money you’d have spent eating out into a solid retirement plan. Make good smart investment choices. 

Try not to have any children; kids are expensive! And they get more expensive as they age, with clothing, food, automobiles, tuition, and perhaps even weddings!

Familiarize yourself with the stay-cation. Who needs Ireland when there’s an Irish pub around the corner? (You can go there, but only at happy hour prices!) Who needs Bermuda when you have Bermuda shorts? Who needs Hawaii when there’s the new version of the television show Hawaii Five-O, which doesn’t even require cable television?

Want to play golf? Well, you can’t. Not yet, anyway.  But if you save it all up now, you may be able to play a little bit when you retire. You might be able to eat out occasionally, too, and take the occasional trip. Doesn’t it all sound great?

Ok, so the previous section was a bit tongue in cheek. The situation isn’t really that dire. Many dentists have successfully retired early and had enough income to last through retirement.  But even though living like a monk isn’t exactly a requirement, there is a major complication for those wishing to retire early. I call it the triple whammy:

1. Retiring early means a much earlier stop date to your income.

2. Retiring early means a much longer timeframe during which you must stretch your income.

3. Retiring early means you won’t receive supplemental coverage from Social Security or any pension income for many years.

For most dentists, the triple whammy may mean a later retirement. How late depends on many factors, including some miscellaneous variables such as a significant appreciation of your practice or an unexpected inheritance from Aunt Moneybags. But mostly, it will depend on how early you started investing, how well you’ve invested, and how much you’ve invested.  

Still want to retire early? Get started now.

Many dentists dream of retiring early, but there are a number of factors to consider before taking the plunge.

The Key to Retiring Early

Many taxpayers won’t take a close look at their 2016 tax obligations until March or even April 2017. And for most, that’s probably OK. For people whose tax situation hasn’t changed much and whose income is relatively steady, chances are pretty good that a tax withholding strategy that worked just fine for 2015 taxes will do the same for 2017 taxes. 

For dentists, however, there are a few reasons to take a look under the hood at your income and what you’ve paid so far in taxes prior to the end of the year. Let’s take a look.

First and foremost, dentists are typically small business owners who are subjected to different kinds of taxes than most taxpayers. Second, dentists’ income may vary more widely than a typical public or corporate worker. This may mean a much higher or lower taxable income at the end of the year. This could be particularly important if you’re on the borderline between two tax brackets, either from just regular income or from income plus capital gains on real estate or other investments. 

Third, if you’re a dentist who owns a practice or a partial stake in a practice, you constantly face difficult decisions around how much income to take out of the practice as income and how much to reinvest. Nearing a tax threshold, or needing to catch up on a tax liability, could influence some of those income-investment decisions for the remainder of 2016. Plus, investing in your future has obvious benefits besides lowering your tax liability. It’s nice to think ahead, prepare for changes, and be ahead of the curve in upgrading your practice.

It may seem like we just said goodbye to summer, but the holiday decorations are already out! October is nearly the beginning of the holiday season, an undeniably busy time for many. This may be your last real opportunity to look at what you’ve set aside for taxes so far and adjust your withholdings accordingly.

Investing some of your income will create tax deductions that can lower your tax liability for 2016. You may also wish to consider making payments to vendors in 2016 even if the bills won’t come due until 2017, also as a way of lowering your taxable income. You might also think about delaying payments owed to you until 2017. 

Talk to a tax professional about where you are and what strategies you might employ. This is a good idea for several reasons. The tax code can be tricky, and the language around capital gains, “taxable events,” and when you need to declare income earned are complicated. Also, you want to make sure you don’t inadvertently engage in any illegal activity or trigger a time-consuming and stress-inducing tax audit by having activity that 

If you’re filing business taxes, don’t do it yourself!

This seems as good a time as any to remind you that if you’re relatively new either to the field of dentistry or ownership (in whole or in part) of a practice, there are many, many things to consider when filing your taxes. Depending on how your practice is structured (as an S-Corporation, partnership, or LLC), your returns may look quite different. Filing as any of these isn’t as simple as an individual tax filing. There are many forms and procedures you’ll need to follow. Non-compliance with tax law, including incorrect filings by simple mistake, can result in substantial penalties and interest. There are also state and Federal taxes to consider. 

Work with a professional firm with a track record of working with dentists or similar businesses. Shopping around now will give you ample time to consider the history, trustworthiness, and overall merit of whatever professional or firm you’ve selected to work with you. And always keep in mind that you—and not the tax preparation firm&mdash;are responsible for any errors made on tax payments. 

*This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered tax or legal advice.

You may not want to think about taxes yet, but a mid-year check-up could help your bottom line when April 15 finally rolls around.

Halfway to Tax Season: Time for a Tax Checkup

 some simple and relatively obvious ways to cut spending in order to make the ledge more attractive for saving. Here in Part 2, we’ll look at some unexpected strategies. 

When starting a gym routine, it’s helpful to have a motivated partner to help you get and stay on the new schedule. The same can be true for your financial health. Even if you’re the sole breadwinner and bill-payer, engage your partner in decisions about finances and spending. Why? Because not doing so may mean that one half of the partnership is fully engaged on spending less, while the other may be spending excessively and in contrast with your financial goals. Being on the same page doesn’t have to be accompanied by a series of stern lectures or excessive harping on expenditures. But at the very least, good communication will double your chances of removing excessive spending habits and set clear boundaries for what you’ll splurge on and what you’ll forgo. 

Many of life’s biggest emergency expenditures come from regular maintenance avoided. Fail to get regular oil changes, and you’ll significantly increase the chances that the Jaguar in the garage will need to be replaced much sooner than it otherwise would. Not taking proper care of plants, appliances, and other household items will mean replacing those goods before you need to. One strategy for maintaining what’s yours is to set aside a couple of weekend days per year to give all of your possessions a good once-over. Set a day in the spring, for example, to make sure all the belts and hoses in the lawn mower are in good working order and a day in the fall to look over the appliances and replace any failing parts. Extending the shelf life of the goods you already have won’t be an obvious and immediate boon to your bottom line, but it can be a lasting one.

. The prices of just about everything are governed by the laws of supply and demand. Smart shoppers can become excellent savers by making key purchases offseason. Shop for next year’s skis in April. If you don’t plan to gain or lose a lot of weight over the interim and if you can find them, buy next spring’s clothes in September. Buy school supplies in May. Do a ton of 2017 Christmas shopping the last week of December 2016. If you can manage this strategy effectively, you’ll not only reap big savings, but you’ll get the added peace of mind of being prepared well in advance. 

. Patience is not just a virtue, it’s a savings strategy as well. First, it can be an essential part of avoiding impulse buying—the kind of buying that wreck a budget or savings plan. Second, it can mean the difference between buying something before comparison shopping, which can lead to overpaying. Third, it can mean getting last-year’s must-have gadget this year. The new iPhone 7 is out, and it is…remarkably similar to last year’s iPhone 6. Yes, many people have to have the latest and greatest, and they’re willing to wait in line for that new gadget or pair of LeBron sneakers. But if you’re more like me, wait out the rush, and you’ll pay remarkably less for the same slightly-less-hot item in due time. 

  Today, you don’t have to pile your stuff on your lawn to get rid of it. You can put it up for sale on eBay or Craigslist very easily. Both sites are easy to use and pretty reputable, which means a universe of buyers that extends far beyond whatever tri-state area you inhabit. That means more potential buyers and a higher potential selling price. Of course, the tried and true “garage sale” is still an option, too. And selling off some of the goods you no longer need may have the added effect of making you realize how nonessential some of your earlier purchases turned out to be. 

There are literally hundreds of ways to save. The key is to find one that doesn’t feel like that big of a sacrifice to you. 

It can be easy to spend less if you follow a few key tips and try to be proactive about major expenses.

More Strategies to Save More By Spending Less

There are two distinct sides to your financial balance sheet: Incoming and outgoing. Having more income (incoming!) is always great, but an easier way to increase the amount you have for savings and investments is to decrease your expenses (the outgoing). Why? Because most professionals, dentists included, simply have more day-to-day control of what they spend versus what they earn. 

That’s not to say that there aren’t ways to maximize income; there certainly are, and we’ll take a look at a few of them in a future column. But for a tangible, immediate, and lasting impact on your balance sheet? Let’s take a look at 10 ways to spend less, over two parts.

 Are you the type of person who wants the maximum data plan for the cell phone, or every single channel as part of the cable package? There’s something to be said for having it all, but you can’t possibly watch 2,000 channels at once, and there’s nothing on anyway. Take a look at your actual usage, and think about cutting to a plan that more efficiently meets your needs.

 What’s this doing here? How can exercising regularly save you money? First, you don’t need sessions with that expensive personal trainer to get a good workout. Find some shoes that fit and get busy. Working out is inexpensive, and it can be beneficial to the bottom line in other ways. Time spent working out is time not spent in other, potentially more expensive activity. And it may also likely lead to lower healthcare costs over the course of your lifetime.

 $5 to use an ATM not affiliated with your bank. Overdraft fees. Toll roads taken when they could have been avoided. Broker and advisor fees. Each fee on its own may be a minor nuisance, but fees are insidious, and they have a way of adding up. Go out of your way to avoid them; doing so can make a surprising difference to the bottom line.

 This is good life advice, because it makes you feel good and gives you a sense of purpose. Dentists, of course, have no shortage of opportunity to do charitable work—either inside or outside the practice of dentistry. But how does it help you save money? Like with the workout strategy above, engaging in charitable activity means time not spent at the movies, at the casino, and shopping for another pair of shoes you don’t necessarily need. There is an extra potential benefit for dentists as well, who can take advantage of some networking opportunities associated with being out in the community.

5. Turn your grocery bill into a challenge.

 Weekly grocery shopping is a big expense for most, but there are many ways to save. Buying in bulk, for example, for nonperishables will lead to big savings over time. So will clipping coupons and regularly using your shopper’s card. It may seem silly to someone raking in a 6-figure income, but you can turn the grocery store routine into a challenge to keep the bill under a certain figure, without necessarily buying less. After the shopping is done, resist the urge to dine out while the fresh groceries transition to spoiled. Eating out is expensive as it is, but it’s a double whammy when fresh vegetables and meats go to waste while you hit the steakhouse.

In Part 2, we’ll look at some hidden costs that catch many savers off-guard.

There are really only two ways to improve your financial picture. These are some ways to fix your budget without moonlighting.

Save More by Spending Less

No matter how good your dental skills, all dentists will have to deal with some unhappy patients. The unhappiest among them will often go to websites such as HealthGrades and Yelp (among many others) to describe your misdeeds in awful and not always truthful detail. While some may be determined to pursue malpractice litigation, and while others may be completely unjustified in their complaints, there are steps you can take to keep their unhappiness from escalating.

Even if your unhappy patient is the chronic complainer type, don’t disregard the possibility that they have a legitimate beef. Did you and your team deliver care according to your own high standards? If not, consider a formal, personal apology, and strongly consider if there is an additional service you can provide that would ameliorate the problem. Many cases of patient unease can be satisfied simply by you taking responsibility for them, owning up to them, and correcting them.

Are there things about your dental practice you need to address?

A cursory look at the negative reviews on many of these sites shows that roughly one-fifth of the posted complaints are related to the actual dental care provided. The majority of complaints involve long wait times or rushed dentists who don’t seem to be fully engaged with the patient. Another third or so of the complaints are customer-service related, including staff rudeness, long wait times, or billing issues. If you’re getting a lot of these types of complaints, consider adjusting your scheduling practices and addressing issues with staff and billing coordinators. 

Is the patient chronically unhappy with your services?

Some patients may not be interested in pursuing a malpractice judgment, but may simply seem to find some joy in complaining a lot. First of all, always remain calm with such patients, and if their complaint is about a member of your staff, make sure you hear the patient out, listen carefully to their concerns, and document your conversation, as well as any services that were given to the patient, as fully as possible. In the case of some patients, you may want to consider gently suggesting that they seek out another dentist.  You might both be better off if the patient finds a fresh start.

Dentists rarely sue patients for posting negative reviews online, and for good reason. (There are, of course, 

!) In most cases, there is little more to be gained than an additional helping of bad publicity. That’s not to say that legal action is ill-advised in all cases; simply, it should be a last resort if you’ve exhausted other potential remedies.

Two very bad things you can do are to simply ignore an unhappy patient or join in the dialogue online. The first usually leads to a festering of the situation, while the second is most likely to lead to more negative publicity when you want less. Take proactive, professional steps to address the patient’s concerns, and you may find the problem addressed before it gets to the legal system. 

In the digital age, a practice's reputation is inextricably linked to the practice's online reputation. So what should dentists do when facing a negative review?