For Dental Case Acceptance, Don't Underestimate the New Patient Exam

Jim McKee, DDS, is a dentist in private practice. He’s also a Visiting Faculty member with Piper Education and Research Center, where he teaches on subjects such as occlusion and the clinical referral process. In this video clip, he discusses how clear communication during the new patient examination process can lead to case acceptance.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

“The new patient examination, I think, is the number one key in the practice. It’s the most important appointment in the practice and I believe that it’s really the appointment in the practice that dictates case acceptance. Many times patients come into our practice not having an understanding of what some of their problems may be. The primary purpose of the new patient examination is to educate the patient. Our examination has four different phases that we use. We use an initial consultation where we’ll spend time with the patient before we look in their mouth. We’ll get an idea of what their past dental experiences have been, what they’d like to do to possibly change anything in their mouth, what obstacles to treatment acceptance may be in terms of fear, in terms of financial insurance constraints, in terms of scheduling. But really, what we’re going to do is we’re going to make sure that we can get an idea of why the patient is there and what we can do to help them.”