Teaching dentists the ABCs of Sales using MGE Management

When husband-and-wife dentists Eddy Rodriguez and Sharon Schmeiser opened their dental practice in 2012, they began searching for help to learn how to better manage their practice. They experimented with a few different options, but they all fell short of their expectations-until they found MGE Management Experts late that year.

MGE, which uses the Hubbard Management System, was different, he says. Instead of sending a consultant out to his practice to do his marketing and patient communication for him, MGE gave his practice the sales tools they needed to start growing the business themselves.

Dr. Rodriguez first attended an MGE workshop called The New Patient Workshop in November 2012. The following month, he attended his first “ABC” seminar, Sales Seminar A: Taking the Stress and Pressure out of the Sales Process, and says his practice tripled in just the last two weeks of December.

“Once we became MGE students and became more and more involved with MGE, our office became bigger and bigger,” says Dr. Rodriguez.

Dr. Rodriguez soon finished Sales Seminar B: How to Connect With Any Patient and Handle Their Objections, and Sales Seminar C: How to Motivate Your Patients to Want What They Need. He says he attends the three ABC courses every year along with many other MGE courses. In fact, Dr. Rodriguez flies his entire dental team from Miami to MGE’s site in St. Petersburg, Fla., for the seminars.

“I think the campus is about 50,000 square feet, and I think they have about 100 or 150 doctors being trained there every week,” he says. “It’s basically a business school.”

Today, Dr. Rodriguez says his monthly collections are about five times as much as they were when he started his practice in 2012. That’s quite significant, given he works two and a half days per week, while his wife works three mornings per week.

He attributes the drastic change in collections to the way he approaches treatment plans with his patients, as well as how his front desk handles calls from potential new patients.

Before reaching out to MGE Management Experts, he says that his receptionist would tell a prospective patient if their practice didn’t take that patient’s insurance, which would result in a “lost patient.”

“Now, instead of focusing on the insurance, she would ask the patient why they called,” he says. “My staff is now trained to tell potential new patients not to worry about insurance, and make sure they know their first visit is complimentary. That gets the patient in to experience and approve of the office before they are even faced with making a purchase.” Today, he says his practice brings in 60 to 120 new patients each month.

MGE Management Experts also taught Dr. Rodriguez how to stop approaching patients “like a doctor.”

“MGE teaches you to talk to a human being,” he says. “They show you how to communicate with the patient so they can better understand what you are trying to do for them. The best person to present dentistry to the patient is the dentist. If a patient has a question about how they are going to pay for the treatment, the real question is that they don’t understand the treatment they’re paying for, so you have to clarify that. Before I would just walk into the room and say the patient needs a root canal, and my staff would take care of it. Now I stay and explain what a root canal is and give them all the options possible to save the tooth, and get case acceptance. Then my staff comes in and they handle the financial plans, and then we get started.”

Dr. Rodriguez says he no longer presents costs timidly because the patient won’t be confident the treatment is necessary. Instead, he says he is “upfront” about the cost, regardless of the number. That confidence, he says, and the extra time spent explaining the necessity of the specific treatment to the patient, is what has brought his collections to the high numbers they are today. 

MGE Management Experts

A leader in dental practice management training, the MGE Power Program is a comprehensive series of courses, seminars and practical implementation steps. An approved PACE Program Provider, MGE training covers management, case acceptance, marketing, executive skills, financial planning, and leadership. The average MGE Power Client achieves an astounding 232 percent growth over a 5-year period.

MGE Management Experts
800-640-1140  |  mgeonline.com