You are an Authority
A consistent message of the American Association of Independent Periodontists is to establish the authoritative relationship between you and the patient as well as the referring dentist. Patients are seeking answers, particularly patients with complex problems or with periodontal disease. I don’t have to tell you how disappointed some patients are when they see a hygienist and have $500 worth of Arestin pumped under their gums only to find that they need to repeat the Arestin treatment three months later. Have you ever seen that? Very simply that is selling a product and it is not necessarily providing a health service. But the patients don’t know any better. They only want to find answers to their periodontal disease problem. They know they have periodontitis, and they want to keep their teeth.
Arestin was never intended as a substitute for appropriate periodontal treatment, but patients don’t know that. The point is this. The periodontist is the authority in the treatment of periodontal disease and patients can seek you out without necessarily interfering with the referral relationship. How is this done?
The best way and the least expensive way of doing that is to write about periodontal diseases. Have you ever thought about writing an article about periodontal disease? I bet you already have done that. And if not, how long would it take you to write a one page article on periodontal disease, and then another one page article on mucogingival defects, and then another one page article on dental implants, and then another one page article on the type of treatment that you do, and then another one page article on occlusion, and then another one page article on you name the service? It doesn’t take long. And once you have written that article, make sure that everybody receives it.
You know the distribution channels. Emails to your patients. Yes, just email an article to your patients on periodontal disease. You do collect your patients’ email addresses, don’t you? If you like social media, use Facebook. Put in a link from Twitter.
But you know the best way of doing it? Write an article and put it in your reception room. Give that article to every one of your recall patients. It could be the article of the month. Maybe it could even be the article of the week. Send that article to your newspaper. Send that article to your referring dentists. Soon you will have a series of articles that you can put into a booklet. You can make that booklet and then distribute that to your patients. We have booklets of my articles in our reception area, and we have to replenish those booklets on a regular basis. No, I’m not talking about my books. I’m actually talking about 8 ½” x 11” pages of articles with a simple binding. You can have these bound at Staples or you can buy a binding machine and do it yourself, as my wife does. The point is that if you write articles you have established yourself as the authority. Then it is just a matter of distributing those articles. The more you distribute, the more people who read your material, the more that you will be recognized as the authority on that particular subject.
Our first webinar is coming up Wednesday, May 7th at 9 pm EST, 6 pm PST. Here is the link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2927155397847718914
Danyel and I look forward to speaking with you then.
All the best,
Lee N. Sheldon, D.M.D.