Patients need to hear from their dentists too: Here’s a proactive patient communication tool for dentists to use

By Marty Jablow, DMD

Lots of things are swirling around in our heads right now regarding our dental practices, our staffs, and our health, both physically and financially. First, we ran through “How do I keep my family safe and healthy?” and then quickly turned to “How do I keep my practice running and take care of my team?”

Fortunately, there has been a sea of communication to dentists about clinical protocols and business strategies to react to the coronavirus crisis. But last week, we realized there was a gap—our practices had not provided similar direction for our patients.

If you look online there is not much information directed to patients about what to do or expect during this time when they cannot easily come into our offices. Aside from a handful of individual practices and some short statements from the government and the American Dental Association, there is nothing comprehensive or definitive for dental patients.

We have a blog for our practice, so to fill the void we created a post that addresses the range of questions that our patients have been asking since the office has been locked down and open for emergency treatment only. Since we’re all in this together, I, along with Dental Economics, would encourage you to consider a similar communication for your patients. In that spirit, you can use this blog post as your template to customize for your own practice. If you’re interested and you want to see how mine turned out, check out my post by clicking here. 

To download and personalize the template that we created for use in your own office, click here.

If you don’t have a blog, consider adding this content to a page on your website. Or create a PDF version that your staff can email to patients as a follow-up to phone conversations. Please borrow our framework and put your own practice voice and creative ideas to work. Among the benefits of taking this proactive stance are:

• Quieting fears or unnecessary distress among your patient base,
• Staying engaged and visible with your local community in this tough time, and
• Allowing patients to self-triage, potentially saving staff phone time.

The point is, let’s all reach out and communicate with our patients in the same way that others have reached out to inform and help us. Our patients have appreciated this and so will yours.