Quality Referral Processes for Premium Patient Care

Patient care is often a shared process among various providers. Dentists must coordinate care with dental specialists like oral surgeons, orthodontists, periodontists, pediatric dentists, and endodontists and vice versa. In addition, dental professionals must coordinate care among medical providers to obtain medical clearances as well as important information regarding medicines/pre-medication recommendations. This coordinated effort is a critical aspect of providing premium quality care for patients. In this episode, Dr. Kuba and Bethany discuss the importance of this process while also talking about the things that often go wrong in the process. Together, they have tips and suggestions for improving relationships amongst referral sources. 

Previous Episodes Worth Revisiting: 

What is Good Customer Service? 

Know THY Practice 

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Transcript

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0:01
are you looking for a podcast where you can hear from real people regarding their real Dental drama if so then
0:09
you've come to the right place join hosts Bethany Penny and Dr Reena Kuba as
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we dive into the solutions we've created and the mistakes we've made while
0:20
managing Dental drama let's get started so I've got some
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exciting news today go go for it I'm ready what is it yes um we have our
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subss one of our amazing subscribers that reached out to us and said hey is there any way that you could dive
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into this topic which I'll mention here in a minute and so you and I dialogued about it we're like we we would have
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never thought about this topic if it wasn't for our subscriber that mentioned it and so we decided we're not only
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going to do an episode on it but we're going to put some stuff in our digest about it so it's the topic of how to
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coordinate patient care well among multiple different providers so when we think
1:06
about the general docs referring his 16-year-old patient to an oral surgeon
1:13
or when a um General General Doc is like hey this is beyond my scope and they
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refer to a pediatric ortho of course is a big part of this as well so you and I
1:25
got to talking about we're like there's so much that we can talk about here so here we go and I love I believe you said
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the subscribers an orthodontist and so to me I thought that was very interesting because I was like which
1:36
side is the side that struggling is it the orthodontist that can't get a reply back from the pediatric dentist the
1:43
general dentist the oral surgeon like whoever they trying to correspond with or is it have they been like told that
1:50
they're not doing yeah you know a good job with and so just right off the top of the the bat like I love this topic
1:57
because you're right it's one of those things that I don't think we ever really think about and so when you start your practice and you're like how am I
2:03
corresponding with somebody and not and in my mind it's um kind of one of those
2:08
things that's almost kind of a little tedious you're like cuz it's details yeah and so that means somebody has to
2:14
follow up on the details but the good news is is once you've got a system in place then it it's easier so it's like
2:21
you've got to get your system in place um so I've got a couple of things that that uh I think we could talk about here
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um but I will say it it you know if somebody's going this is tedious yeah it can be um but hang in there yeah it'll
2:36
be worth it on the other side and I'm glad you mentioned that when we were thinking about this topic of course I
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was thinking about it subscribing an orthodontist but it's interesting how many times I'm in a general dental
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practice and they are commenting on whether or not they refer to somebody
2:55
due to the the referral process and so it really is
3:01
yes we need to know about it from a specialist side but also from a general side a general Dental side the
3:07
complexities that that specialty specialy office is going through to coordinate is it's complicated it really
3:15
can't be complicated so I'm excited to talk about this um and and I will say there are orthodontists that I do not
3:22
refer to we don't hear back from you in a timely fashion and then there are other orthodontists that I refer mostly
3:28
to you because you make it so easy you're easy to get a hold of you understand the question I'm asking I
3:35
don't have to you know hey how are you what did you mean by this but can we do
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this but no no no what I meant by this was like if if I've got an orthodontist who understands for um an orthodontist
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is sending me you know extractions request but do you understand that this
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patient is uh Frankle 2 in my office for a cleaning appointment so what do I you
4:00
know this is what I guess if you're asking for me to extract you know two
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primary canines but the maxillary Kines are going to be next and I know I'm
4:11
going to have to bring in my anesthesiologist to get these extractions done yeah can I go ahead and
4:16
extract all four now is that going to mess up your plan can we be on the same
4:22
page with this when the parent inevitably gets mad at me that now they have to payv twice and I'm going to try
4:27
to throw the shade back on you going well no you're the the one who said we needed to wait like can we not throw shade and can we can we get on the same
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page here so some of the orthodontists that I can work with easier on that are my go-to orthodontist same with the oral
4:40
surgery and if I can't get a hold of you easy like if I don't have your cell phone number and can contact you
4:47
directly um and you don't return my calls I'm not working with you yeah or
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if I sent a referral there's like three orthodontists in my area that I work with that I know if the went to go see
5:01
that provider for an evaluation I know that EV that is going to P back their
5:06
findings and then I know two or three that I will never hear from yeah and so now the patient in my chair 6 months
5:12
later did you go yes I did well what did they say well know well try to I'm not
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doing that I don't I I'm not doing that um so it does behoove all of us to help
5:23
our patience and and being um a reliable know then I've got um an an
5:31
orthodontist I worked with that inevitably his practice grew and the communication got worse
5:39
yeah because now he's gotten so busy and whatever system he had and I finally had to say I I'm not I'm not I'm not happy
5:48
yeah with this right now or we'd had a system of where I could just text him and ask him a question or give my heads
5:54
up and say I talk to the mom about hygiene or you know whatever possible
6:00
need for gingivectomy possible need for a frenectomy what do you think about all of this and he's like oh yeah I'll talk
6:06
to the mom when she comes in well then the mom would come back and there there would be nothing and so I knew it was
6:12
him dropping the ball yeah because he was getting busier but you know so we've
6:19
got to tweak systems and and it was somebody that I could say that to and say hey man I talked to you about these
6:25
two cases and it seems like where did the ball get dropped yeah you know did you talk to the mom about this now I'm
6:31
not a confrontational person if I don't feel like I could talk to you about that
6:36
what am I going to do I'm just going to find another orthodontist right so and again I keep saying orthodontist because
6:41
we work so closely with the orthodontist but that could be anybody it could be the pediatrician that um there was a
6:48
pediatrician once that that I suspected the kid had a had hypophosphatasia
6:53
because this is what I was seeing got the pediatrician on the line she more or less laughed at me I was like well what are I'm just like if we can't
7:00
collaborate on patient care yeah I'm not saying you missed a sign of anything I'm not accusing you of anything no you're
7:07
just saying let's work together to help this kid right but the I think the way she took it was here was this pediatric
7:12
dentist telling me about a medical diagnosis on one of my patients and I was like I am never working with you
7:18
yeah because you have such a limit you have such an ego yeah you have such a limited view of you know here's somebody
7:25
else who could be working with you and helping you yeah um and so if I don't have that camaraderie with a another
7:32
provider because sure as hell I'm sure there's going to be things that I mess up or that I don't think about or that I
7:38
don't see and vice versa things that I'm catching that I'm like dude this doesn't make any sense like you're asking me to
7:45
do this but did you even look at the wisdom teeth on the Pano because it makes more sense to send it to the oral
7:51
surgeon rather than to me oh you didn't even look at that well I don't want to be the one to tell the patient well Dr
7:57
sileno didn't even look at the like who are we helping right we're not helping show we're not helping our Dental field
8:03
or our Dental Community like our profession so but if it's somebody that
8:08
I can't talk to I'm not going to talk to you I will I will find a different resource so um I know I just got off on
8:17
a tangent there but I think for me the point is first of all I think the referral Community needs to be like all
8:24
sides of that if anybody has an ego or if the general dentist is like you're
8:29
lucky pediatric dentist that I'm referring to you you make it easy on me I mean they've kind of got a point I am
8:36
relying on you for the referral but if you're constantly going to be throwing me under the bus for things then I don't
8:43
work with you right and I can throw that right back at you at some point I haven't this far you know I could have
8:49
easily said what about that patient why didn't you send them you know a year ago
8:54
why didn't we don't do that to you don't do it to me um so I I think that's part
9:00
of it and then getting down into the how are you making your system so for the colleague to call out and go dude I
9:06
think you're not what what is up with you yeah are you busy moving your house are you growing too much you bought a
9:13
second practice you onboarding an associate you know I can empathize with all that but at the end of the day not
9:20
my problem I I need this to get better and and he did he he made whatever Corrections he did on his own end yeah
9:27
to make sure that our texting didn't slip through the cracks yeah yeah well and I think too it's it's almost like
9:33
we've got to start with the right mindset towards our referral system
9:39
we've got to have first of all an appreciation for it um a respect I think
9:45
respect is maybe the better better word that we're respecting whatever colleague we're referring to that there's never a
9:54
negative mindset towards that so it's almost like we've got to have the right mindset first and formost most and then
10:00
out of that should grow a really collaborative system one of the things that I think is really important to
10:07
think about here is to me you've got the doctor to doctor Communication in these
10:14
referral relationships which kind of is its own category and then you've got the team to
10:21
team communication so when you mention something like the you know like how we
10:28
didn't receive a letter from from this specialist so now I'm having to get secondhand information from the parent
10:34
regarding this um what all happened at that appointment okay where did that break down was that that the doctor did
10:43
a referral letter that letter never got sent cuz sweet Sally at the front forgot to s a whole month's worth of referral
10:49
letters well now the doctor doesn't know that that didn't happen it's interesting
10:55
that referral letters is coming up right now because I was at a oral surgery office last week and we're fine-tuning
11:03
all of their system and one of the things that we talked about was hey we need to go back and talk about our
11:08
collaboration with referral referring uses um they primarily utilize referral
11:14
letters back and forth now million different ways that you can get information maybe not a million but several different ways that you can get
11:20
referral information between providers they utilize referral letters which is
11:26
totally fine but we went through and looked looked how quickly is that being
11:33
out is there any additional information outside of that referral letter that needs to be communicated between and
11:39
Doctor how is that being remembered are we putting that on a taskboard how are
11:45
we tracking that what about the referral letter itself are we double triple checking that for accuracy who's
11:52
checking that how many sets of eyes is it going through before that gets anent out and as you think about it you're
11:58
like oh my gosh not so exhausting like really it worth it yes it is worth it
12:03
one so that the providers are collaborating well but ultimately it is for the benefit of the patient what is
12:11
in the best interest of the patient is that these two providers are working together and communicating well and if
12:18
the referral letter is our foundational piece of communication then we have to know it's being sent out it's being sent
12:25
out timely and it's correct when it that and then whoever is receiving it is receiv in a timely fashion and so it's
12:31
like it really is and I think one of those too that um I think we can get kind of whether it's you know the
12:37
general dentist who's kind of the you know the the king of the castle if you will on the dental totem pole like
12:42
everybody's like oh we need your referrals but I think of times where General Dennis will forget that we can
12:48
refer back to you too yes we see your work and if we're like oh gosh no or you
12:55
waited too long to send this patient or or vice versa if we see your work and we're like man I mean colleague of mine
13:01
that I would see his um Class 2 composits and they were textbook perfect
13:07
so any teenager or any parent that needs fillings he was my go-to guy because I
13:13
saw how beautiful his work was yeah um and so dare I say General Dennis you
13:18
would imagine you would C aedes we were send you yeah um and then even the
13:24
orthodontist like we I think the orthodontist we think of as like oh we're the we're your cash cow peeds
13:30
ascending to you but the number of patients that Ortho can send back to us yes um I think you know I'm I don't take
13:37
that for granted like that's a it's it needs to be a win-win and I think if somebody's kind of going that's not my
13:43
problem yeah I don't need to worry about that I think that to me is really disappointing disappointing and kind of
13:49
dumb because to your point you're not providing the best patient care if that's the case but also you never know
13:56
the opportunity to get a patient right and so if you are easy to work with you
14:01
are quick to respond you are accurate with your stuff people are going to want to work with you yeah yeah so we even
14:09
had um another orthodontist that we hate getting her referral letters or or her
14:16
evaluations because they're kind of all over the place I mean silly little things like she'll send the the Pano on
14:25
the same document but I can't see the Pano when we printed then like I want you know like not sending it separate
14:32
she's like oh well I can send you the cbct I read I don't know how to read a cbct I don't want to read that give me
14:38
your summary findings so here she was sending me like a 10-page document I'm like I don't want any of this yeah and
14:45
so we had to go back and forth to kind of what we wanted and then every other orthodontist sends us a separate
14:52
extraction request she was burying it in her evaluation form so we were missing
14:57
oh wow and then so I talked to her about it and then she like oh okay like she
15:03
almost thought we were the pack of idiots at this point do I feel like maybe I'm being a bit Ding and a bit
15:09
needy out of her maybe but at this point in our relationship the majority of the
15:14
roofs are going from us to her right so you want to keep my business you need to start doing it to where it's going to be
15:19
easier for me yeah and same thing I in my office I ask my other two people you know I ask my associate and the other uh
15:26
Dr Kavita who comes I'm like does this make sense to you like what you have thought with this and they agreed with
15:33
me I'm like so it's not a me problem being special needs here right I think this worth it honest I don't know who
15:38
she's working with otherwise but I don't think she's I think it's her yeah um and so
15:46
you know I think the easier you can make it for everybody we also had recently
15:52
a uh mom that came in come to find she's a uh Pediatric Sleep specialist m and
15:59
we're like we that because now when we're trying to refer a patient for uh Osa valuation and trying to get caught
16:05
up Bermuda Triangle of who's going to manage this the pediatrician pediatrician's like no there's nothing wrong had strep five times good at the
16:13
ENT is it an ENT that believes and sleep apnea issues and you know what I mean like it becomes this mushroom cloud I'm
16:19
like God I hate making these referrals cuz I don't feel like I'm I feel like am I really helping the patient because if
16:26
I send you back to your pediatrician who's going to have an ego about this old scho or an ENT that is old school
16:32
and now the patients ped against who are they going and now they don't believe me and like anyway so here's a specific
16:40
person I can send you to who knows we have agreed that this is a
16:45
useful uh evaluation so for her I was like okay well how do I refer to you well she it's
16:53
not her own office it's part of like a hospital system and it's a satellite Clinic of this hospital system okay
17:02
so how am I referring to you like what am I doing here well so we emailed her
17:09
and so now she had to ask her facility will they only want a fact I ask you we are in 2025 now you
17:17
only want a fact okay well we'll come up so we had to
17:22
come up with it we had to come up with our fax um what do you call it cover
17:27
sheet yeah and and our sheet of going okay these are the things that this is why I'm sending this patient yeah so now
17:34
I'm starting to fax it to to that clinic and um you know I emailed her and said is this going to work is this what you
17:40
guys want and this is how you're going to correspond back with us so I had to do all the leg work on that now what am
17:46
I gaining out of that like am I gaining a major referral source that this Clinic is not going to start referring to me uh
17:54
I don't think so but they might right maybe this mom is going my kids go to this office office and I like how
17:59
thorough they are right that's how it came up actually because when she was in our office doing paperwork she said that
18:04
you're screening for Osa yes and it started the conversation and that's how we discovered that's what she does yeah
18:10
um and so now maybe she's not sending uh medical patients to us but at least
18:16
friends in her community and other Physicians so she's like no no no go there they're more thorough yes um and
18:23
we've created the system now um so I think to me like regardless
18:29
of it's it's there are opportunities to help both businesses but also to help your patients which is the ultimate
18:35
thing now did this uh subscriber the orthodontist who sent in did they ask
18:40
anything about what they were wanting to know in particular like just our tips on to make that referral
18:47
process solid and and good so which I like you're doing without saying go do
18:54
this to me like it's annoying and frustrating as it is people who are
19:01
consistently receiving referrals whether that's the pediatric dentist the oral
19:06
surgeon the orthodontist doesn't matter if you aren't in some regular practice
19:12
of asking for feedback every so often and going hey the probably the top three
19:18
people that refer to me maybe that's twice a year where that specialist is
19:23
reaching out and going hey by the way I want to just get some feedback on our referral process do you like the am
19:29
communication that I'm sharing what could I do to enhance it make it better for you
19:36
because you're kind enough with two referrals that you just talked about to have been very overt with back like hey
19:43
I need you to change this referral letter cuz we're losing the extraction request in there and it's fuzzy are we
19:49
extracting now or are we not extracting now communicating with your other colleague where hey I don't know what's
19:54
going on with your communication but it's gone way down like I need you to pick it back up up most people will just
20:00
go eh I'm not going to refer to them anymore and they move on and then when
20:06
we're evaluating numbers the next year we're like oh no I wonder what happened to this referral source they just left
20:14
because of something that they in the process so to me it's like as a person
20:20
who's receiving referrals you need to be asking for feedback and making changes accordingly any specialty office that I
20:27
work with I always tell people you've got to customize not everybody wants the
20:32
same information the same level of information um the same format like is
20:38
it a letter what if this doctor really really really prefers this referral
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portter portal and you like go do I really have to change my normal routine
20:49
if you're the recipient of referrals yes in order to really accommodate that
20:55
Doctor Who's referring to you and to do what's best for the patient we've got to kind of pivot and make
21:01
either change our system to make it super easy for that doctor or we may have to jump on their page and go okay
21:08
for you I'll remember that instead we only text back and forth about the patient whatever the case may be you got
21:15
to be willing to be flexible in that process but I think that starts with getting regular feedback from the people
21:22
that refer to you and not just the doctor the team so again I was in this
21:30
oral surgery office and um we were listen we were auditing phone calls which is everybody's favorite activity
21:37
that I do when I come in so we were listening and we heard a um Referral
21:43
office call in and so we were evaluating this employee and this employee got the
21:50
patient scheduled and then went on to ask patient address patient phone number
21:57
patient email uh patient insurance information yada yada and so after the
22:04
call ended I was like you know okay let's talk about it highs lows whatever and then I move I put on my critical hat
22:11
and I was like I do not like that we are tying this referral office up asking for
22:19
address I'm like do we need that to schedule an appointment does your software require that you have a patient
22:24
address now some do so I want to be clear with that some require that so we may have to act to actually put the
22:30
appointment on the schedule we might actually have to have an address okay I I can stand by that phone number I get
22:37
we need the patient's phone number to be able to communicate with them email I get it it would be nice to have it so
22:44
that we can send paperwork and all of that but do we have to could we not follow up with the patient to get that
22:49
information insurance I'm like are you kidding me
22:55
get that from the patient now their argument was and I I hear it the argument was well it's the patients
23:03
prefer that we from the referral office because it's accurate the referral office is using it um and I'm like I get
23:12
that that's the patient preference but what I'm concerned about is the referral office preference
23:19
because they've got a patient in front of them probably four back behind them they're drowning in tasks and they've
23:26
spent an extra 3 or 4 minutes on the phone with with you going through every aspect of this patient's Insurance it is
23:32
not helpful to that referral office and what may end up happening is they find a
23:37
different place to refer to that doesn't ask all of that information so if the doctor's not overtly like hey you you
23:43
send a doctor Smith and they're like hey they need an OS referral and they're like okay good I ain't referring to Dr
23:49
Smith because they always keep me on the phone for 5 minutes I don't have five minutes I'm going to go with Dr Jones
23:55
instead because it's a two-minute phone call rather than a 5 minute phone call so we have to also evaluate the
24:02
team's perspective on this referral process I that is so funny you say that cuz we dealt with exactly that and and
24:09
it was my close but all of a sudden what it's about two years ago or something and it came out of our meetings where
24:16
they were like yeah so annoying I'm like who what are you talking about well you know when we're sending information and
24:21
I was like why are you doing that so it was us referring Johnny to the orthodontist the orthodontic office
24:28
would call us and do exactly this try to get the insurance information trying to do all this I'm like why are we doing
24:35
that we're already sending the patient to you you should make it easy for us
24:40
and that is not making it easy and that's what it was they were they would say oh Johnny's mom do you want us just
24:47
to call to get this information what's mom say yes so now they were hounding us
24:53
because they didn't want to Hound the parent yeah and I was like uh-uh and so I went to my colleague and I said look
25:01
I'm going to be the here I think your is trying to make it easy on themselves and I can see that but I'm
25:07
not paying my staff extra to sit here and give your staff that information that is the bitchiest thing
25:14
but I'm just going to be very direct I don't have time for that yeah if that's something your is going to need let me
25:19
know cuz we we will just not if your staff is too busy with other patients
25:25
then we can make you less busy like and I I said it in a nicer way than that but he got my point very quickly yeah he had
25:31
no idea his staff was doing that I think his office manager was just like God that yes but nuh uhuh the gift is
25:38
you've got the patient don't don't put that work back on me right um this also reminds me of uh and it was around covid
25:46
and so I tried to understand but it was other provider we were working with for anesthesia Services great provider had
25:53
used this provider for a decade but around Co when we all lost staff and all
25:59
of that I mean I tried to be patient but it's like trying to get our patients on the schedule with the information they
26:05
needed in a timely fashion um to where like say we've got surgery cases on
26:12
Monday will we see this patient on Friday and they want to get on Monday schedule and now the provider is going
26:18
his office team was going oh no no no we need three or four days for us to process this I'm like are you out of
26:25
your mind like we are not serving the patient and we were losing business like that doesn't make any sense and knowing
26:31
this doc I know he would like that is Foolery but I don't think he realized that's what a staff was doing yeah and
26:38
so I brought it up and again this went on for months and I finally was like I can't do this anymore we we use a
26:44
different provider now because they made things easy for us yeah and so you've
26:49
got to constantly re reevaluate yourself then too am I making it easy for people to refer to
26:56
me and so we've got like an option um on our website referring docs and so we'll
27:02
refer people to that and say hey here's one of the best ways you can get a hold of us but if that doesn't work for you
27:07
you want our paper referral forms you got it so every two months we're going and we're like do you need more of these
27:14
do you need more of these y um but again everything we're doing and this is a
27:19
detailed minutia area but if you're not going to pay attention to it it's like anything else whoever's going to make this easy for me is who's I'm going to
27:26
I'm going to utilize yes yes and ease comes down to accessibility is this
27:32
person is this doctor accessible when we need to be accessible and I get the annoyance of that but that's important
27:39
do I have a good system that I like does my team like to this so we can go into
27:45
the whole there's a whole different side of like marketing to these potential
27:50
referral sources and developing good relationships we're not even talking about that we're just talking about the
27:55
nuts and bolts of is there clear communication is it consistent is it
28:00
accurate I we've got to make sure that what send out is accurate if we didn't
28:06
if if there was something we discussed with that patient that we did not represent in that referral letter and we
28:13
have sent that referral letter back to the original source and they're now going in partially blind into that
28:21
conversation we have set that provider up for failure now because now they're they look dumb because they didn't know
28:28
know that there was this whole aspect of the conversation that happened so we've if we're not checking the information
28:35
that we send for accuracy we need to be because that can not only get the provider in a the referring provider in
28:42
a predicament that also compromises patient care we had one a couple months
28:48
ago that a mom came in and whatever she was saying I'm like what is her Point here where is she going with this when
28:54
she finally came out it the orthodontist um sent her a letter like a summarizing
29:03
letter after the appointment but it was the wrong patient oh my go so this Mom now is getting this separate you know
29:10
this kid that's not her kid and she's lost trust in this provider and she's like well I really wanted to go there
29:16
she's 2 minutes from my house you told me she was really good and I'm just like oh my God she is really good but I said
29:24
I can guarantee you she probably has no idea this is a clerical area and I hope you don't ding heral error you know and
29:32
I was like it's hard to find good team members these days and it's hard to like God only knows what's going out of my
29:38
own office that somebody hased up and sent the wrong like it could happen to any one of us um and so then I told this
29:44
colleague I said hey by the way like I don't know if you know but this was the wrong one I smoothed it back she's going to come back but whatever you need to do
29:50
on your end but you better I'm watching those now because I see a couple more coming through and I raised my flag to
29:56
go maybe I can't work with with this colleague anymore at this time yeah she's bought another practice she's
30:02
onboarding new people she she's got a lot of you know things going on but at the end of the day like that's going to
30:07
reflect back on me yeah cuz this the only reason we went there is cuz you told us to go there so can you imagine
30:13
if anything else had happen with this one so um I just think like yes so to me
30:18
communication ease covering each other we're all going to make mistakes and have something happen and if we're if
30:25
we're afraid that that person's going to like talk about an idiot are to the patient I can't work with you yeah um I
30:32
think that's one other thing that we should hit on that we haven't said is we a lot about the nuts and bolts of
30:38
communication between the offices and between the providers but we've also got to have our referral offices back um
30:47
both ways right so um there's going to be we're human there's going to be makes that are made
30:54
and we've got to stand up for our providers now to your point if we're seeing repetitive mistakes we should
31:00
question whether or not we should continue to refer to that that office but I do so let's say the general Doc is
31:08
sitting there having a conversation and he realizes now that the referral letter was inaccurate or that there was an
31:14
aspect of the conversation that was represented he could easily go in that moment why did Dr Smith not tell me
31:21
about this there's nothing in the letter about that to save his own hide don't do
31:27
that because now that patient has a mistrust for Dr Smith because you displayed a mistrust for Dr Smith so
31:34
you've really got to stop and watch your communication now I'm not saying that that doesn't need to be addressed if
31:40
there is something inaccurate that needs to be communicated back to that office that sent the patient back to you but in
31:46
the moment in front of the patient help your your referring office out and go
31:52
you know what I I'm missing some details on that fil me fil me back in on part of the conversation I want make sure I
31:58
understand that we are we are like hey I don't have the details on that but we're not like Dr Smith his team didn't send
32:04
me the information on that can you fill me in no we're just like hey you know what I'm missing fill in the blanks for me on that okay we're smoothing that
32:11
over so that the patient is ultimately trying to update us we may need to go back to Dr Smith and be like hey I'm
32:17
missing a big part of the conversation here can you fill me in but in that moment let's not let's support each
32:23
other and and I think it's the assumption is You're Going H a patient lost trust in Dr Smith but what if they
32:29
like Dr Smith better yeah and now they they've lost the trust in you they're like mhm you're trying to cover for
32:34
yourself I know that that's not what happened right but I think it's so come out smelling like a rose too that's
32:39
exactly I'm just like okay I'm really sorry I'm just confused with some part of this cuz I thought you know what can
32:47
I I I will get back to you by the end of today or earliest tomorrow but I'm hey
32:53
Jenny can you make sure just leave me a Post-It right there hand me hand me the posted okay I'm gonna call yes as soon as I get a CH to call I'm going to call
33:00
because somehow I'm missing a piece of this and I want to make sure before I guide you that I have all the pieces
33:06
myself yeah so let me get with Dr Smith he's really good about returning calls whether he is or isn't but do please be
33:12
good about returning the calls and being timely um and then we will have an answer for you just to make sure we're
33:17
all on the same page so your concern is this I have this and we're we're going
33:23
to Loop in because I know I'm missing a piece of this but I do we're going to get on this and then do and you call
33:28
that person and almost always You Can Shed the light you know 90% of the time it's the patient yeah and the you know
33:34
the referring doctor's like that is not what I said what I said was this okay that's why I'm glad we've got this then
33:40
we call Mom back and say Dr Kuba and Dr Smith spoke they're on the same page
33:46
this is how we would want to proceed so we're not going backwards and going well you're the one who missed it no it's
33:51
they clarified this we they exchanged X-rays and talked again and now we've got our plan perfect and solid they're
33:57
on the same page they're so excited that this is the route that we're going to go yes and to me that is pivotal in all of
34:05
this cuz there's going to be little little mess ups in this and I would also say to the communication of trust and
34:13
that we collaborate well together oh we know Dr Smith so well um I can't wait to
34:18
chat with him more about this you want the patient to be ease in this process and so I think that's a critical Comm of
34:26
having a really good um connecting relationship with all your referral offices there was one other thing that
34:31
popped up as you were talking which was an example that came up recently where the referring
34:41
office there was clear communication um and then when the communication came
34:47
they were very controlling very controlling like oh you to do this this and this with the
34:52
patient don't do this this and this and they wanted a lot of control in the process process so just like we would
35:00
communicate trust in front of the patient we need to trust our referring offices so there cannot be
35:07
control patient is a patient of the referring office that provider has to be able to conduct what he or she thinks is
35:14
right on behalf of the patient and yes that needs to be in conjunction with you for but you are not allowed to control
35:21
that relationship so I think that's a show trust in front of the patient and show TR trust to your referring office
35:28
and if there is no if you don't think they're a good provider or doing the right thing then I guess that's where you need to try to figure out and go hey
35:34
we you know I don't think we're on the same page as far as this patient care goes um I think that happened to me
35:40
years ago and there was a dentist who was to get me to do whatever it is he was trying to get me to do and I'm like
35:46
but that's not I can't do that here and he quit referring to me yeah and I was grateful for that because frankly
35:52
whatever he had referred to me was garbage but in this case I'm like I'm sorry my expertise here but you don't
35:59
you think that's going to make you look bad yeah for whatever I don't remember exactly what it was was like an indirect
36:04
pulp cap and a crown versus a whatever and um so it just we just needed a way
36:10
on that and okay too I think one other thing that you had mentioned a minute ago about being um responsive I do want
36:18
to make sure that that's I know um a colleague of mine an orthodontist was
36:23
was always kind of tortured by this other colleague who was like expecting him to drop whatever at any time like if
36:30
it was a Saturday at 11:00 p.m. and a patient had you know a wire poking him
36:37
the this general dentist referral expected the orthodontics to take care of it so you don't need to be ridic is
36:43
what I'm saying but y'all need to figure out what works for both of you if I'm sitting there going I need an answer to
36:49
this because I can't finish my treatment plan because I'm waiting on you and I've had to call your office three times I'm
36:55
not doing that I'm going to find another office yeah so I think um you know just I I hope we answered the subscri
37:02
question but to me it it does go back to systems you have to have a system in place and once you get your system and
37:09
get your team on board with how are we communicating with this office um I
37:14
think you need to figure out how you can be timely and maybe you need to go and and like you said customize with that
37:20
particular is what do timely mean um but I think you need to make sure that you
37:26
are closing the Loop yes and not just like blowing this p in the wind well off
37:31
you go and then we don't ever hear anything back yeah um that's a recipe for I'm moving on I'm not working with
37:37
this office agreed completely yeah and I do think we addressed all the subscribers concerns and questions I
37:44
think this is just such a practical like go revisit your system revisit who
37:49
you're referring to does there need to be communication Clarity um do you need
37:55
to have communication with the team that refers to you kind of how things are going there like take a fresh look at
38:01
this I think it's uh it absolutely directly impacts patient care and so
38:06
it's worth our time as we wrap up today's episode I want to give you a friendly reminder of
38:14
the opportunity that you and your team have to spend two full days with me and
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Dr Koopa in our Consulting crash course a 2day course that is designed for you
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need to email us today at managing Dental drama
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details of the dates that are available the cost and if you want good thorough detailed information check out our May
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there I look forward to meeting you soon [Applause] [Music]