How to Respond to Angry and Unhappy Patients

With an alarming growth of angry and unhappy people in the world, it’s not a surprise that the dental field is seeing its fair share. As disappointing as it is to have an angry, unhappy, or even volatile patient, it only gets harder when a dentist considers the options for dealing with the angry patient. What should a doctor and team do with the unhappy customer? Should they seek to reconcile? Should they send a termination letter? Should they call the person? So many options, each with their own pluses and minuses. In this episode, Dr. Kuba and Bethany discuss a few different angry patient scenarios. They each share their perspective on how they think it should be handled. Finally, Bethany encourages all listeners to pick a consistent response – one that can be implemented across most circumstances. 

Previous Episode Worth Revisiting:
Disgruntled Patients

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Transcript

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

0:15

we dive into the solutions we've created and the mistakes we've made while

0:20

managing Dental drama let's get started well hello today

0:26

um so I'm going to just jump right in and um my bile is rising just even

0:32

getting ready to introduce what I want to talk about today with you go um and as usual I will be the first to say I

0:39

don't have answers to a lot of this but I think just talking it out loud and commiserating together like if nothing

0:45

else um I'm sure many people are dealing with some sort of version of this and um

0:54

again I don't have any solutions other than I hope we're not in this alone like

1:00

you know um so the topic is disgruntled patience I know we talk about that a lot and um but I just feel like it's it's um

1:09

people are so volatile these days with so much going on in the world and um so

1:15

I'm going to just start off with with an example here and then um actually before I get to the

1:20

example uh you and I were at sprig live um a couple of weeks ago and we gave a

1:27

talk on uh deescalation and tips on how to deescalate so ours was actually a workshop where we did audience

1:34

interaction and kind of LED people through um how to deescalate a situation

1:39

so you're not having these like explosions in your office and afterwards one of the attendees came up to us and

1:48

was asking us questions on you know what she should do and basically she's I think correct me if I'm wrong is she a

1:55

new practice owner she is not the owner so she is an associate in this practice

2:00

but she's the only doctor there the assoc I mean the owner never comes in so she even though she doesn't own the

2:06

practice she is the lead in that practice and young in her career I think

2:13

one year under her belt something like that yeah that that's what I remember too yeah it's probably within her first

2:19

year that she's she's been there and she said she got a one star

2:24

review um and it was a patient mom and she's like I don't even know what it was a it was a baby so this is a pediatric

2:30

dentist and it was an infant oral health visit whatever it was and she's like I

2:36

mean there was nothing really that happened in the visit and the review was

2:41

a one star the doctor was very condescending and we didn't care for her

2:46

demeanor and we will not be back there and so really it seemed like it was just a personal attack on the doctor for no

2:52

reason um and so we kind of gave her differing advice and uh so I thought

2:57

that would be a good one to talk about here can you add to that tell me what you advised yes so the doctor asked both

3:04

of us should I contact this parent first of all she was deeply offended by the

3:11

offended and concerned by the review she was like I've never been nobody's ever

3:16

told me that I have bad chide Manner and I the fact that I would come across

3:22

condescending to a parent I don't know how that happened she was very confused and concerned about the feedback and she

3:29

said if there's something I'm doing wrong I really need to know about it and this review doesn't really tell me

3:34

exactly what I did wrong other than I came across as condescending should I call this parent and so my immediate

3:41

answer was absolutely you should and the reason for that is first of all this was

3:48

one of her first negative reviews um again young in her career and so my take

3:54

on negative reviews is there's always something to learn or to glean from those reviews and so because she wanted

4:01

to know how did I come across this way is is this something that maybe is happening more often that I don't know

4:06

about I told her the only way to know about that is to go directly to the source and to reach out to this parent

4:12

now there's a high likelihood that the parent won't respond won't answer won't give her the feedback that she needs but

4:18

at least she's tried to get some information and my exact advice was you

4:23

know call the parent let them know that you'd love to get some feedback you would never want to come across as condescending and could they tell you

4:31

how exactly you came across this condescending and if the parent answered and if the parent chose to answer her

4:37

question to just listen uh not to justify not to defend herself not to explain herself but just listen to the

4:44

feedback and then say you know what I really appreciate that you taking the time to tell me that um it gives me some

4:50

things to think about and and I just really appreciate your time today that's it and then ultimately she either gets

4:55

some information out of that that's helpful for her in how she communicates or she doesn't and she's at least

5:01

allowed the parent an outlet you as I was telling her this I could feel the

5:06

the chasm developing words like no she's she's not on the same page so tell your response so my response of course um was

5:15

no I I would not call this parent but your advice makes perfect

5:20

sense and maybe that's what I would have done years ago and you pointed out that with her being young in her career it's

5:26

not like she's got a lot of good reviews to buffer the one bad one um and so

5:33

you're right I it I probably at a point did want to find out like what I did and

5:39

I still do I mean it's not like I don't want to but to me this feels like a personal attack um because if you're

5:46

just going through all your baby exam stuff like you should be brushing this way or there's gingivitis here or whatever so I think I guess to me I'm

5:53

playing the conversation out and like what would I say so hi Mrs Smith you

5:59

left me a bad review I'm really sad about it like what did I do wrong you know I just didn't know like to me again

6:05

I'm so delicate that I think it would hurt my feeling like it's probably already hurt my feelings and now to go

6:11

and have to analyze and dissect like I just worry that myself going forward will I continue to blunder even more

6:18

because it would have been such a blow to my confidence right um and I see your point that it's probably already a blow

6:24

to your confidence and so it's better to have some answers um but I just to me again if it was something specific that

6:30

the parent had but when it's just this blanket kind of vague statement of we didn't like the doctor that I'm like but

6:37

then if you don't like me then you don't like me and not everybody can like me I

6:42

wish they did um so I don't know I think that was my gut reaction was just just the thought of physically picking up the

6:48

phone and what am I going to say like you know you didn't like me why didn't you like me all I was trying to do but

6:54

you're right like your point of saying don't don't really try to explain because I think that's what I would do yeah well I didn't mean to sound this

7:01

way the only reason I was saying this was because I saw this I was trying to help you with whatever so I think that's

7:06

key um that yeah just be ready to listen

7:11

um but I think for me I was just like I just don't see how I could just see myself either getting so crushed and

7:17

apologizing 10,000 times for something that I don't know that I really mean the apology um or

7:25

becoming uh um defensive defensive of it yeah aggressive and going well This

7:30

Woman's just insane you know how could she so I just for me personally was like I don't know that how much good is going

7:36

to come of this um so I kind of almost was like well could you have a somebody else in the practice maybe reach out and

7:44

say Hey you know I'm the office manager I'm the hygienist and I look at our reviews and we saw this review and it

7:50

was quite concerning to both of us and um you know I thought I would be a neutral party where you if there's

7:56

something you want to let the doctor know I mean she's she is very concerned about how she came across yeah um and I

8:02

think that's a good alternative to that because the patient is still being contacted or in this case the parent um

8:09

the the team member is really saying on behalf of the doctor she's concerned wants to make sure you have a good way

8:15

of of telling us what went wrong and that parent may be more honest with the

8:23

staff member than they would be directly with the doctor and it can still come across as a caring phone call so I think

8:28

that's a good alternative because my fear would be if it was me alone too and I'm not saying anything and the parents

8:34

like well you said this this way and you criticize my brushing and then my kid cried and you know I just felt like a

8:40

horrible parent because you okay well thank you for the feedback and I hang up then I'm like then is the parent going

8:45

to go you still don't care you didn't apologize for so I just I think in my hands in a more skilled Savvy person but

8:52

me I I'm one of those people who you know is like oh man I should have said this I should have said that I don't know if anybody seen the Seinfeld

8:59

episode The Jerk store with George and the shrimp comment anyway we we laugh about that but like that's who I am

9:05

where I'm like two days later I'm like oh man I should have said this um so for me like those conversations being put on

9:12

the spot like that are really stressful and um and then would that trigger another thing the doctor actually called

9:18

me and had nothing good to say and I'm so glad in my decision of I just so I

9:24

would probably punt it but um I did see the value in what you were saying if you can sound sincere and I think it's

9:31

getting into the right head space before you make that phone call so if you yourself are the one that's going to be

9:37

making it you've first of all got to give yourself you know at least a day or two to kind of recover from that

9:42

negative review and to process it because we always have an emotional reaction to that and what we don't want

9:48

to do is call that parent in the height of our emotion and therefore we are more

9:55

defensive or angry about it we've got to be in the head space of listen do I have

10:00

something to learn from this conversation and that's what I'm looking for is to make sure that this is not

10:07

something pervasive that other patients are seeing that I didn't realize and that's what we're going for and if

10:13

there's nothing to be gained from that conversation okay nothing there was nothing to be gained but at least we

10:19

made the phone call and then often times I would say there's at least one nugget or one takeaway um that can happen you

10:25

know it's interesting I've got um a client that is super bold in her

10:31

dealings with disgruntled patients so she practices in a very uh affluent area

10:37

they have very high expectations and make those expectations really well

10:42

known and they're the ones that you know you your job is to bend over backwards for me and I as the patient owe you

10:49

nothing you know it's just a very difficult demographic and so it is not

10:54

uncommon for her to receive complaints so she sees uh all of the emails uh

11:01

she's copied on that so when it comes into the main info box she also gets a copy of those so she's very aware of

11:08

those complaints when they come in via email she's constantly looking at reviews um they she's the emergency

11:14

contact on the weekends for her practice and so sometimes she'll get complaints directly over the phone and I always um

11:22

I can't think about her without smiling cuz she's so bold in she doesn't shy away from these interactions she's not

11:29

afraid of them she if she knows that hey we failed on some part she's willing to

11:36

admit that and and you know make restitution for that but most of the time it's just unrealistic expectations

11:43

from the patient and they're crazy and and she's willing to just approach that

11:49

headon and she doesn't shy away from those she handles those with Grace but also with confidence and when her team

11:56

needs to be defended she is coming to the defense of her team and so one of the things that I think

12:02

plays into how we respond to disgruntled patients is our disposition our personality she's that strong cheric

12:09

where she's not going to back down from a fight and it's gone really well for her because she's consistent in the way

12:16

that she responds so I think we've got to have we can't fluctuate in how we

12:22

deal with disgruntled like oh we're going to deal with this one but we're going to just ignore this one we're going to respond to this negative review

12:29

but we're just going to ignore that one we've got to figure out what is our our game plan here and how are we going to

12:36

move forward with consistency and I think that's a good takeaway you know yourself well enough to know you're not

12:42

going to call every single patient that hasn't complained against the practice or leaves a negative you you're not

12:48

going to it makes you sick it makes you uncomfortable it is not something that

12:53

is going to be the norm for you so don't make it the norm right if that means you're tagging in a team member that

12:59

that is constantly following up with these negative reviews or disgruntled patients okay great then that's your

13:05

system that's what you're doing going forward then you don't have to think about it some patient calls in and

13:10

complains you're like we've got a game plan we know exactly what we're going to do so and so you're tagged in you deal with this or we do nothing right and we

13:18

just ignore all of them you just have to have a system that you can Implement consistently that's a great that's a

13:25

great uh piece of advice because over time it's not a it's it's not an if you're going to get these complaints or

13:31

issues it's a when um and nowadays that when is happening far more frequently

13:37

okay so now another nauseating one you mentioned the word restitution um and I just want to throw

13:42

up when I hear about these things and and I feel like I hear it a lot more from my general Dental colleagues and my

13:48

heart goes out to you guys because I feel like you have the toughest job on the planet um trying

13:54

to be the the Craftsman of so many different procedures with so many

14:00

different materials and now with assistance and patients are crazy so I

14:06

mean trying to make somebody happy it's it's very difficult um so I feel like

14:12

I've heard this multiple times but one example that you kind of mentioned that has stuck with me um was a patient I

14:20

guess that you said that the doctor did uh mini implants and it was implant

14:25

supported I mean a yeah implant supported uh removable yeah and um dentur so it wasn't removable and uh I

14:33

guess they placed the implants they placed the Dentures the patient came back for one posttop one posttop and

14:40

then didn't come back anymore yep and then so anyway let me let you finishing the story since you're the one who's

14:46

yeah um so next thing they know months later the doctor's getting a letter in

14:51

the mail from this patient that is demanding his $10,000 back because he

14:58

decided to go a different path he decided to go with a it was a chain Denture Clinic and they removed the mini

15:06

implants and placed full implants and did a full you know Allon four type situation and so he wanted his money

15:13

back what's interesting is there was nothing clinically wrong with the

15:20

implants as far as our knowledge is concerned based on postoperative X-rays and um all of that everything looks

15:27

stable so we're not sure what we're left to wonder what led him to choose a

15:33

different path what was he unhappy with we don't know cuz he didn't come back outside of the one posttop and so now

15:40

this this client is left with a well what do I do I mean do I give that money back do I not give that money back and

15:48

so my advice to him especially because he ran so one of the things I appreciate

15:54

about him is he wasn't just like well heck no I'm not doing that he actually thought about it like let me get advice

16:01

from he's got a prosthodontist that reviewed the x-rays reviewed the placement of the implants does this look

16:08

clinically sound can you see anything here that would have gone faulty no Pro pradon his friend said no looks good he

16:15

ran it by uh the uh person that he got certified to do mini implants with so

16:21

all the courses that he had had with this man he sent the information to him do you see anything clinically wrong

16:27

here that I did uh so I appreciate that about him that he just took the time to

16:32

make sure because he thought it was clinically sound but he had the humility enough to go let me run it by people

16:40

that know um potentially even better than I do and they all said looks great

16:45

so a and we talked we had a couple episodes on September and how I've got a

16:51

ton of clients that are just dismally slow right now dismally slow so it's

16:57

like in all honesty there's I don't like I I'm nervous to give up that $10,000

17:02

right now based on the way the last couple of months looked that makes me very concerned and so my advice to him

17:08

was hold on to it just just wait you know ultimately that gentleman is going

17:13

to have to prove that something clinically was wrong in order to demand

17:18

your money back or to be you know owed that so I'm like let's just sit and wait on it especially cuz the 10,000 really

17:24

would be hard to come by right now let's just wait and when I was telling you this you had a different reac action so

17:29

I want to hear I want the listeners to hear your reaction too well I just um I

17:34

just I worry that um it it opens yourself up to a lot of things and so um

17:42

for example now if the patient is like well I'm going to so either way like the

17:47

whole thing like every onion layer is really stinky in this one because let's

17:52

assume the doctor does give the $10,000 back but we don't know what this patient's MO is like did you really just

17:57

want the money back cuz you went got implants elsewhere or what happened um are you going to come back and say well

18:03

but for my pain and suffering I actually want this you gave me 10 like is it ever going to end or is it going to be one that I'm going to complain to the State

18:09

Board now yeah because you um um you know I don't want this to

18:16

happen to any other patient or if you don't give the money back is that what their recourse is going to be is I'm going to call the State Board um I'm

18:22

going to leave negative reviews I'm going to so it's just one of those things where you're like oh my God so at

18:27

this point my question to too is this where you reach out to your liability I don't know I I really don't

18:34

know um and so the whole thing is just like because if he complains to so Part

18:40

of Me Goes is giving the money back the easy way here right um and hopefully the patient just goes away but those are the

18:46

other two things that in the back of my mind go patient may not go away we don't know um and then if this does end up

18:53

going to the State Board well now the state board has to look at everything so can this CL be sure that they've got

19:00

every vital every consent form signed every x-ray is diagnostic there were no

19:07

Mis Billings The Ledger is accurate like it just opens yourself up to all of this

19:12

and then I start going you know what the $10,000 might be cheaper than all the lawyer fees of having to deal with this

19:18

although you may have to deal with at all anyway if they complain so I just was like Bethany I want to throw up for

19:24

your client like this is awful to be held by your balls like that and you don't know what to do so even you saying

19:30

now like you just said just sit on it but what does that mean like is he replying to the patient is he ignoring

19:36

the email somebody from his office calling like now what so that's a great

19:42

question too my advice in this particular situation and this goes back

19:48

to a situation that came up with one of my clients a couple years ago and I reached out to a lawyer friend of mine

19:55

that deals with this and his advice was don't respond like wait for it to see if

20:03

it will subside on its own meaning he's saying I want my $110,000 back the

20:09

dentist is like crickets crickets and then see what this patient's going to do like whether they're going to say did you get my email I want my money back or

20:16

see if they're going to go away or see if okay exactly that makes me nervous which I'm glad a lawyer is saying this

20:21

that makes me really nervous yeah um basically I said you know well why why would we not respond and his advice was

20:30

your response starts to dictate the course that you're going to be walking down right so let's say you open up this

20:36

conversation with the patient oh you know why do you want the money back he said there it could be that they were

20:42

sending that letter and just seeing like what's going to happen he said you don't know the intention of the patient until

20:50

you respond and so he said sometimes it the the hope is that they just sent that

20:56

letter out as a wish and a prayer like one wonder if they'll just send me my money back he was like if that's their

21:01

intention and we hope that it is your lack of response will kill it it's done

21:07

they hoped that they would get $10,000 back and they didn't get it so oh well I tried so he said if we don't respond and

21:15

they're that way it goes away and you never have to worry about it he said if we were to respond to that person that

21:22

was a wish in a prayer well now they have hope that their wish in a prayer is

21:27

actually received attention and now they're going to dig their heels in and make it an issue when it was just a wish

21:34

and a prayer so he said you your reaction actually sets the course for it being something that they're going to

21:41

pursue when you had a chance of it just being a wish and a prayer and I thought that made a lot of sense you know that

21:47

that does make a lot of sense and that's that's quite wise I guess to me the only thing that I still go but people are so

21:53

volatile these days and if they're like you ignored me I'm going to make you pay attention to me now I'm coming back at

22:00

you so because I feel like yeah four or five years ago people were but now especially with

22:08

um I don't know with so much social media so much I I think four or five years ago people weren't as hateful

22:14

right and now the last couple years like hate is so out there and um being very

22:20

vocal with your hate has become acceptable and um I think especially now

22:25

with where it is you know Financial implications of pandemic and the world

22:30

and the inflation and recession and blah blah blah blah blah like I don't know I I I would be curious to know if that

22:37

lawyer is still like now in in today's climate I mean it makes a lot of sense that that's I think in principle that

22:43

makes a lot of sense well and here's the thing to think about let's say that he's doing that he's just going to kind of

22:49

you know sit back and and watch and wait the the cool thing about him is he

22:55

immediately started taking action to try to figure out amongst his his uh you know pred on his friends am I clinically

23:03

sound here he's done homework so that if and when the patient reaches back out and say says did you so this was a

23:09

physical letter that was sent by the way um if and when he reaches back out and says did you not receive my letter I

23:16

sent a letter the response can easily be actually I did receive your letter I've been doing a bunch of homework on my end

23:24

uh and wanted to reach out to you after I had completed my homework so thank you for reaching back out I want to you know

23:30

schedule a time to talk with you in person about the homework that I've been doing um so because that's the truth now

23:36

if we just ignored it and didn't do anything with it then we can't really honestly say that but he can he honestly

23:42

was doing homework so we can always have a Justified reason for the delay in response um if he never responds okay

23:49

great he faded off in the distance if he does respond we can let him know yes we've been hard at work evaluating your

23:55

case getting Specialists to look at your case to figure out what might have gone wrong that caused

24:00

you could that get him in trouble if the patient's like I didn't say you could show my case to somebody else like what do you do no because there's no name

24:07

being shared so technically he hasn't broken any type of HIPPA violation right but from the patient standpoint thinking

24:12

well how dare you go and talk about my case to all these people maybe I don't I don't think that that's necessarily

24:19

maybe if they're crazy enough that's a response but I don't I I would imagine if it's somebody that's just trying to

24:25

get money back and they know it's a long shot the fact that that client pulled in specialist to look at his case hopefully

24:33

would shut it down I I guess to me and again not that not that I any advice but when I'm looking at this I'm like but the patient seems crazy to begin with

24:39

something's off because if you just didn't go back for any anything and you

24:45

moved on that is crazy who does that who does that who gets like pays that kind of money gets those many implants and

24:51

unless something happened in that practice like you feel like the doctor harassed you in some way or you feel

24:57

like it's just such an a um step to just disappear and go back

25:02

and get it redone so something's not right well there's screw loose pardon the pun here like I just something's not

25:10

right you know so I to me that's where I think that's where my we need like yeah

25:16

I'm here all day in this closet um but you know what I mean like if we were talking about a rational person all this

25:23

makes sense but the whole thing is so irrational that I start going this this put us in a different League right now

25:28

so here's something to think about on that um so let's think about the two ways that this could go and we kind of alluded to this in our lawsuit um one it

25:37

can go one of two ways like civil court type thing right where we're going not

25:42

stateboard route but civil court route um so again the one of the advice that

25:48

my client received was they would have to prove in civil court that clinically

25:54

something broke down in order for you to be on the hook for this 10

26:00

$110,000 stateboard route that's the really fun route to think about because as you mentioned in the one of the

26:07

previous episodes if it goes stateboard route the The Denture Clinic group that

26:14

took this patient on removed implants placed implants well they're a part of this case so one of the advices that uh

26:22

my client received was in all honesty if it goes stateboard route based on what

26:28

we're seeing and how these implants look great you placed good implants it is

26:33

going to be the responsibility of that group to justify why they removed

26:39

perfectly good implants advise the patient to remove perfectly good implants and redo everything so the um

26:47

advice that he received was in all honesty this looks so clinically strong that if it goes stateboard route you're

26:53

going to be fine if it goes civil court obviously that's more up in the air but still they they would have to prove so

26:59

I'm going to argue with that you're going to be fine stateboard route because can you vouch for everything else in your record to be fine cuz they

27:06

might say there was no standard of care violation in implant placement but you didn't take vitals on this day and you

27:11

didn't like so it's a can of worms yeah and and of course then if it's those smaller allegations maybe you get a

27:18

lighter slap on your wrist maybe you get lucky and you get dismissed but I still think that is not a good

27:26

place to be in because it's you don't you don't know you know like civil litigation is it's I think is a little

27:31

bit more clearcut in this case but to me altogether that this patient's a little something's not right yeah um it

27:40

just makes me nervous now when we were talking about this the other day you said your dad who has been a guest on

27:45

this and we all want him to be a more frequent guest on this um you said your dad would almost always pay it back and

27:52

you to were at odds with that so can you tell us more about that I wish he was here right now cuz I want to know from him would you give it back and if so

27:59

based on everything we've talked about would you still do that today yeah uh so

28:05

dad for the longest time has been he's quick to give back um it drove me crazy

28:12

especially because again when we talk about my history with the practice I was brought in to find money to save money

28:18

to help them you know kind of surv survive yeah so then when we get a

28:24

patient that's demanding money back and my dad's just almost always like yeah okay you know give it back it drove me

28:31

crazy cuz I'm like that's $1,800 that I fought for in collections and now I'm

28:36

back to equal I so in my mind financially the refund needed to make

28:43

sense did we do something wrong um did we need did we truly owe that patient

28:50

that refund if we're just doing it because they raised a stink well I'm going to raise a stink too cuz I fought

28:56

really hard for that $1,800 we're now giving back um so I he and I would

29:01

definitely be at odds now one of the things that I'll say about him is this

29:07

did not happen very often in his practice and so uh and he he I think he

29:12

alluded to this in one of the episodes that I had him on for as much as we try to do great

29:18

Dentistry um there's going to be mistakes or things that come up and we didn't do a perfect job every time we

29:23

can't right so there's cases that he feels like oh I probably could have done

29:28

this a little bit better I or I could have had better margins on this crown or whatever the case may be but he said you

29:34

know what I very seldom have patients that complain because they like me they

29:41

know that I care there's a feeling that he creates and I've told this to a lot of my clients he has just a masterful

29:47

way of interacting with patients he's that Uber sanguin and and can just bring

29:54

warmth into a room and patients just love him when they they love you and

29:59

feel like you care like you're listening and you and you care that minimizes the complaints and so he it's very rare for

30:06

him so when it does pop up he tends to be more like H give it back no big deal because first of all it's rare it's not

30:13

happening very often and his mindset is if they're unhappy and they think that

30:18

they're owed that money back well who might have stand in the way of them getting their money back um I see it

30:24

very differently but he's always been that way so he is quick to give money back if when that pops up so then you go

30:30

back to then luck and personality because then I start going okay well is this client of yours not a likable

30:36

person you know and I'm sure they are you know what I mean but so sweet but then you start going um you know like

30:42

this one that had the negative review for her demeanor well she did look like

30:48

a minority of some sort I'm not sure what her background was but she you know she did she was did not present with

30:54

Uber confidence and Uber whatever but she was fine there's nothing wrong with her um but I was like I can bet you

31:01

anything you have the whiff of new grad trying to please and this mom is

31:06

sniffing that out is going to pick up pick on you um and so I do go back and

31:12

say there are just something there's some colleagues of mine that I'm like dude you get away with everything because there's just something like one

31:19

in particular there's just something just a Shooks about you you just look like oh you're such a nice guy you're

31:24

soft demeanor you've got this sweet smile and so people people just want to take care of you you're the dentist

31:29

who's supposed to take care everybody else but everybody takes care of you because you just have that aura about you um and so you know I guess how do

31:38

you yeah how do you fabricate that when it's not natural for you and I think

31:44

that's the question of the day it doesn't mean that it eliminates a disgruntled patient but if we can

31:51

minimize that because we made them feel a certain way in the practice um then if

31:57

that means we remove some of that risk it's well worth harnessing or tapping into a part of us that's not natural so

32:04

maybe we're not the you know awesome little sparkly person that walks in and just brightens the room but how can we

32:11

tap into that to make this patient feel like there are one and only attention so

32:17

a couple of things that that you and I have talked about just good listening are we asking

32:24

open-ended questions that show the the parent or the patient I want to listen to you is our body language showing that

32:31

so I feel like body language is 90% of this if when we're asking a question if we've physically distanced oursel from

32:38

the patient we're as far back from them as we can we're sitting back with legs AR legs and arms crossed and we don't

32:46

look like we're engaged or worse and I see this all the time they're answering our questions and we're back behind them

32:52

at the computer back to them not even eye contact I I honestly can't talk to

32:58

people without eye contact I find myself moving around the person to get in their line of sight because I feel like we're

33:05

not going to get each other if there's no eye contact but in the dental field we do this all the time we step behind

33:10

the patient and ask questions and document on the computer and they're talking to the wall in front of them and

33:16

so creating that feeling of no I'm asking all these questions I'm smart enough to remember your answers for the

33:23

2 minutes that I'm spending sitting here to then go back behind you and or better yet I've got an employee in here in the

33:30

room with me that is documenting on my behalf for that but I look like I'm interested I'm near enough to you that

33:38

it shows I'm interested I've established eye contact with you I've got open body

33:43

language uh and I'm asking open-ended questions not just very black and white

33:48

yes or no questions I feel like I'm trying to get to know you that can go a long way even if you're a super

33:53

introverted personality and that's hard right cuz the introverted person ities especially our Uber fmatic who have very

34:01

low facial expressions and we're like do they have any emotions the fmatic is

34:07

going to have to harness some facial expressions to you know raise the eyebrows when the patient says something

34:13

interesting to smile when they say something funny and that may even take as silly as it sounds that may even take

34:19

practice in a mirror to know oh this is what a smile looks like this is what raised eyebrows look like but that is

34:27

valuable time spent if it means the patient feels in that moment like you were present and you cared yeah and

34:34

that's what I wonder to with this with this dock of yours um somewhere some

34:39

trust has been lost and so that would be my question it's you've done some excellent sounds like excellent

34:45

technical execution of the case but for some reason the patient didn't think so like for the patient to put themselves

34:51

to this again yeah something is off whether it's with the patient or with the communication how they were made to

34:57

feel like it's just um it to me every disgruntled patient is a good

35:02

opportunity to go back and re-evaluate our systems our communication how did this happen oftentimes we're so prideful

35:11

that we're like that's just a dumb patient you know just miss just miss that I feel like we miss an opportunity

35:17

to learn in that scenario as much as we would love to have 100% positive feed feedback that's not practical that's not

35:25

realistic so man even if we've got 2% negative feedback that's 2% that we can

35:30

learn from if we're willing to pause and to listen or to look at the negative review and go wow how did we get here

35:37

let's go back and re-evaluate this whole situation where where would they have come up with this and could we do

35:42

anything differently same thing with this discal patient um asking for the money back where did we get off with

35:49

this what could we have done differently if anything but let's at least take the time to reevaluate because it looks like

35:55

the doctor is doing a great job of re-evaluating the technical aspect but to me now that we've been talking about

36:01

this I start going I mean unless all the implants fell out and now the patients like I don't have trust in them but it

36:07

doesn't sound like they should fall out because it sounds like all the experts have looked at it so then I start going something else causes patient to lose

36:14

trust now was it I see this a lot to it it's it's infuriating and nauseating

36:19

that sometimes an assistant will say something and the patient takes grasps

36:24

onto that and turns it into whatever they turn it into so did somebody over the phone say something unintentionally

36:31

not not on purpose but did somebody say something that now has casted this doubt in this patient's mind yeah that now

36:38

they sought another dentist and undid everything you just did like they didn't it wasn't just a feeling this is like a

36:43

pretty big procedure they were on board for a reason and suddenly they're off board and Something's Happened so I'm

36:49

I'm hoping this doc has gone okay clinically technically we were fine but I hope they continue to do their

36:55

research and what could how did we lose Trust of this patient yeah I think that's a really good Takeaway on this

37:01

and any any complaint honestly is take the time to evaluate to critically

37:07

evaluate where something could have gone wrong and are there changes that we can practically Implement because of this

37:14

disr patient and I think that's a huge takeaway awesome hey thanks for bringing up a a bile inducing convers I say we

37:22

should have inserted somewhere grab your barf bag like sorry if any of you guys have made a mess on yourselves now this

37:28

such a nauseating topic hey hang in there though I mean again even this example shows we're

37:35

we're not alone in this we do have colleagues that are experiencing a

37:40

higher number of disgruntled patients so I think it's an important subject matter for now thanks for joining the

37:46

conversation today we hope that you are comforted in knowing that you are not alone but we also hope that you're

37:53

walking away with some really great tips and tricks to try in your practice

37:58

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38:22

dental drama