Regional Support Manager, Donna Hall, suggests ways practices can make the most of calls from patients looking for an NHS dentist.
Something I am often asked about is how to handle the volume of NHS calls practices are receiving at the moment. This question comes from both fully private as well as mixed practices as patients, desperate to get an appointment, ring round dental practices.
Rather than viewing these calls as a nuisance, I encourage my practices to make the most of them and try to convert as many of them as possible to come in on a private basis. Especially given the pressures on NHS dentistry and the lack of capacity within the industry.
Here are a few pointers that may help you and your team to encourage those patients to come through your doors.
Although you may not be an NHS contract holder, patients are less likely to have carried out as much research on dental practices as they may have done pre-COVID. They are just calling practice after practice in a certain area hoping that some of the mud they’re throwing at the wall will stick. So, they may not have looked at your website or your social media to establish whether you offer NHS dental treatment prior to ringing you. It’s also highly unlikely they will have checked the NHS choices website to check whether you are taking on NHS patients if you’re a mixed practice.
Have a little patience
The first thing to remember when answering these types of calls is that this will be the first time they’ll have heard from you that you’re unable to see them as an NHS patient, for whatever reason. So, much as your team might be tired of receiving that kind of call, they cannot let that show. I often think it depends on how far down the list of practices they’ve phoned you are as to how easy or difficult the conversion may be.
Patients may ring five or 10 practices in a local area and be told exactly the same thing by all of them. Quite often along the lines of, “I’m really sorry, our NHS books are full at the moment. However, we can see you on a private basis.” If you leave it at that and don’t expand on the point but simply give the patient a price, you are then involving yourself in a price war. Because patients have no idea that your practice is any different from the one two doors down so they may make a choice based solely on cost.
Leave a lasting impression
At this stage it’s about asking patients the right questions to try to see if there is something you can offer them on a private basis that may suit their needs. So even if a patient asks for NHS care, I recommend asking what they’re looking for.
For example, are they in pain? Are they looking to register with the practice? Are they interested in a particular treatment? Lots of patients ask about NHS treatment when really, they want implants or composite bonding, which are not available through the NHS. So, I always encourage teams to ask the patient for some more detail about what it is they need so you can help them. Once you’ve established what that is, it’s time to address the NHS question.
Tell them you’re unable to take on any more NHS patients. However, you do have an option for them to come in as a private patient. Then offer to give them some more information about how that might work so they can make an informed decision as to whether you are the right practice for them. That way you’re not going straight into price. You’re not forcing a patient to listen to you if it really is NHS only they want.
Hopefully, the ones that are open to hearing what you have to say will be more likely to either book straight in with you, or if they still choose to call a number of other practices, your practice will stand out in their mind as the one that took the time to find out more about what they wanted and tried to help them.
Build value
If people are unused to paying privately for their treatment, then they need to feel they’re getting value for their money. So, when you’re thinking about how to build value into a new patient call, it’s not good enough to simply reel off your fees for a private dental health check and not give any detail around what they get for their money. You need to consider building that value and making it feel as if it’s something unique to your practice, and not just the same as the checkup in the practice they just called and were quoted X amount on a private basis.
Think about trying to add as much weight into that appointment as you can. I suggest that my practices talk about how long the appointment will be. Often that would be 30 to 45 with a new private patient. However, you can adjust this to suit what you do in your practice.
I explain to the patient: “We offer a 30-minute new patient consultation. We do an 18-point dental health check. We’ll screen for oral cancer, we’ll take any clinically necessary x-rays, and we’ll do any treatment plan relevant to you on the day. The cost for that appointment will be X. How does that sound?”
With the best will in the world a check-up is the same in any clinical setting. However, you’ve added a lot of weight to that appointment and made it feel better value than just simply saying it’ll be a private examination which will cost X pounds. For clarity, the 18-point health check consists of the main bullet points that you would cover in a checkup, whether that’s NHS or private.
If they do agree to book an appointment, it’s important that you take some kind of deposit upfront if you can. That will help to secure that patient and ensure that they’re going to turn up for it.
If they don’t book there and then, what’s key is that we leave that call on a friendly note and sign off by saying to them, if you don’t find what you’re looking for, please give us a call back and we’d be delighted to help you.
Hopefully, these pointers will help you make the most of any calls you get in future.
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