Collaboration is Key
by Dr. Richard Drake, Co-Founder of DS3
The bottom line is this. You must learn to collaborate with the physicians in your community if you are going to succeed in treating patients who have sleep-disordered breathing. Let’s talk about a few things to help make you more successful.
GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE: We lecture to thousands of dentists across the country, and it still amazes me that dentists think they know less than physicians. You have to remember that physicians, outside of those who are board certified in sleep, get little, if any education about sleep medicine. There is more information packed into DS3 than most Physicians get in their lifetime about sleep. Just yesterday I did a lunch and learn for three cardiologists. I started my PowerPoint presentation and started talking The Talk. I was getting a bit of that deer-in-the-headlights look. “What’s up, guys?” I asked as one of the cardiologists sheepishly said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what AHI means. I think you have assumed that we know more about this than we do.” So Walk the Line between talking the talk and not patronizing someone, but understand that you know a lot more about this than you think you do and you need to start acting like it. Put yourself in front of doctors and start talking about how you can help patients. You’ve got to get out of your comfort zone and start spreading the word.
WRITE MORE LETTERS: Correspondence is how physicians communicate. Most dentists only write a few letters a year, and that’s not enough to help you succeed in dental sleep medicine. Letter writing is hard and it’s time consuming. DS3 has tried to make this as automatic as we can but it still takes time. But it is time well spent. The best marketing tool besides meeting someone face-to-face is writing letters about the mutual patients that you share with physicians. I just checked my performance report in DS3 and it tells me that in the first three months of 2016 my office produced more than 1,000 letters! Dentists ask me all the time “How do you get so many referrals?” Well, there is your answer..
ENGAGE YOUR TEAM: Many of them have their own physicians, and most of them are married to someone who snores. We all have people at arm’s length who have snoring or sleep issues. Make dental devices for them and for their spouses. Get them to believe in what you do. That all starts with you as the leader of the team. You have to believe in what you’re doing, and you have to feel comfortable about the fee that you charge. Remember that there are hundreds of questions asked in a dental office every single day, but very few of them are asked directly to the dentist. The more knowledge your staff has the better they can answer questions about snoring and sleep and the more patients you will start seeing and the more devices you will start making. It’s really that simple.
