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Dr Chris Harper
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How to stop patients fixating on price

2/18/2017

4 Comments

 
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Do you often find yourself having the same discussions with patients who only want the cheapest option available or whose first question is always "how much will it cost?"

Aversion to unwanted expenditure is part of human nature, but there may be some simple things you can do to help stop your patients from fixating on price and automatically choosing the cheapest solution available.

First and foremost is focussing on providing high quality dentistry. But how do your patients know that you are focussed on quality? If they stick with you for many years they will over time realise that their teeth are working well hence proving your capable, but you obviously want them to understand your focus now.
Let me ask you a few questions:
Do you tell your patients about your passion for high quality dentistry?
Does your stationary make this focus clear?
Does your website say it?
Do your staff say it?

You have to be careful to not sound arrogant but there is no reason why this message shouldn't be made clear via these routes. For me it means that all new patients get a new pt pack explaining important points about the practice such as emergency contact details etc, but it also talks about my passion for dentistry. This information can be found on the "Info For Patients" page of my website.
My stationary also has a header with my logo and a tagline again highlighting my focus on quality to provide long term outcomes.

There are also a few simple tools you can implement when presenting prices to your patients to help them understand the value in the treatment you are recommending.
Indirect restorations like crowns and onlays are expensive and justifiably so. They take a lot of time and highly skilled focussed work to prepare well for and a comparably highly skilled technician will want a decent fee for constructing the restoration. In most cases patients don't really care about this though. They are choosing the crown because you say it should be the best way of restoring the tooth to good shape, strength, reliability and aesthetics. Most pts will only want to spend a decent amount of money if they feel it will give good long term value for money. So have you considered explaining the cost to the patient in terms of longevity? You need to choose a timeframe you are happy to quote and then work out the cost per year or month or week. So for instance if you consider the national average cost for a crown is quoted as £500, if you are confident it should last 20 years with good OH then that works out to be less than 50p a week to restore this tooth. Obviously this method only works if you are confident you are actually providing quality work that will last but pts may prefer the idea of explaining it as "50p a week" to rebuild the tooth.

Another option you can consider is splitting up your overall cost to explain its different component parts. For instance you can split your crown cost into "lab cost" and "time and materials cost". I used to do this and included is a photo of how I presented this to pts. I have moved away from it because I personally found it sometimes made things more complex than needed but now that I have more time for my consultations I might go back to using a system like this occasionally. PS my prices have also increased since I made that table.

If you want to explore this topic more there is a good 30 minute audiobook available for free from the harvard business school via audible here:
https://mobile.audible.co.uk/pd/Film-Radio-TV/How-to-Stop-Customers-from-Fixating-on-Price-Audiobook/B00SJWV04G/?ref=msw_search_c1_0_2_AN
4 Comments
Carina Sharp link
2/17/2017 04:55:32 pm

Chris
Thanks again for your altruistic attitude to helping others in your profession. You are very kind.

Can I ask about points (1) and (2) in the patient letter? I am confused about how this is interpreted by the patient?

PS. My lab says it is impossible to provide gold these days? Maybe as they have to buy the gold in bulk?

Reply
Chris
2/17/2017 05:22:36 pm

Hi Carina,

Thank you for your kind comments.

I should have made it clear that the pt letter screenshot is from my template. When personalising it for a specific pt I delete points that are not relevant and add or modify others. This way I can create a personalised problem and options summary sheet very quickly and efficiently. So any given summary would always have one of those points deleted depending on the case.

I will admit I don't do many gold crowns as pts don't often ask for them and he cost of gold is high so they are not cheaper than PFMs from my lab.

Reply
Lorenzo
2/17/2017 09:55:16 pm

I don't understand the last part of the article;
you said a method to make the patient accept the price of the treatment is by "splitting up your overall cost to explain its different component parts."
but my question is: do you present your REAL lab, time and materials costs to the patient, or HIGHER prices? Because I think if you present your real costs and than the patients pays a price which is higher than the costs, he/she will feel they're over-paying...
When you say "PS my prices have also increased since I made that table." is that presenting the patient your "increased" costs, to justify an higher final price for the patient).

Also, the first method: you said you can convince the patient that a treatment it's worth its cost explaining it would last a lot of time and it costs only a few money per-week ("50p a week")... But wouldn't this make the patient think: "yes but I'm not paying you 50p a week for 20 years... you're asking me to pay £500 right now, and that's a lot of money..." and I think this is going to make the patient think he should pay by installments (which from one part, can make him accept the treatment, but by counterpart, if he/she pays by installments: A. you're not receiving all the money instantly B. if the patient decides to pay with an insurance, this adds a cost for you, decreasing your gains...
By the way I think you wrote an interesting article.

I hope you will answer soon! Thank you!

Reply
Chris
2/17/2017 10:11:52 pm

Hi Lorenzo,

Thanks for your comments. I will try to answer your questions as best I can.

You can split your costs however you wish. I don't do this anymore but when I used to do it I showed the actual lab cost. I can understand the argument about inflating the lab cost but then it gets a bit more complex.

The reason I pointed out that my prices are higher is because this is an old table and I don't have one for my updated prices.

When discussing cost over time you obviously do need to point out that the fee is to be paid in full. But some people may find it useful to say "it will cost £500 to restore this tooth to good shape and strength and reliability with a crown, but with good daily cleaning it should easily last 20 years or more so that only equates to 50p a week".
That might mean that patients view the same cost in a different way.
The Harvard business audiobook covers this in quite a lot of detail if you want to delve more into it.

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