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MailFebruary 2022--Dental expert Amol Nirgudkar sits down with Chris Sands of Pro-FI 20/20 Dental CPAs to discuss challenges facing dental practice owners and managers today that can be overcome by deploying Patient Prism’s AI software. In this video segment, they discuss the costs and importance of new patient conversion.
Are you wasting your marketing dollars?
Chris Sands, who is a co-founder and partner in Pro-Fi 20/20 CPAs, admits it is often difficult for CPAs to get the big picture about what is going on in their clients’ businesses. Amol Nirgudkar, co-founder and CEO of Patient Prism, sees the big picture of what is going on in the dental industry and in dental practices of all sizes. He travels the country speaking about artificial intelligence (AI) in dentistry, tips for running dental practices as businesses, the patient journey, and what varied parts of the patient experience impact the ability of dental practices to schedule new patients and move them forward into the level of care they truly need for good health.
How do you know where prospective patients are in their thoughts and needs? How do you know what is important to them? And how can you successfully address these challenges? The answers to these questions lie in knowledge amassed by Patient Prism’s AI technology. Because the Patient Prism platform can be used by an individual dental practice or on a larger scale by dental groups and DSOs, all practice owners and managers have the opportunity to see what is going on inside the businesses they run and to solve specific problems that stop new patients from scheduling an appointment.
Nirgudkar and Sands agree that the ability to meet today’s patients where they are and address what is important to them quickly distinguishes flourishing dental practices from stagnated and dying ones. Today, more than ever, it distinguishes profitable dental practices from unprofitable ones.
This is one of the reasons why dental practices are consolidating at a faster pace into group practices and DSOs -- together, they can better afford the expertise and AI technology that makes it possible to swiftly meet patients “where they are.” The larger organizations are doing a better job of this, BUT solo practitioners can do it, too. In this five-part blog series, you will learn why and how.
AI is a buzzword. So, what does it mean for you?
From the perspective of the dental office, AI is used to put more patients in your dental chair and to give them faster, more reliable diagnostics, instructive images so they accept treatment, and efficient treatment. Overall, AI is used to enhance the entire patient journey from the moment the patient becomes interested in seeking dental services. The purpose of the Patient Prism AI platform is very simple. It facilitates more new patients scheduling an appointment and trusting in your care to keep moving forward.
Problem: New patient acquisition is highly challenging
“The reason why we got into this [patient acquisition] business was I had a marketing company after I had a CPA firm,” says Nirgudkar. I started a marketing company for my dental office clients, and we were driving a good number of leads to their phones but only 50% of the phone calls were resulting in scheduled appointments. I decided to record phone calls, and we employed people to listen to the phone calls, which is not an efficient process. Then I read books by Fred Joyal and Linda Miles, and other consultants that said the phone is the most important instrument in your office. It's where the drop off happens. We realized we had to help our clients communicate more effectively on the phone.”
We know from the ADA Health Policy Institute that 52% of Americans did not see a dentist last year. What is getting in the way of going to the dentist?
One problem most everyone faces today is shortage of time. They are multitasking and spending many hours a day on their digital devices. An average person spends 145 minutes every day on social media and more time on other types of mobile internet consumption.
“A dental practice must impress a prospective customer within seconds,” says Nirgudkar. In designing ads, a dental practice needs to be aware that a prospective patient may spend just a couple seconds looking at the content. If it doesn’t speak directly to them, instantly, you’ve lost them. How much time do you think a person will devote to your ad, your landing page, your video? You have very little time to impress them.
The second thing that is happening is that we've all become Google doctors. If we don't have the sophistication to explain what they already know, then we're not going to gain patient trust.
“Especially the newer generation knows exactly what they want,” says Nirgudkar. “They price shop and look at alternatives. They also know exactly the quality of the bone material you might be using for a bone graft. It's extremely important that our people on the phone are completely aware and educated about everything the patient is asking for.”
Dentistry has become a direct-to-consumer advertising model. Rather than asking friends for their opinion and a referral, patients go straight online to search and read reviews. And they find you based on your search engine ranking and Google business page presence. Your direct-to-consumer digital advertising impacts this. How you handle the phone calls that come in is critical. Consumers have lots of choices coming directly to them. You’ve got to be able to gain their trust and convert them within seconds or they move on to another choice.
“In dentistry, the big organizations are doing TV advertising, for example Affordable Dentures and ClearChoice. Some of the big DSOs are doing TV,” says Nirgudkar. “This wasn’t acceptable before the 1980s or widely acceptable until the 1990s. Now it is all about getting noticed on the iPhone and deploying a strategy to handle the leads that come in. Anybody in the SEO marketing world will tell you that conversion optimization is the most important thing you can do in marketing. You've got to be able to convert.”
We’re no longer in a 1% to 3% marketing world
Sands and Nirgudkar agree that dental practices can no longer spend one to three percent of their revenue on marketing. There is so much competition that they have to spend more, or they’re outranked, and their ads do not show up. They have used up their pay-per-click advertising budget by 9:00 am. No matter what they are spending, most phone calls from potential new patients must end in appointments or the marketing spend has been wasted. “Might as well keep the money yourself and spend it on somebody else. Give bonuses to the staff, but don’t spend more money on more PPC marketing if incoming calls are not being converted into booked appointments,” says Nirgudkar.
Solution: Understand what it takes to acquire a new dental patient & focus on optimizing conversion
“We have to understand what it takes to acquire a customer and what eventually happens with that customer,” says Nirgudkar. In the next video blog of this series, the discussion turns to the conversion process, the challenges of that, and what specifically helps, including artificial intelligence.
Watch Part 2 of this 5-part interview >>
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