Episode 161 – Understanding Your Increase in Acceptance Rate with Christine Uhen

“Case acceptance as a percentage is misunderstood, and often set unfairly high in order to measure success.” ~Christine Uhen

As a dentist you know what case acceptance is, but unfortunately it’s one of the most misunderstood numbers in dentistry. If taken at face value, it can make you feel like you’re failing, when in reality, that may not be the case at all.

Just like a relationship status on Facebook: It’s complicated. But it doesn’t have to be.

Join us today with guest Christine Uhen, a Business Advisor with Productive Dentist Academy that’s helped practices improve productivity all over the nation, as we dive into the mysteries of case acceptance and clarify how best to dissect this metric so you can create the impact you desire for both your patients and practice.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Regan
Welcome to the Everyday Practices Podcast. I’m Regan Robertson, and my co-host, Dr. Chad Johnson and I are on a mission to share the stories of everyday dentists who generate extraordinary results using practical proven methods you can take right into your own dental practice, if you’re ready to elevate patient care and produce results that are anything but ordinary, buckle up and listen in.

Christine Uhen
But to me, you know, again, it was something that literally I’m happy. I mean, I agree I can I can talk a long time about this and I’ve actually from the podium, made comments and very clear distinctions. That case acceptance as a percentage is very misunderstood and I believe often in many of the articles that we see in dentistry, it is said astronomically high, and unfairly. So to the doctor and team in order to measure success.

Dr. Chad Johnson
Well, you know what, Reagan? Let’s go straight into that, then Christine, tell me how are how do people misunderstand it?

In the first place.

Christine Uhen
Case, acceptance as a percentage, let’s stick with that statistic, and again, I will throw out a statistic at our audience and see how they say four out of five dentists surveyed recommend finishing the rest of it shirtless gum for their patients who chew gum, and yet, which dentists recommend gum. Right. So again, when you’re looking at our statistics, any statistic, and today we’re using case acceptance percentage as that measurement, but looking at one statistic without context, without something to compare it to and something to measure it against is dangerous and actually will just make you feel bad about yourself, your team or your business and that’s nothing that PDA would ever coach or guide on. For example,

Dr. Chad Johnson 2:35
if you were on a forum and someone said, I don’t know about you and your stupid ways another doctor, but I have 90% case acceptance, which is why you should listen to me. My thought process to that is, hey, if someone’s just selling sealants, fluoride, and one surface composite, one per every 10 patients, then the case acceptance is going to be awfully high when someone can walk away unscathed, except for one filling occasionally here and there.

They’re going to be really apt to accept that and then you could think I’m a good doctor because I have good case acceptance. Now someone down the street might be like, Oh, that’s too bad. I only have 10% case acceptance. So I’m bad and they go, Well, what are you doing? Well, I’m, I’m, I’m offering all on X hybrid cases. So every case that I present is $50,000 but only 10% of my patients accept it. It’s like wait. So you have 30 new patients that want hybrids a month, and you’re only getting three a month. So that’s $150,000 for three patients.

Wow, it sucks to be you. You’re bad. It’s like that’s me but so the two extremes show you that it’s you could front load it by giving easy stuff and you could also think, wow, mine isn’t good enough. Because you’re shooting for the moon, let’s call it really big cases but it’s not necessarily bad that your case presentation is low and it might not be good that it’s high. It’s what that number tells you when there’s more detail to be shown. So what does that mean to you when you look at a client like that? Well, that’s

Christine Uhen
exactly it, is the fact that when you’re looking at case acceptance as a percentage when I don’t look at the dollar value when I don’t look at the type of dentistry when I don’t look at what’s been diagnosed, what’s being presented as $1 amount as a service mix, am I giving complex comprehensive treatment planning and allowing the patient to make a very good educated decision about everything that could happen in their mouth?

Or am I looking at just what’s broken? And you’re you think about taking it outside of dentistry go into sports, so one of my favorite things, and but looking at baseball, the very best baseball players have it with 300 So batting average, right? The best of the best, meaning they hit the ball, not hit a home run, but hit the ball one out of three times.

That is a very, very good baseball player, right? They’re a great hitter when they’re at that batting average and yet, it really is about how many times are they at bat. Right? And the more chances that they are at the place, the more risks they have are both hitting the ball or not

Dr. Chad Johnson
correct. So there’s an old baseball card, for example, and someone could bet be like, they’re batting 900.

Christine Uhen
Because of the one time they were at-bats,

Dr. Chad Johnson
exactly. So wait for a second, they only played one game but they still made a baseball card and if this guy who bought batted, let’s say 900 and it’s like, well, that doesn’t really count, he’s not going to be at the All-Star game, just because of that one loaded stack.

Christine Uhen 5:51
But there is that is exactly it would there’s the example of that loaded stat. So until you hear the whole story, that case acceptance percentage could mean a lot of different things. So that’s the cautionary tale of looking at just one statistic and today we’re talking about this one statistic, but that’s true with everything. When we look at business statistics, if you’ve got 100% case acceptance, and you’re only diagnosing $10,000, you got 10,000 on the book, right but if you’re diagnosing $300,000, and only getting 30% case, acceptance, you’ve got you’ve still got, you know, $100,000 on the book, which is better than the 10.

So that percentage means nothing and I mean nothing until I know how much has been diagnosed Christmas that says oh two. Oh, go ahead. Sorry, finish that now you’ve got something that’s actually comparable and meaningful. You’re still missing one big point, though. It may be I mean, maybe I am making $100,000 with my case, acceptance that might be 30% acceptance of my 300 diagnostics gives me that $100,000 Is that good, bad or neutral?

Now, the other missing piece, there’s What’s my goal? If my goal is 80,000, solid, yay, there’s a win but if my goal is 150,000, I still, as a business hasn’t met my financial goals. So there’s another piece of that, if you look at it, you know, A, B, and C, those are the three pieces that we need to know how much is diagnosed yours

Dr. Chad Johnson
to the whole machine. Right? But again, Christine, wouldn’t it also matter if someone is a specialist or not? So for example, if I’m referring someone, I’ve already set the patient up. So the orthodontist, then the patient comes in for a console, I would hope and I could be wrong.

I’m simply asking, I would hope that the case acceptance is going to be better than just if I’m going to pitch to someone, Hey, do you want to do ortho? And they go, man, Nah, as opposed to you know, like, hey, you know how your other children have had orthodontics done at the specialists up the road? Why don’t we send your fifth child there just like we did the other four? There, they’re likely going to be set up for success for case acceptance, you get what I’m saying? I mean, do you find that like, it would matter if there are specialists? I mean, shouldn’t endodontists get, you know, 10% case acceptance on cases coming into their office? No, I hope not.

Christine Uhen
So let me challenge you just a little bit on that. It’s just like you were you presented it differently to your patients. generalists refer differently to their specialists. So having been on the side of working in coaching with specialists, one of the top things we coach our specialists on is let’s talk about how qualified your referrals are. Because as a generalist, I can say, Yeah, you gotta go see the ortho guy cuz you couldn’t straighten your teeth versus Oh, dear. I’m concerned about your teeth and how they’re coming together and the potential concern of breakage and deducted and on and on and on, and they’ve got the right guy for you. He’s done, my kids. Now, that’s a very different referral.

Dr. Chad Johnson
So generalists kept the easy cases, you know, the two-inch putters, and then gave the specialist all the hard ones. You know, then that would be a different scenario. Yeah, it’s something I took for granted. You know, if I’m sending someone to the oral surgeon for wisdom teeth removal, I’m expecting a month later to get a letter back. We did it because it’s like why wouldn’t you do it? But but

Christine Uhen
some of their own net-owning NIS. The successful referral is on the generalist on those general dentists and how they set that up but that’s also about building a relationship between the general dentists and the referring doctor, the specialist if you will, so that’s a whole nother conversation of the expectations. Here’s the bottom line. The bottom line is your case, acceptance dollar amount needs to meet the goals of the business. So if we’re looking at a monthly statistic of the production needs to be $200,000, then somehow we need to get $200,000 on the book.

One way to do that is to increase your diagnostic amount and this is PDAs philosophy is being honest with your patients, telling them everything that’s going on to the best of my ability patient, I’m going to give you a comprehensive treatment plan that anticipates things for the next several years that could go on in your mouth, and allow the patient to make that decision of how much and how soon will they pursue the work and we have, what we can prove is that number one, that’s the best thing for the patient, bottom line, giving them all the information, being honest with your patients and telling them everything that’s going on. Now, what you’re doing is you’re elevating the level of services that you’re offering to that patient, whether that’s the type of services or the volume of services that you’re giving you, the patient can’t say yes, if they don’t know what they could have. So it’s always this is PDAs philosophy, do the best thing.

Do good while doing good. The business will come when you treat the patients, well, would you want your family member to know everything that could go on and the consequences if we don’t pursue that treatment? So that’s number one. Now again, patients can say one of three things. When you say, are you ready to schedule for your work? They can say yes, let’s do it. They could say no, don’t believe I need any of that you’re crazy. Or number three, which is maybe or not now but if one out of three patients is going to say yes.

Then why don’t we shoot for a goal of whatever my production goal is, I’m going to diagnose three times that this is a core PDF principle of diagnosing three times what you want to produce. So you’re okay, you’re thrilled with 35% case acceptance. 33% case acceptance. Because, you know, one out of three are gonna say, Yes, I can physically see doctors stress level going down, they relaxed, I don’t have to be the nine out of 10. People have to say yes, because I read that somewhere from some guru who said, You need to be at 90% case acceptance. Again, there’s that one baseball player that hit the ball, the one time they were up to bat,

Dr. Chad Johnson
I don’t want to be at 90% case acceptance, I would start wondering if I’m not giving comprehensive enough.

Christine Uhen
Well, and that’s the other side of that coin, is the question of, am I only looking at what’s broken? Am I afraid for patients are going to say no to me? And so, therefore, I don’t put myself out there at risk of having patients go well, I’ve never been told this before. That’s the fear that many dentists, Sam, and rightly so it’s a hard conversation to have, and yet, don’t we owe that to our patients? And wouldn’t you want that? If that was you as the patient?

Dr. Chad Johnson
Listeners, that’s right there. I mean, 10 minutes in ish. That’s the solution to the problem. I mean, so if you were coming, I think the point is to you know when if you’re coming listening to this, expecting to hear the solution to the problem, we laid out the problem and I think you thought the solution was in understanding one statistic but indeed, the solution is in if the wrong word is for manipulating, but controlling your the things that you can control, which would be, you know, in your acceptance rate, and, and then also comprehensive care, which is a bigger pitch picture solution.

Christine Uhen
It expands from there when we start with the one statistic and again, you want to talk about increasing case acceptance, again, that way, PDA believes that that happens is some of those old cliches patients aren’t going to care until you show them how much you care, right? You have to look at them as humans, not just teeth, there has to be a connection connecting people, you’re correct.

We are very, very relationship based as a company and yet, I’m going to say yes, so somebody that I like, that likes me, that cares about me, that proves to me that they put some time and effort into our relationship. So the way you can change that statistic and again, increase case acceptance is always a good thing. Because what does that mean? Patients are getting healthier. That’s the bottom line and again, that’s your motivation, not about making productivity a goal but that will come when you treat patients the right way.

When you ask the right questions, find out what’s important to the patient and give them what they’re looking for. Patients that human beings have a hard time saying no, no, don’t give me what I asked for. Right? That’s not human nature. We are very smart. dental professionals are incredibly intense. origins and we can get very into our lovely engineer, the tensile strength of titanium and right in our thermodynamic coefficients of ceramic and it’s so cool to us, right, and yet, if I say to a patient, what’s most important to you, and you want your teeth to look good, and I talked about how great ceramic is going to look in your mouth, right, or if you’re concerned about health, and I talked about removing the disease, and putting on a crown that’s going to protect the tooth, and prevent disease.

I’m talking about the same product, but I’m presenting it in a different way to the patient, because it’s what they’ve told me they want, and I can connect the dentistry that we do to what the patients want. That’s a great way to increase patients saying yes to you, not even changing the type of dentistry you do, but just how you talk about it. That’s a big learning curve but it’s, it’s so powerful and so effective.

Dr. Chad Johnson
Yeah.

Regan
So, Christine, on average, and I think this goes, this goes to your point of having lots of different factors that play into it. How many visits Do you think a patient I mean, it really is going to come down to how well you build that relationship but I’m thinking of two scenarios. In my head, I’m thinking from a marketing perspective, I have heard doctors say, I want this type of patient to come in and say, a full mouth rehab, they know about us, they come in, they sit down and they’re ready with like cash in hand, that would be I want lots of those.

So I’ve heard that before, having never met the doctor or the practice before. off the street cold versus having a referral relationship, for example, and as you were explaining the different nuances, I was thinking of my own scenario, in my head of going to independent medical practice, which was a referral. So I was referred into this practice, they spent the hour with me getting to know me, and asking that exact same question, Christine, that you just said, what does success look like for you, which was a very, I’ve used to it in dentistry, we teach it from the front of the room, but I’m not used to hearing it from medical practice.

So I was immediately thrown off guard and a little bit confused, and I was like, to be the healthiest I can be and so they were like, Great, we’ll work on a plan for that for you. So by the end of the appointment, I don’t really care what it was going to cost or what I was going to have to do to figure out how to make that work. I just was in relation and ready to go but had I searched them cold off the street, it would have been a very different scenario for me, and maybe it would have taken a few meetings for me to build that stronger relationship. So when you’re in with doctors, do you see a difference between the patients that come in from a referral or versus those off the street? And do you help doctors be able to understand those nuances and how to build relationships so that they can get to? Yes? And does it take just one visit? Or sometimes does it take multiple visits?

Christine Uhen
Oh, there’s a lot to walk through with that. Cold when you say a patient’s coming to cold, meaning that they’ve Googled dentist in my area? Exactly, yes. Again, I think if someone Googled a dentist in my community, and I came up, come up on their search, and my website actually did have some of that other relation, there’s a way to build a relationship and start a relationship without actually speaking to the patients.

So there’s an opportunity from the direct to the public marketing, that my message is really going to resonate with the potential patients, do I have testimonials do I have, you know, like the built-in referrals that way, so there’s, I wouldn’t even call that a cold patient because my website represents what it is that I do, the results that we provide who we are, there’s a video of the doctor there, they’re already meeting me, I’ve spent two and a half minutes meeting this doctor and during COVID, that was the biggest thing. It’s like I couldn’t see them with their mask on but I could see them on the video.

That’s a great way for patients to actually get exposed and introduced to the practice. So it’s less of a cold initial meeting if you will. So that’s even different in that sense to have a marketing message already present on my website that’s authentic and really, really represents who we are in the office. Excuse me referred patients from a happy successful clients and they’ve got friends that want the same sort of thing that they do in terms of the results they’re looking for. That really is I would say that nine times out of 10 a faster relationship because there’s already a connection.

Again, think about how you get into a relationship with someone you ask questions to find a connection To find a link, what do we already have in common? Well, we’ve already got Susie in common, and Susie and I want the same thing. So we have I already know as the provider, what you’re looking for, my conversation will simply reinforce that, and because I can build off of the relationship and the story I had with Susie, that will generally make that relationship stronger, quicker because we already have something in common but that can also happen with a really solid, you know, well-done website where they already get to meet me and my team sees some of the results that we’re already doing and I can say, yes, that is who I am going to choose to pursue my work with.

Dr. Chad Johnson
We got a specialist show up today with the office manager and the office manager said, Oh, nice to meet you. Dr. Chat. I just saw your cycling video. That was sued me. I thought she has meant something recently and I was like, I, I mean, I don’t normally, you know, I was like, cycling video, what are you talking about? On your website, it has a video view cycling, and I just really, like that was just really personable and I connected well, with that.

I thought, Oh, wow. Okay, so I think we shot that five years ago and I suffice it to say, we should probably update it, but nonetheless, like it still holds true and she was just like, almost, you know, like it just connected really well with her and the doctor said, Oh, do you do the there’s a cycling event in Iowa called RAGBRAI. Where it’s across the state and stuff. Do you do that? And, and I like cycling too and stuff. It just was a nice way to lead off but my presence, in essence, was known. You know, my brand was known before. I mean, she knows I like cycling without even knowing me and that was kind of cool.

Christine Uhen
Yeah, because it’s still true today. You still just haven’t shot a new video, right?

Dr. Chad Johnson
Like, what are you know, like, I don’t really, you know like some people take a picture of every workout they do, but I don’t so like I was just like, I don’t know what you’re talking about, you know, like it because I’ve not met her before. I’m like, you know, did you see? Like, what am I missing? Oh, website? Oh, yeah, no, sure. I, I knew exactly what you were talking about then but it took me a minute but yeah, yeah. Well, Christine, I have one more thing.

So just today I met a patient who was getting a second opinion and I know Joanne, my coach will be somewhat proud of me and probably somewhat not, somewhat not because No, no, somewhat not. Because I asked the patient we were trying to figure out about her bridge, she had a bridge that she needed to be redone, and she went to this other dentist for reasons, she was leaving, and she wanted to come to see me. She asked someone at her church, who does secretarial work and she says who do you know, who can I go to that kind of trust? And this woman said no and she goes to Chad, so she came and she was like, I’m not going back to the other place. I want you to do the work.

So you know, she told me the story about the bridge and I looked at it and stuff and I just thought there’s something. There’s something about being able to be long-term with someone to be able to know, you know what the problem is. So just jumping in halfway into the story, and trying to figure out what is exactly wrong with this bridge, because I said, to be truthful that the bridge looks pretty good. So we did a 3d scan.

I was looking for infection and stuff and I said, I mean, let’s call her Bonnie and I said Bonnie, can I hate to ask you this, but can you tell me your story one more time, I think I’m missing something. So back it up and you know, and she’s now she was in the service industry, for with airlines, and stuff like that, and I and my transparency that was to my faults was I’m admitting I must not have heard you, right? So that’s where it’s just like, I’m kind of ashamed to admit that but then what I’m also doing is saying, but I don’t want to miss it and I want to make sure that I’ve heard your story well and so I was proud of being able to ask, I was ashamed to have to ask, but at the same time, it connected well with her, Hey, I just met her just today.

She already knew she wanted to choose me for it and she scheduled upfront for this week to get it worked out because she wants it done. ASAP and that was cool to be able to back up and just you know, say hey, tell me again. When did this start? You know and, and I felt horrible in one regard for you know, even having to ask as I don’t know, I should have been taken notes or something but I was just, you know, listen to her and I just couldn’t get it to add up and so I was like we’re gonna have to back up and I think that actually just resonated really well with her that I was taking time.

As a side note, I said you know, your industry and mine are a lot alike in that there are Regular good people, that their stress level goes up when they’re traveling or at the dentist, and then there they can be real jerks when they get in a chair. So you had to deal with difficult people who are actually Alright people, but they’re at their worst and I have the same when I’m working with patients, you know that there are times when, you know, there’s difficult patients and stuff but I have to remember and remind my team and myself, that they’re good, normal people when they’re not in a super stressed scenario and we just need to get to that type of person, you know, and I don’t know, I just found some ways to connect with her and it really resonated well with her.

Christine Uhen
Well, that’s important to take the time. That’s the other thing that you know, the model of relationship building doesn’t happen in 30 seconds, right? That model requires spending a little more time with the patient and sometimes it’s hard to pull that information out to patients, or I got it wrong the first time, maybe I heard them on and to go back and clarify and really find the answers you’re looking for to help the patient that’s worth the time. That’s let’s walk through this again. You just you’re allowing the patient to talk, you allow the patient to tell their story. Where does that happen, other than in the hairdresser’s I suppose, you know, I mean, that’s a gift but time is one of the most valuable commodities in the world today, when we gift patients our time and our expertise. I think that really says a lot about us as professionals in the dental industry.

Dr. Chad Johnson
Also resonating with you, what are you thinking?

Regan
Well, I’m nodding my head so the viewers can’t you guys can’t see me. You can just like hear me nodding. I’m nodding super passionately. Because I’ll tell you that I got emotional when I went into my new doctor’s office, and I felt heard. Most importantly, Christine, I didn’t feel rushed and that is the majority of my experience with healthcare is rushed sense. I’m rushing into you and then I go off to the next patient. So and it’s happened to me over the years, even in a dental sense as well sliding on that chair really fast.

Hey, how’s it going? God, let’s look in here real quick that bing bada boom, and it just you feel like you really don’t have a lot of chance to connect with the doctor, let alone have them listen to you. So to have that pattern interrupt of this is your time, I want to get it all out. Let’s really evaluate this together I know that I process pretty fast. If you’re used to listening to this podcast, you know that I talk pretty fast. What about all the others that process a little bit slower, or even want to take that time if we’re missing? If we’re missing someone like me, and acting rushed and not really listening?

I can’t imagine the amount of percentage of patients that go through doors that you think well, they’re just not interested or I just didn’t make that connection with them. Really, I just wasn’t listening and I didn’t give him that space. So yeah, Chad, you backing up and slowing it down and referencing it and I mean, it just, I’m grinning ear from ear because that builds trust and it’s incredible and Christine, you’re showing, like I said, all the nuances to what goes into that case, acceptance and you’re also taking some of the pressure off of me if I’m a doctor, you’re making me breeze through this a little bit more and think about the numbers as opposed to just looking at a flat piece of paper with every doctor’s case, acceptance should be x, on average, it’s this well, there’s a lot of factors that go into that.

Christine Uhen
Yeah, it’s complex, and rightly so and it’s also just not one thing that can or should get fixed. 10% case acceptance is not good or bad. 30% isn’t good or bad. 100% isn’t good or bad. Is it fulfilling the needs of the patients? Are we doing the right thing for the patients? are we offering them everything that they could and should have done? Number one, that’s the first message is if we’re only looking at what’s broken, then we have limited their ability to be healthy and comprehensively treatment treated and number two, then are we meeting our business goals because of this? Last I checked most dental offices are in business to support the livelihoods of their teams and their doctors.

So that it’s it matters to look at that number.

Dr. Chad Johnson
Well, I’m excited to dive into this with you and other doctors at the investment grade practices workshop at the same time as the PDA workshop up here in September.

Christine Uhen
Can you believe that it’s right around the corner? I’m so excited.

Dr. Chad Johnson
I actually had a dream about it last night. It was the weirdest thing. Yes, I did. We were at the I was at the investment grade practices conference a couple of days and it was I’m with my office manager and my Hi Janice and with Shonda and

Regan
shout out to Shonda, hey, Shonda, what’s

Dr. Chad Johnson
the weirdest thing like so we got done and it was like, this is neither here nor there with this coffee talk at this point, but it was like a run a practice run. With some of the doctors from PDA. The week before the next one, they’re like, Okay, well, we’re gonna do this again next week, guys. Like I didn’t know that this was gonna be it was the weirdest thing is like I had a dream and anticipation that it was coming up and so like I had shown up and we did it, and then it was like, yep, this was just the week before the real one or something. I was like, Oh, I didn’t even know that. I know. It’s just we can do even better. Oh,

it was just last night. That was so timely. Weird.

Christine Uhen
We’ll call it timely. Weird. Well, weird.

That is right around the corner. Yeah, but it was good seeing you guys last night, my dream. Okay,

Regan
I’m not surprised that you’re dreaming about it. We have more doctors than any other event that we’ve ever held, including the big comeback from the COVID event last year, last September, which I said was the biggest ever and now we’ve already surpassed that too. So it’s gonna be really interesting running the dual workshops. So for listeners, we’re doing a productivity workshop, if you haven’t heard it is advertised everywhere. We’re doing the traditional one that we’ve been doing for 18 years super successful. And

Christine Uhen
the classic is Zack’s classic, legendary.

Regan
What are the words that Chad? Transformative, life-changing,

Christine Uhen

Regan
Rick’s gonna edit out all of this.

Christine Uhen
So no, he’s not proven. Oh,

Regan
yeah. So we also have the investment grade practice Summit, which is for members only. So you can’t that is a gated invitation. Only events happening but today’s topic really does go over, you know, elements in how to optimize your business and fine-tune it to that level. So I think about it as painting with broad strokes and you know, you get your canvas down, get the primary colors on that’s kind of like running a business, you know, I have my canvas covered.

That’s step one and now we’re going in and refining and really optimizing so doctors can get that maximized value and it’s it also reminds me to chat about being a professional athlete. So you get your fundamentals down of the game, you learn that, and then as you advance in your levels, everything that you look at starts to take on a different nuance and a different level and you’re looking at, it’s not just Can you hit the ball, it’s now it’s how you hit the ball and then it’s not just how you hit the ball but it’s if I turn you know, my elbow, five degrees this way, it’s going to make this X amount of impact. That’s how it feels like listening to you talk about case acceptance.

Dr. Chad Johnson
Let’s make the connection. Can you make, you know, 80% of your shots? Let’s just say, but can you make 80% of your shots over a seven-footer?

Christine Uhen
Right?

What kind of shots right?

Dr. Chad Johnson
Like, you know, just because you’re making 60% of your shot. It’s like, well over a third grader over varsity or D one or professional it’s like that’s a different level of shooting 60% versus 60%

Christine Uhen
We’ve been using a lot of sports analogies, I think not just today, but it seems to be happening in several conversations, and yeah, are we elevating our game in a manner a lot of people like to play baseball, but not everybody can play at the level of the National Baseball League, right? I mean the big show as it’s called some people belong in the softball barley because they’re there to have fun, right?

So they can play baseball or softball, but they can’t play at that level. So this is also where the growth can come in from professional professionally looking at my own growth, is it about increasing my case acceptance as a percentage is it about increasing my case acceptance at $1 value is it about increasing my case acceptance on certain dental procedures that I like to do more of.

So again, this is where we can take this one statistic and break it down into a variety of different ways to grow a business. So I may see my case present and I’m actually happy, believe it or not when I see offices where their case acceptance goes down as a percentage, but their diagnostics went up. Right? So if I’m coaching a doctor on how to be comprehensively treatment planning, if nothing else changes, their acceptance is gonna go down. If I’m just working on increasing diagnostics with a

Dr. Chad Johnson
doctor, if they’re diagnosing 100,000 Before coaching and getting 50% and then they’re diagnosing 200,000 and getting 40%. That’s still a Little higher dollar amount and better patient care. Exactly.

Christine Uhen
So really, you know, and again, this is where everything PDA coaches come from is about taking better care of the patients and allowing them the chance to elevate their own health, their own aesthetics, their own function are all of the above. So really helping them achieve what they want to do but yeah, so again, there’s, throughout the coaching process in you know, as having been a coach for 17 years with PDA, it’s there are different things to look at and as officers mature, a new doctor comes on, or I’m working on a hygienist who’s helping to diagnose there are so many different ways that we can use that statistic. It is one of my favorites to look at and to monitor and I love one of the early conversations of breaking down what that really means and is it good or bad or neutral.

You know, that’s the first thing but seeing doctors just reduces the tension and stress of high-performance anxiety. I mean, y’all let’s be honest, your world is four inches, right? And the success of dentistry is measured in micromillimeters. So if we can take off another pressure about 90% case, acceptance, let’s take that off your shoulders and just get into a relationship. Have some fun dialogue with your patients. Give them your time. Give them your diagnostics.

The rest will come. Hey, man, Christine, you’re the goat.

Regan
You are. You are amazing. Thank you for your time today. I have had the honor of working with you for over a decade, I learned something new. Every time we get together and the case acceptance is my number one favorite metric in the practice and you just blew my mind with how deep you look at it. I thought I had a pretty good handle on how we look at case acceptance. You introduced new nuances to me this time. So I bet you’re giving a lot of our listeners fuel for thought and I really appreciate you taking time out of your very clipped pay schedule to help all of our clients to share this with everybody.

Christine Uhen
I love spending time with you anytime I can. And

we’ll do it again soon.

Regan
Thanks, Chad any parting thoughts? No,

Dr. Chad Johnson
no, this. I can’t add any more to that. That it’s it’s done as it is the turkeys ready to come out of the oven.

Christine Uhen
Yeah, well, it’s been an honor. It’s been fun. I love that I listen to you guys every week. So at big fan, big fan of the show.

longtime listener first-time caller. Not even that.

Regan
Well. Thank you, Christine. Every doctor out there right now. Don’t beat yourself up over the case acceptance. Listen to this again, take some notes and get brave. Let’s get better. Give us a call.

Thank you, Christine.

Christine Uhen
Thanks, everybody.

Regan
Thank you for listening to another episode of the Everyday Practices Podcast. Chad and I are here every week. Thanks to our community of listeners just like you and we’d love your help. It would mean the world if you can help spread the word by sharing this episode with a fellow dentist and leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify. Do you have an extraordinary story you’d like to share? Or feedback on how we can make this podcast even more awesome. Drop us an email at podcast@productivedentists.com and don’t forget to check out our other podcasts from Productive Dentist Academy at productivedentist.com/podcasts See you next week.