Handling Failures with Grace (E.255)

“Handle the objection before it becomes an objection.” – Dr. Bruce Baird

Brief Overview

Every dentist faces failures—veneers pop off, teeth become sensitive, implants don’t integrate. But how you communicate about those possibilities makes all the difference. In this episode of the Productive Dentist Podcast, Dr. Bruce Baird reflects on decades of dentistry and reveals why transparency about risk transforms patient relationships, lowers stress, and increases case acceptance.

What This Episode Reveals

• Why patients blame you when things go wrong
• How to set expectations upfront without creating fear
• The language that builds trust before, during, and after treatment
• Why honesty about potential complications leads to more referrals

What You’ll Learn

✔ How to reduce stress by preparing patients for possible outcomes
✔ Practical scripts for explaining sensitivity, veneer failures, and denture limitations
✔ Why “handling objections before they’re objections” is the secret to thriving long-term
✔ How clear communication can turn potential frustration into lasting trust

If This Sounds Familiar

• You feel personally responsible every time a patient has a post-op issue
• Patients get angry because they weren’t prepared for complications
• Stress builds because you’re always reacting instead of leading conversations

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Dr. Bruce Baird: Hello everyone. This is Dr. Bruce B. Baird and you’re listening to the Productive Dentist Podcast. In this podcast, I will give you everything that I’ve learned over the last 40 years in dentistry, working with thousands of dentists. I’ll tell you, it’s not that my way’s the only way, it’s just one that has worked extremely well for me, and, and I’d love to share that with you.

[00:00:20] Dr. Bruce Baird: So you too can enjoy the choices and lifestyle. The productivity allows more time for things you love, increased pay, better team relationships, and lowered stress. Let’s get into it with this week’s episode of The Productive Dentist Podcast.

[00:00:37] Dr. Bruce Baird: What I’m doing is I am preparing a patient for failure on anything that I do, anything that could possibly fail, which is everything we do. You know, I put veneers on and I’ve done thousands of veneers and I tell the patient, I said, you know, I said, these things are phenomenal. Um, it, your [00:01:00] smile looks great.

[00:01:00] Dr. Bruce Baird: Have to. Keep a watch on ’em. Every once in a while you’re possibly gonna have one of these things pop off if it does. Do me a favor, just give me a call. We’ll get you in immediately and take care of that. Sometimes that has to do with how you bite onto something or how strong your bite it is. Now, Bob, we know your bite is extremely strong.

[00:01:21] Dr. Bruce Baird: You’ve worn your teeth down in other areas, so we gotta keep close watch on it. However, the bond strengths of these materials are so good. We probably won’t have a problem with it, but I just want you to know ahead of time it’s possible. That’s a lot better than saying that, than all of a sudden, four months after you’ve done veneers on somebody, one pops off and they’re freaking out.

[00:01:45] Dr. Bruce Baird: They’re pissed. You know, I spent $8,000, I spent 12,000. I spent $15,000, and these things are coming off. I already explained that to you. Hi, this is Dr. Bruce Baird with the Productive Dentist Podcast [00:02:00] and, um. Really, I look forward to talking about this today. Um, someone asked me a while, gosh, a while back, how do you, how do you handle failures and how do you do it in a way that, ’cause you know, all of us have failures over our career, but how do you handle it, um, so that you are not taking responsibility for it?

[00:02:27] Dr. Bruce Baird: Um, and, and that’s one of the things that. Uh, to me is extremely important because, you know, it’s not just always what we do that causes things to fail. But I believe that some of the things that we say to prepare, uh, patients for failure and, and that’s, that’s critical. And, and if you think about it, um, I, I talk about this all the time, handling the objection before it becomes an objection.

[00:02:57] Dr. Bruce Baird: Lemme give you an example. Um, a [00:03:00]patient comes in, they’ve got, oh, a three surface or four surface. Um. Restoration in the posterior region. And you go in, you do the work, and they come back the next day and the tooth is sensitive. Um, and, and they’re, they’re not happy. They’re, they’re worried and they’re asking you questions like, you know, what’s, what’s going on with my tooth?

[00:03:24] Dr. Bruce Baird: Why is it doing this? And. If you haven’t pre-prepared them for the possibility of something happening, then it really falls on your shoulders. And that is the tough part I think about being a dentist. Uh, my first probably 15, 20 years in practice, you know, when people complained. I mean, I felt bad and obviously we, we don’t like things to, to have a problem, but I felt bad.

[00:03:54] Dr. Bruce Baird: I felt like, gosh, I, I somehow had some responsibility for [00:04:00] that. And really what happened was I learned to talk to the patients beforehand and they come in, they say, oh, this tooth was sensi is sensitive today. I don’t know what’s going on. And you know, and in their mind they’re saying this thing wasn’t hurting.

[00:04:18] Dr. Bruce Baird: Two days ago before you started working on it. But now the thing’s hurting must be your fault because it can’t be my tooth’s fault because it wasn’t hurting. But the truth is, anytime you put a bur on a tooth, you can get sensitivity. We all know there, there are causes and reasons for that, but that’s where I become, began coming up with this.

[00:04:42] Dr. Bruce Baird: With this, always handling the objection before it becomes an objection by saying things like, Hey Bob, I know, um, this tooth’s a little bit deeper than I thought. We’re gonna have to keep a watch on it. It’s a possibility. It could be sensitive. And I like to do this even before I go in and start doing the [00:05:00] work.

[00:05:00] Dr. Bruce Baird: Not after I’ve prepped the tooth, but I tell ’em, Hey, thi this one’s very sensitive. Um, could be, uh, but I don’t think it’s gonna need a root canal. But we all know Yeah, there’s a possibility anytime you put a bur on a tooth, there’s a possibility it could need a root canal. But I, I don’t wanna scare him either.

[00:05:20] Dr. Bruce Baird: I don’t wanna freak ’em out. But what I’m gonna say is, yep. This is a lot deeper than I thought. Anytime I go into a tooth, I always afterwards say, boy, this is a lot deeper than I thought. We’ll have to keep an eye on it. But I’ve also told them, this is a, looks like a fairly easy cavity. But what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna go in, we’re gonna remove that, and then we’ll just kind of see, see what we find.

[00:05:42] Dr. Bruce Baird: Um, I’ve done thousands of implants, you know, and sometimes implants fail, but how do we handle that? How do we handle it before it fails? That’s when the rubber meets the road, in my opinion. That’s when we do things that [00:06:00] make the patient have a more complete understanding of the process of what’s going on in their mouth and you know, I’ll tell ’em, I said, you know, Mary, I said, we, you know, I’ve been doing implants now for 20 years and we’ve done thousands of them every once in a while.

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[00:07:01] Dr. Bruce Baird: That’s clinical calibration dot. You know, I know that could freak you out, but the good news news is if they’re gonna fail, they’ll usually fail early on in the process, not later on in the process. Now we all know follow-up care and everything else is what’s really critical for long-term care, uh, occlusion, you know, me using a T scan to determine that this implant is hitting at the correct time.

[00:07:26] Dr. Bruce Baird: Those are all things that are extremely important. But I’ll tell the patient that and I said, you know, it really depends on how your bone rose to the implant. And so we’re gonna keep a close watch in it. Putting an implant in is easy, Mary, I mean, it’s, you know, it’s gonna take us probably 45 minutes to an hour and, um, you’re gonna have very little, if any, postoperative pain.

[00:07:50] Dr. Bruce Baird: And so those were all great things, but every once in a while, one of these fails. So I just wanted you to know that ahead of time. So it’s not, you’re not freaking out. Uh, it really depends on your health, [00:08:00] you know? Uh, the fact that you’re not diabetic, that’s good. You know, or the fact that you’re a smoker, that’s a negative.

[00:08:07] Dr. Bruce Baird: You know, all the things that I can prepare them for, for that failure of the implant. Then when the patient comes in. They’re saying, how’s it looking, doc, is it failing? I go, no, no. Let me take a peek. No, it looks great. I think we’re doing good. Let’s keep a close watch on it, though. The next few weeks will determine everything.

[00:08:25] Dr. Bruce Baird: So see, what I’m doing is I am preparing a patient for failure on anything that I do, anything that could possibly fail, which is everything we do. You know, I put veneers on and I’ve done. Thousands of veneers. And I tell the patient, I said, you know, I said, these things are phenomenal. Um, it, your smile looks great.

[00:08:49] Dr. Bruce Baird: We have to keep a watch on ’em. Every once in a while, you’re possibly gonna have one of these things pop off. If it does, do me a favor. Just give me a [00:09:00] call. We’ll get you in immediately and take care of that. Sometimes that has to do with how you bite onto something or how strong your bite is. Now, Bob, we know your bite is extremely strong.

[00:09:10] Dr. Bruce Baird: You’ve worn your teeth down in other areas, so we gotta keep a close watch on it. However, the bond strengths of these materials are so good. We probably won’t have a problem with it, but I just want you to know ahead of time. It’s possible. That’s a lot better than saying that, than all of a sudden. Four months after you’ve done veneers on somebody, one pops off and they’re freaking out, they’re pissed.

[00:09:34] Dr. Bruce Baird: You know, I spent $8,000, I spent 12,000, I spent $15,000, and these things are coming off. I already explained that to you. And we do that with every procedure. Think of other things. Um, doing upper and lower dentures for a patient. What do you tell them about the lower denture? I joke with him and I said, well, you know, you know Mary, I said, you know, [00:10:00] um, yes, we, you know, we, we, you know you’re gonna need dentures.

[00:10:04] Dr. Bruce Baird: You only have seven teeth left. Uh, but let me tell you a little something, um, the upper denture, we can get it. It’s gonna fit really nicely. It’s gonna look gorgeous. It’s gonna look beautiful. The lower denture, you know. Dentures weren’t made for the lowers. They just weren’t. They don’t work very well.

[00:10:23] Dr. Bruce Baird: They float around and they move. Now, we have a lot of patients that are wearing upper and lowers and they’ve learned to chew and they’ve learned to eat that way. But inherently it’s a denture sitting on top of the gums and the jaws the one that’s moving, and these things move around. Some people use a lot of stickum, some use little paste, some use, uh, pads.

[00:10:45] Dr. Bruce Baird: People use all different kinds of things. But I’m telling you. Your bottom’s not gonna fit like your upper. As a matter of fact, I’m gonna charge you double for the upper and I’m gonna give you the bottom one for free. And the patient looks at me and I said, now that’s because if you [00:11:00] come back and complain about the bottom, I, it was the free one.

[00:11:03] Dr. Bruce Baird: So you know there’s nothing to do. But this is where Mary. Us putting an implants in can make a massive difference, or by keeping these two teeth and putting snaps on them there. There are lots of ways that I’ll explain this to the patient, but what I want that patient to understand is this. Doesn’t fit.

[00:11:26] Dr. Bruce Baird: And you know, if you’ve heard a hundred people complain about a lower denture, why don’t you tell ’em ahead of time? They’re gonna be com, their lower denture isn’t gonna work. You see what I’m saying? It’s all on us. It’s how we think. It’s how we put this stuff together in the patient’s mind that makes all the difference in the world.

[00:11:45] Dr. Bruce Baird: Because what I will tell you is, and I talk about this in reducing stress and doubling your productivity and all that. Reducing my stress is critical, and until I realize that. Started handling the objections [00:12:00] before they became an objection. I really took the brunt of it and now handling failures with grace.

[00:12:07] Dr. Bruce Baird: It is like, remember Mary, we talked about that and Bob, you know, your bite’s so strong we have to keep a close watch on this. And this was a lot deeper than I thought it was gonna be. And all of these little things that we do to help prepare patients, um, for an extraction, you know. I will tell them this is a, this is a very difficult extraction.

[00:12:32] Dr. Bruce Baird: If it is a surgical extraction where I’m gonna be maybe laying a flap and, and doing sutures, I’m gonna make sure I give the patient, I’m gonna tell ’em, I said, this is, you know, you have a possibility, you may get some swelling. Um, and many of those cases, I, I put the patient on a, on some, uh, antibiotics and I also put ’em on a steroid, uh, especially when I’m doing four thirds.

[00:12:55] Dr. Bruce Baird: What ends up happening is I get their four thirds out. Um, and guess what? [00:13:00] Because of the medications and because of the pre-meds that we’ve done and because of our surgical skills, the way we, we’ve done it, the patient comes back the day after or a couple days later going. You know, I didn’t swell. It was amazing.

[00:13:15] Dr. Bruce Baird: It was, it was awesome. Now I’m gonna build them up and say, you’re probably gonna have swelling. It’s gonna be hard to swallow. You’re gonna have, you know, bleeding. Um, you know, I tell ’em all of those things because they’re all possible. I don’t want them to be surprised by it when it actually happens. And so that’s what takes us from being a consultant to the patient and what they believe is, you’re the best dentist I’ve ever been to because you’ve explained things to me.

[00:13:46] Dr. Bruce Baird: And I understand. And, and you know what? If they are really swollen, I go, gosh, I was hoping we wouldn’t get that swelling. But boy, we do see it. Does it happen very often? No. We’ve gotten down the systems and the [00:14:00] scenarios so that we can take out four thirds or we can take out a full mouth set of extraction, put in implants, and put teeth on top of those, and the patients very rarely have any pain.

[00:14:09] Dr. Bruce Baird: We do an all on four and all on six. The patient has bolted in teeth and they’re like, I can’t believe it’s not hurting. Now I’m telling them to remember, I want you not, I want you to take it really easy on eating until we get our final restorations, but these are all things that I want you to be thinking about.

[00:14:27] Dr. Bruce Baird: In your practice and as you’re doing comprehensive exams on your patients, it’s super duper important to do this. Um, but I think the thing that that helped me most is it made me start enjoying dentistry more. It, uh, you know, I’ve always loved dentistry, but I don’t love doing something that, you know, you have patient concerns and patient things coming in every day, which is normal.

[00:14:55] Dr. Bruce Baird: If I’ve handled it ahead of time, they come in for instance, and [00:15:00] say, next time I see ’em, they go, Hey Doc, that tooth wasn’t sensitive at all. Or You took that tooth out. I didn’t have any pain. You did those veneers and they’re, they’ve been on nine years now, doc, and I’ve never had a problem with them popping off, you know, and so all of these little things.

[00:15:17] Dr. Bruce Baird: Make the big difference. And guess what? People who are happy, people who believe that you are a phenomenal dentist, people who think that you are the best, you know, they send other people to you. And when they have work done, they actually refer their friends to you. Yeah, they do. Now, if they get this inkling that.

[00:15:39] Dr. Bruce Baird: You know that tooth wasn’t sensitive before you worked on it, or they get this thing, man, that was, sorry. I don’t know if he’s that good a surgeon. Oh, I don’t know. That was a, that veneer, you know. All of these things are things that you can handle before it happens. So anyway, I hope today, I hope this was helpful.

[00:15:55] Dr. Bruce Baird: I hope it gives you something to think about differently because I’ll be [00:16:00] honest with you, I think about it differently every single day. I handle the objections with my kids. I handle objections with friends. I handle objections with everything before they happen. And guess what? Cortisol levels drop.

[00:16:15] Dr. Bruce Baird: Stress goes down and you start to enjoy your patients more and you enjoy your practice more. So anyway, I look forward to the next time we’re on, tell your friends about the Productive Dentist Podcast and I look forward to next time. Thank you for joining me for this episode of The Productive Dentist Podcast.

[00:16:31] Dr. Bruce Baird: If you found this episode helpful, make sure you subscribe. Pass it along to a friend, give us a like on iTunes and Spotify, or drop me an email. At podcast@productivedentist.com. Don’t forget to check out other podcasts from the Productive Dentist academy@productivedentistpodcast.com. Join me again next week for another episode of the Productive Dentist [00:17:00] Podcast.