To be safe and confident dentist you must keep up-to-date, adapt to new ways of thinking and ways to enhance patient care. This article explores revolutionary concepts such as the Time-Price-Quality Triangle and challenges old-fashioned thinking in dentistry. By embracing these ideas, you can eliminate anxiety, overcome imposter syndrome, and exude confidence in your practice.
Time-Price-Quality Triangle: A Paradigm Shift
- Old-Fashioned Thinking: Since the NHS was created, it has become traditional for dentists to use the following thinking. The price has been set by the NHS, given our known practice overheads we can determine the time available which then dictates the quality of the service we are able to offer.
- New Thinking: Flip the script, be conscious , become the dentist your dreamed you would be.
Define the quality of treatment and service you want to provide., from this calculate the time needed and the practice overheads required. Use this to determine your to pricing strategy.
Conscious Pricing for Quality Service
- Identify the quality of treatment and service you want your patients to experience.
- Determine the time required to provide this level of quality.Let your consciously chosen quality and time dictate your pricing structure.
- By aligning your pricing with the desired patient experience, you create a foundation for confidence in your services.
Navigating Payment Provider Restrictions
- If you are thinking this is not possible because you work under a payment provider that prohibits the discussion of variance in quality, time, and fees (the NHS) or a system that makes these conversations difficult ( capitation plans) you must choose a different fee structure. For you to obtain true informed consent and provide collaborative treatment planning you must free yourself from the shackles that prevent those honest conversations. Only when you can be open about discussing quality, time and price can you achieve informed consent.
- Embracing fee-per-item or maintenance plans will enable you to provide transparency and empower collaborative informed consent.
- Just because it is the way it has always been done does not mean that your quality, time, price strategy is correct. Now is the time to make conscious decisions about the quality of care you want to offer and set your career trajectory.
Capitation Plans and Confidence
- If capitation plans limit discussions on treatment quality, because the fees are pre-set, based on the practice overheads. If you want to use higher quality materials you will have to reduce the time and if you want to spend more time you must reduce the quality of the materials.
- Explore fee-per-item structures or maintenance plans to regain control over treatment discussions.
- Focusing on transparency fosters patient trust, reducing anxiety for both practitioners and patients.
Building Confidence through Collaborative Informed Consent
- Embrace a patient-centred approach so you and your patients can make the best choices by actively involving them in discussions about treatment options that includes information about quality, time and fees.
- Collaborative treatment planning and informed consent are not only legally essential, they will build patient trust and instil confidence in your practice.
Conclusion
By adopting a new mindset and embracing conscious levels of quality of care and treatment first, you can create a pricing strategy that will eliminate anxiety, overcome imposter syndrome, so you can exude confidence in your practice. Navigating payment provider restrictions becomes an opportunity for innovation, allowing you to prioritise patient care and satisfaction. Remember, confidence begins with conscious choices and a commitment to delivering exceptional quality in every aspect of your dental practice.
