Why Guided Conversations?

The first question that should be asked is why guided conversations are so important, especially in light of the fact that the concept is so rarely used or maintained. Guided conversations are about communication and are a large part of how dental practice systems are implemented and carried out at maximum effectiveness. Having systems means that each team member will know the steps to be taken to complete a task, but for many of those steps and tasks, patient communication is an essential component of making the system work. Consider this example:

Every dental practice has to collect money. Whether it is a fee for a service or a copayment as part of an insurance policy, the practice will inevitably have to ask patients for payment. Patients should pay the balance due at the time of the service. If the patient is fee-for-service, they would pay the entire fee and if they are an insurance-based patient, they would pay their estimated copayment. This systematic approach was put in place many years ago to improve dental practice collections, as billing for services after-the-fact often resulted in patients not paying their balances in a timely manner or at all.

As part of the collection system, front desk team, or financial coordinators must ask patients to pay their balances while they are in the office. This is where the system reverts from an internal series of steps to patient communication. How the patient is asked to pay the balance has a direct effect on how effective the system actually is. Here are two examples of ways to ask a patient to pay their balance:

1. “Mrs. Jones, would you like to pay your balance today?”

2. “Mrs. Jones, how would you like to pay your balance today, cash, check, or credit card?”

Let’s examine this simple example of a guided conversation. In the first script, which is quite common, the patient is being asked if they would like to pay their balance today. Many patients answer that they would not like to pay their balance today and ask to be billed or tell the practice they will pay it when they come back for the next visit. People often don’t want to pay their balances, worry about their credit card maximums, don’t have a cash or check with them, or expect that dental practices should be paid the balance at the time of the service, as is the policy of the practice in this case, but not properly communicated in script number one above.

Script number two gives the patient options, but not an option to not pay the balance. Script number two informs the patient that the balance is due now and they have an option of paying by cash, check, or credit card. This script can be delivered as a guided conversation with excellent customer service in a positive manner and tone to help maintain excellent relationships with patients.

Script number one often results in patients leaving the office without having paid their balance, which means that the collection process will now have to take place and some of these balances will be difficult to collect or not collected at all. Script number two collects the balance right away and eliminates any need for further collections, while giving the patient an option of how they would like to pay. Eventually script number two will have to be expanded for digital payments and should already include the use of debit cards.

The difference between script number one and script number two highlights the incredible power of guided conversations. The truth is that script number one above was not technically a script, in that it wasn’t designed and documented. It is simply documentation of what was said by many front desk team members or financial coordinators in dental practices that were never trained in the right way to collect payment at the time of the service. In their mind, they were asking patients to pay the balance, but the language used communicated that the patient did not have to pay the balance and had the option of either being billed or paying the balance at some other time. Script number one was simply what team members said to patients trying to be nice and complete a specific collection task.

Script number two above is a real script. It was designed to collect money at the time of the service, eliminate unnecessary time and effort, and have a higher than acceptable collection rate. Once again, this simple but very real example is critical to properly carrying out the collection system in a dental practice.

Guided conversations transform everyday comments or conversations into highly effective communication. Effective scripts are designed with precise psychology to accomplish an extremely specific task, such as collecting balances at the time of service, while still providing friendly and excellent customer service, and communication.