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Clinical Vocabulary
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The Disconnect
Michelle Strange: A Tale of Two Hygienists presents this week’s TIPisode: Quick and easy tips to keep you up to date and presented by the experts in the profession. Now, get ready for your unofficial TIPisode.
Ashley Sousa: Well, hello there. My name is Ashley Sousa, and I’ve been in the dental field since 2008 and in dental leadership since 2010. I host a podcast for dental managers and leaders called the Practice Ally podcast. A majority of my experience is in the DSO realm, but I have worked with many group practices and private practices as well.
It is my pleasure to be here with you for today’s TIPisode. We are going to talk about why it’s so important to get the whole team speaking the same clinical language and make sure they know the “whys” behind each treatment.
Recently, I’ve been helping a few practices get better treatment acceptance, and I realize that there has been a huge disconnect between the administrative team and the clinical team. One example of this is when the administrative team is presenting a treatment plan, they will use words like “deep cleaning,” and the clinical team was just using words like “scaling and root planning.” This is so confusing to a patient.
When a patient would ask the administrative team why they needed a certain treatment or even why they needed an electric toothbrush, their answers massively differed from what the hygienist had explained to the patient. These things just make the patient question the treatment, they kind of give them an out, and then they also make them not fully trust the practice. The disconnect was there because they weren’t using the same verbiage, which in my experience in the corporate world was the foundation of having a healthy hygiene department.
I know that this is personally true. When I became an office manager many years ago, I was expected to do also the treatment coordinating. I was lucky enough to receive hygiene clinical training from a very passionate hygienist. Do you know what happened then? Her passion became my passion. She was passionate about the Oral-B and shared that with me. I couldn’t even keep them on the shelves! When she told me a patient needed scaling and root planning, I believed her, and I knew how exactly she came up with that diagnosis. I also knew what could happen if they didn’t get it treated. We grew that hygiene department so much in six months that we had to hire another hygienist and go to assisted hygiene.
Well, what’s the point, Ashley? The point is that your time is an investment, and the admin team can greatly benefit from the time you spend to give them that training, but most importantly, your patients will benefit. And, if you ask me, doing the right thing for the patients will be the right thing for your business.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. If you want to hear more from me, come hang out with me at the Practice Ally podcast or encourage your admin team to do so.
Until next time.
Michelle Strange: We hope you enjoyed this week’s TIPisode. Be sure to reach out to our guest experts and let them know how helpful their tips were. Follow A Tale of Two Hygienists on Facebook, Instagram, and head over to ataleoftwohygienists.com and subscribe to our newsletter. You can also email us at ataleoftwohygienists@gmail.com, and keep listening for more awesome content from your unofficial dental hygiene podcast.
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