Dealing with patient dissatisfaction is an unfortunate but inevitable part of running a dental office. As you know, happy patients are the key to running a successful and thriving practice. However, in today's day and age, patient retention is more difficult than ever before.

Patients want high-quality care for minimal cost and expect to have an excellent patient experience where they feel valued and respected. Below, we'll dive into the most common reasons for dental patient dissatisfaction and discuss what issues can cause patients to leave your practice for another.

Avoid Making These Common Mistakes That Lead to Unhappy and Dissatisfied Dental Patients

As a dental professional, you offer a service-based business. If you can't provide quality service to your patients, they're unlikely to return. In today's ultra-competitive landscape, patients have more options than ever before and zero qualms about switching to a new dental practice.

Therefore, it's essential to provide a top-notch experience and avoid making the following mistakes, which are the most common contributors to unhappy and dissatisfied dental patients.

1. Cold or Unfriendly Staff

One of the biggest mistakes you and your staff can make when dealing with patients is coming off as cold, unfriendly, indifferent, or uninterested. Even if you're dealing with characteristics of patients that are negative or rude, it's absolutely essential to remain calm, polite, and professional.

When a patient walks into your office, they should receive a smile and a warm greeting from the front desk staff and clear instructions about where they should sit, if they need to fill out paperwork, etc. Encourage your staff to smile and be kind, even when they have bad days.

2. Long Wait Before Appointment

One of the biggest grievances among patients — especially a new patient — is showing up on time to an appointment and then waiting an excessive amount of time to be seen. 

One study showed that long wait times in healthcare settings resulted in low patient satisfaction scores¹ and negatively impacted the patient's perceived quality of care and overall confidence in their provider. Simply put, the longer the wait time, the higher the degree of dissatisfaction of the patient.

If you're having trouble fitting in all your patients during the day, consider upgrading your technology and using software solutions for scheduling and communicating with your staff throughout the day. Modern technology can make it faster, easier, and more convenient for you, your team, and your patients and prevent ineffective communication from leading to longer wait times and patient frustration.

3. No Sense of Appreciation or Value

When patients come to your dental practice, they want to feel as though they're receiving quality service for the money and that you value their business. So instead of treating patients as a means to an end (more profit and a bigger bottom line), show them how much you appreciate their loyalty by implementing a reward program.

For example, you can start with the Dental Intelligence Patient Loyalty Program. It's easy: patients earn loyalty points for completing actions like making on-time payments, referring friends, and more.

Once they collect enough points, they can redeem them for rewards that you choose ahead of time. Loyalty programs foster a fun office environment and show your patients that they're an essential part of your practice — and, after all, they are!

4. Inefficient Office Operation

Providing your dental patients with excellent service and treatment is only half the equation. Another common reason why people have bad experiences at their dentist is because of sloppy, inefficient office operations, such as staff losing paperwork, inconvenient payment methods, excess charges, unexpected scheduling changes, etc.

Instead of using physical paperwork (which takes up a lot of storage space and can get lost easily), consider upgrading to Digital Forms and Patient Portal. These solutions make it easier and more convenient for patients and improve the efficiency of your office.

You may also want to invest in 2-Way Communication, which can help keep the day moving and reduce wait times and patient dissatisfaction.

Shape the Future of Your Dental Practice with Dental Intelligence

Would you like to learn more about the best ways to handle dental complaints and unhappy patients? First, check out the Dental Intelligence blog for more information. Then, schedule a demo with our team of our advanced software solutions for dental professionals.

Resources

¹ National Library of Medicine