The Fundamental Difference Between Child and Adult Patients

Most doctors and staff that I interact with say that, once started, adult patients are ‘high maintenance’ when compared to parent/child cases. They also tell me that adult patients are harder to persuade to start treatment.

I agree with the first point – after all, it is their mouth, not a family member’s – and there isn’t anything your practice can do to change that. However, I strongly disagree with the second point, the assumption that adults are harder to start than parent/child cases. I disagree because the problem is not the fact that the patient is an adult. The problem is that you – meaning, you and your team – don’t distinguish between parent/child and adult patients when it comes to how you run your consultations. You don’t make an effective presentation to the adult patients that visit you, and you suffer the consequences.

Your consultations with adult patients should be fundamentally different than those you have with parent/child cases, because you are dealing with a completely different set of needs and buying motives. In short, the parent/child decision is financially driven, while the adult decision is an emotional one.

This means that if you use the same format with an adult patient that you do with parent/child visitors – and most of you do exactly that – you will get poor results, because you are not matching your solutions to the patient’s needs.

The good news? While certainly “high-maintenance”, adult patients represent a significant opportunity because, as of this writing, this segment is a largely untapped market. The other benefit that you get with adults who are happy with your work is word-of-mouth advertising, which is the best kind of marketing you can have for your practice.

Learn to present properly to adults, and your low conversion rate with this group will improve immediately.