Why Both Parents Don’t Attend Consultations
As we all know, the most frequent obstacle to having a new patient start treatment is the absence of one of the parents at the initial consultation; the almost universal response of the attending one at the end of the visit is “I need to talk to my spouse”. While work obligations are certainly a factor here, it is not the only factor involved, nor is it an insurmountable issue. Let’s take a look at this situation from the point of view of the parents.
In most households, one spouse is responsible for ferrying the children to all of their medical appointments, and almost all of them – annual checkups, dental cleanings and the like – do not involve a purchase decision, and therefore are not relevant to the time of the other spouse. Unfortunately, this single-parent transportation habit, through default, drives the plans for visiting your practice, even though your services are fundamentally different – they are elective, they involve a significant out-of-pocket investment, and they have life-long implications. The problem is that these critical differentiation factors are never a consideration in the decision of who needs to visit your practice.
Therefore, the real issue here is not “my spouse works” but rather “my spouse doesn’t attend our children’s routine doctor appointments.” Put another way, if the appointment were deemed important enough, in many cases the non-attending spouse could, and would, make time for the appointment. So the key to addressing this issue is to educate the caller-spouse on why the other spouse should attend the consultation. This is the domain of the front desk, and it should be done at the time the appointment is set. I provide a detailed chapter on this subject in my book, Yes to Treatment Case Acceptance Skills for the Orthodontic Practice (www.yestotreatment.com/book). Here is additional verbiage to provide your caller to encourage both spouse’s attendance:
Orthodontic Treatment is a significant financial investment that provides a life-long benefit to your child. Because of this, Dr. _______ requests that both of you attend the initial consultation, so that he/she can explain the treatment process, answer all of your questions, and help the two of you to make a well-informed decision. Would it be possible for both of you to attend?
Note that the goal here is not to get every spouse to attend every consultation – that isn’t going to happen – but rather, to have the parents treat this appointment for what it is, and not as just another routine visit to the doctor. The goal is to educate the caller, and have them make the decision on who attends based on that education. There is nothing wrong with having a well-informed family send one spouse to your practice because of necessity – but having them do it this way because they don’t know any better is a disservice to both the family and to your practice.
Rest assured, if we don’t ask them both to attend, they won’t. Nobody minds your front-desk person making this suggestion, and the worst thing they can say is “no”.
