Why Negotiation is the most critical business skill for dentists.

Abstract

Dentistry in Italy have been through many changes during the last 20 year. Dental tourism and dental clinics and social media have totally inverted the patients’ focus on dental care. Moreover, toaday dentistry is not only a matter of clinical approach, but also management, intended as financial, human resources and patient’s of course, which is the dentists’ main asset. However, this is the fact: dentists are not trained on management during the dental school. Nowadays, to achieve coherence between results and busy agenda, dentists need to put clinical training right aside management one, empowering 2 of the master soft skills, able to generate a meaningful difference both for the dentist practice as well as the patient experience. We are referring to Communication and Negotiating. Between them, negotiation represents a crucial skill to be trained and acted throughout the dental office, since it is meant to bring a brand new approach to dental treatment presentation and patient experience. Negotiation allows dentists to differentiate from their competing collegues in the field. Some dentists are successful thanks to their personal talent in treating and giving care to their patient, simply because they have naturally developed such communicating and negotiating skills. For those who do not have such talent, there is a way: the so called negotiation protocol. These are the main features of the negotiation protocol: 1. It is indipendent from any personal talent, since it implies a scientific approach to negotiation, due the specific steps to be held; 2. It allows the dentist have a more specific patient profile; 3. It allows the dentist communicating the treatment to the patient with a deepest clearness and fullfilling comprehension. 4. It allows the dentist access to a detailed financial planning of the cures towards the patient’s commitment; 5. The protocoll make it possible to hire new personnel or change it if necessary, guaranteeing continuity with the process itself, thank to the scientific approach. It is remarkable how negotiation itself is a process, asking to involve the whole human resources working on and for the patient in the office: dentist, lab operators, assistants and of course the dental office secretary. Negotiating protocol enphasizes the role of the dentist and his team, acting to give the patient the best medical result and human experience ever, and yet allowing the dentist as manager to get hold on those precious data, able to develop the dental office performances.