January - LVI Visions

Michael Sernik, BDS VISION INTERVIEW
When people talk about
PrimeSpeak, they always say
that it is different from other
communication training.
What makes it different?
Can’t we just educate
the patient?
What is wrong with just doing
what the patient wants?
14 LVI VISIONS • JANUARY • FEBRUARY • MARCH • APRIL 2008
Most communication training essentially has its roots in sales training. We expect
sales people to use sales techniques on us. We might not enjoy being a
prospect, but we are not really shocked when a sales person tries to sell us
something. It is different when your trusted doctor tries to sell you expensive
treatment. That is the position we often find ourselves in. This is because most
dental conditions are chronic; the patient does not know they need treatment
but the dentist thinks it is necessary. We find ourselves making a recommendation
that the patient was not expecting to hear. The more we explain why
they need our recommendation, the more it can sound like a sales pitch. If we
have been taught sales techniques and start using them, we can make matters
much worse because most sales techniques are obvious to other sales people.
Most business people have had sales training. The one thing sales people hate
is being “the prospect”. So there is a need for a communication method that is
effective without ever coming across as sales.
We can, but the bigger the difference between the patient’s expectations and
our diagnosis, the harder this gets. If a patient interprets the dentist’s recommendation
as “You have a big potential problem and you should spend $50,000
to solve this problem” this can be problematic when the patient has no pain, no
discomfort and no one has ever said this to them before. That is when the patient
makes comments such as: “Do you need a new Porsche, doctor?”
The patient is the least qualified person to make clinical decisions about their
chronic painless disease. It is our job description to influence our patients to
want what we believe they need. Otherwise we end up just doing ‘patch and
fill’ symptomatic treatment. It is natural for patients to want the quickest,
cheapest option. If we give the patient the quickest and cheapest, we will be
leaving a lot of chronic disease in place.
“Dentists are unwittingly
creating problems and then
struggling to handle
the problems they created.”