Dr Phillip Palmer, May 2001 - Everyone has a belief system, which has been developed over the years, and has guided them in their actions and inactions to where they are today. However, often, this belief system has limited us and prevented us from reaching anywhere near our true potential. In order to get any movement from our present situation, we have to become aware of and challenge some of our old beliefs and thinking habits. Unless these limiting beliefs are recognized, they can hold us back from developing and coming closer to reaching our true potential. We all have to embrace a new set of guiding principles.
Some common limiting beliefs include:
Limiting Belief No. 1: Dentists who have better practices than me are just luckier than I am.
Have you ever noticed how those dentists who have better practices usually have better staff, better equipment and often patients who accept more comprehensive treatment plans. Is it luck? Possibly, but far more likely, the more successful dentist has got to where he/she is by hard work in learning communication skills, leadership skills, marketing skills and vision. In other words, a whole host of other skills that he/she wasn’t taught at university.
FACT: Behind good successful practices is a principal dentist who has developed and implemented strong business, communication, leadership and marketing skills.
Limiting Belief No. 2: Dentists who do well don’t care about the patient-they only care about money.
How ridiculous a belief is this. If we carry this through to its logical conclusion, any dentist who does a little worse than you, must care about their patients a little more than you. The worse they do the more caring they must be.
FACT: There should be no correlation between income levels of a practice and amount of care taken by the dentist. If anything, the opposite is more likely to be true.
Limiting Belief No. 3: I don’t have patients who want comprehensive dentistry. They only want basic fillings, extractions and dentures.
Often dentists who finally learn management and communication skills think their patient base must have changed, as suddenly, their patients seem to be accepting the larger and more sophisticated treatments that the dentist always wanted to do. The truth is, that all of us have patients who would love comprehensive dentistry if it meant that they could get rid of their dentures or help prevent them from having to wear dentures.
FACT: Usually it’s the dentists who don’t offer comprehensive dentistry, not the patients who don’t want it.
Limiting Belief No 4. My patients don’t seem to be able to afford crowns, bridges etc.
Good dentistry is not cheap, and not all your patients can afford everything you may want to offer them. However far more of them can and will afford comprehensive treatment than you think. From time to time, we may have to help our patients with appropriate financial arrangements to assist them to get the treatment they want, and that you want to deliver.
FACT: Often dentists do not offer financial arrangements to assist patients in accepting necessary dentistry
Limiting Belief No 5. Good staff doesn’t exist anymore. There used to be much better people to choose from.
Yes, good staff are not thick on the ground often when we are advertising. I’m not sure that they ever were, but certainly there have been times when we would get more applicants when we were looking, than we do now.
What this means is that we have to do our utmost to choose the right person when we finally do hire, train them to be excellent, and then keep them motivated by continually stretching them with extra tasks and responsibilities so that they don’t leave.
FACT: Dentists need to focus on retaining existing staff through motivation and development to reduce staff turnover and recruitment cycles.
Limiting Belief No. 6. You can’t make decent money doing dentistry.
It all depends what is meant by “decent money”. It is not uncommon today for dentists to have quite a healthy income and lifestyle. I personally know a number of dentists with practice incomes of $1 million or more and with nets of $450,000 and above and who are not working more than 35 hours per week. To me that qualifies as “decent money”
FACT: There is no reason why dentists can’t make a very good income indeed, and still have a life outside as well.
Limiting Belief No. 7. Dentists who do well do so because they use high- pressure sales techniques.
No dentist ever gets patients to accept comprehensive dentistry by using high-pressure sales techniques. In order to influence patients to get the treatment they need, you have to see the situation from their point of view. Once you do, there is an excellent chance that they may end up wanting the treatment that they need.
FACT: Dentists have to learn excellent communication skills, and have to understand what the patient wants. Once they do that, they will get appropriate treatment acceptance.
Limiting Belief No.8. Dentists who feel they have to do a management course must be “losers”.
Dentists who enroll for a management course come from a wide spectrum of differing clinical abilities, age groups, socio-economic groups, and geographic areas. The only conclusions that I’ve been able to draw about them is that they are open-minded and want to improve and become the best they can be. In the U.S., studies have been done to show that dentists who do management courses are also far more likely to be attending clinical courses than the average dentist.
FACT: Dentists who do management courses do so for a wide variety of reasons, and have a similarly wide background starting point with respect to incomes, clinical skills, etc
Limiting Belief no 9. I’m not doing as well as I could-maybe I should join a reduced fee programme, or preferred provider scheme.
This is a very common topic of discussion in some areas of Australia at the moment. Unless you have, at the moment, fees that are lower than the ones you will be able to charge once you’re in the programme, you will certainly be losing out when you join. Think about it-most dentists have overheads of 60-70%. If we give discounts, or reduce our fees by 20-30%, we are cutting our profitability by anywhere between 50 and 100%.
You don’t have to commit to discounting to have a future in dentistry-in fact the opposite is closer to the truth.
FACT: Dentists join these groups to get more patients, but unfortunately, the more patients you get this way the worse off you are.
Limiting Belief No. 10. Hygienists are ok for some dentists, but my patients want me to see them.
In all honesty this is a limiting belief that I used to hold myself.
Our patients want to be treated well, by someone that they have a relationship with. Hygienists do their job excellently, and professionally and can strike up a relationship with a patient no less than you can, and often more easily. They spend more time doing their basic work (prophy, clean and polish, fluoride treatment and oral hygiene instruction) than most dentists would spend on similar tasks. Patients feel good about having the extra time and attention lavished on them. Certainly my patients are delighted to see my hygienist, which frees me up to do more productive tasks that only I can do.
FACT: Patients are interested in quality care. Hygienists are in a unique position to be able to deliver that care. This allows dentists to focus on more sophisticated dentistry to which the majority of their professional training has been directed.
Summary: Once we think carefully about some of our limiting beliefs, we can honestly confront how we got to them. In many cases, it was as an excuse for our own inaction or ability to develop skills.
When we do rid ourselves of these beliefs, it can be amazingly freeing psychologically, professionally, and financially.