Subscribe: RSS

This week on All Things Business for Physicians, we’re speaking with Dr. David Moffet, a retired dentist with over 35 years of practice. He eventually began coaching, speaking, and writing about industry-related topics—primarily, making dentistry about the “patient experience” rather than a simple medical commodity (particularly one that many people tend to dread).

Tune in to learn about:

  • How physicians can attract the patients they want
  • The importance of systemizing a business’s marketing and operations
  • Why improving the culture of your entire staff is so essential—and a few ways you can do this
  • How to prevent physician burnout—and the danger of trying to appease to “discount shoppers”
  • Why, how, and when to raise your prices
  • The best advice he’s ever been given about building a business, and a personal habit he attributes to his success

Dr. Moffet sees marketing as a “self-sorting” principle, in that the way you choose to market your business will tend to attract the “right kind” of patients. It’s an important reminder right off the bat of how building a successful practice isn’t necessarily getting as many people in through the door as possible, but rather the type of people who you and your employees would want to work with. “You can’t be everything to everybody, so you’ve got to choose your market.”

He also references the well-known Pareto’s principle, which states 20% of your inputs (patients, in this case) will yield around 80% of your output (profits). What this means is to identify the priority patients (“true fans”) and focus on how you can do more for them and do more of what you’re doing to extend that satisfying experience to other patients.

In One way Dr. Moffet helped drive this process along in his business is to “design things from a patient’s point of view.” His systems—from the waiting room to the design of his business cards to the friendliness of the front office staff—were always geared toward optimizing the patients’ experiences. “We’ve got to make our customers feel special at every opportunity.” Not only does this improve the patient experience, but it can help you hedge your practice in the event a mistake or error occurs down the line (it happens) with patients with whom you’ve already built a trusting relationship. As Dr. Moffet points out, “They’re more forgiving.”

In our conversation about physician burnout, Dr. Moffet warns that offering too many price concessions is a risk. Why? Because you’re essentially doing business for free and gouging your own business’s profits. “Why would you work for nothing?” he asks. Dr. Moffet points to research he’s found that shows upward of 25% of potential customers aren’t as concerned about competitors’ prices—and these are the people who are willing to spend more anyway, provided the service is high enough quality.

Dr. Moffet’s best advice about building business came from a man he bought his dental practice from. “Start your practice as you want it from day one.” This requires a good understanding of who you are when you want to work, and where you see your business headed. He asks himself, “How can I get better at everything I do?”

You can check out Dr. Moffet on his website, theultimatepatientexperience.com, or email him at david@theupe.com.

Resources: