Latest News and Events

Stanley Institute is pleased to announce that Drs. Robert and Bobbi Stanley have successfully performed live surgery at the 154^th Chicago Dental Society’s Midwinter Meeting.

On Thursday, February 21, 2019 the 154^th Annual event opened with an auditorium full of dentists, industry leaders and spectators present for the immediate extraction of #3 and subsequent placement of dental implants for teeth #3, #4 and #5.

Prior to the surgery, Dr. Robert Stanley used video and visual aids to illustrate prosthetically driven digital workflows for fully guided implant placement. Relying on his background in mechanical engineering, he further addressed implant design and other factors that can be used as predictors of successful outcomes. Dr. Bobbi Stanley completed the three-hour presentation with a lecture on temporization options for patient satisfaction, including the use of Snap-On Smiles for short-term solutions.

Today’s presentation was the culmination of months of preparation and input from Drs. Stanley, their clinical and administrative teams, many corporate partners and their dedicated employees.  “We appreciate the opportunity to present for attendees at Chicago Midwinter and absolutely could not have provided this caliber of presentation without the collaboration from so many. We are looking forward to our next lecture”, said Dr. Robert Stanley

In addition to Thursday’s dental implant continuing education, the Stanley Institute team will be at Booth 5119 with a variety of tabletop clinics and available to speak with dentists that have further questions about the material presented and implant courses through Stanley Institute.

Stanley Institute would like to thank our presenting partners, Henry Schein, BioHorizons, i-Cat 3D Dental Imaging and NDX/nSequence, as well as the representatives from all the major dental associations in the United States.

For more information or partnership inquiries, contact our Continuing Education Director.

‍

Q: Where is best place to bury a dead body?

A: Page 2 of Google.

That’s right, it is literally page 1 or bust when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). But, what is that secret sauce that makes you stand out from the other dozen dentists in your town—at least online? In the interest of full disclosure, only 3 people know the real answer to that. All 3 of them work at Google and they have more security clearance than the FBI director.  But, all is not lost.  Many really talented people make their best guesses as we all jockey for the coveted #1 slot. Here are some tactics to move on up the rankings and get those new patients calling your office.

Keywords

Think of internet searches as a conversation. Searchers are asking questions and you want to be the answer. For instance, someone looking for dental implants will search “dental implants”. In the past, the SEO trend was to stuff as many keywords in your site as possible. If you could include the name of the town where you are located right next to the key word, over and over again, you hit the SEO jackpot (example: dental implants in Cary NC X 100). As Google does, they changed the rules of the game. To be clear, no one knows exactly what those rules are but experts agree that the current algorithm may penalize sites for “keyword stuffing”.  However, there is an appropriate balance with relative content.  You can use your subject matter/keywords in the service category page, in the clinicians’ bios and on blogs. These are all legitimate places to use your keywords and will accomplish the desired amount of redundancy.

PRO TIP: When using keywords, be certain to use both your clinical terms (i.e. periodontal disease) and the colloquial term (gum disease).

Internet currency

Forget about bitcoin—links are the currency of the internet. The more you have, the richer (in position) you are.  As with keywords, there is a balance. You want to focus on high quality sites with good domain authority. What this means is that you do not want to link to any site that will have you—focus on well established sites with a good reputation. One way to do this in a shorter amount of time is to be a dental authority. Everyday, hundreds of reporters are searching for quotes for their articles. HARO.com (short for Help A Reporter Out) offers a free service that compiles dozens of requests and emails those queries to their mailing list. It’s a quick scan for you, your office manager or marketing director a few times a day. You can send your response to the email of the requester. Many times you can see what outlet the reporter is writing for and can decide if you want to respond (i.e. nbcnews.com vs a largely unknown group).

PRO TIP: If you are easy to work with, you can make a solid contact at the publication and they will just contact you directly for future commentary which means longer turn around times and easier communications.

Fresh Content

Finally, a great way to be found in internet searches is to have new, relevant content. Blogging is an excellent conduit for relatable information focused on your business (dentistry). When writing a blog for your dental website there are a couple of points to ponder:

Who do you want to read it?

This is an easy answer—or is it? You are a dentist and you think like a clinician. Your patients are not clinicians; they are lay people looking for a solution.  Be that solution with relatable content.

Example search term: replace missing tooth

This person needs an implant but may not know or search the clinical term. As mentioned before, you want to speak in language and terms your potential patients will understand, not your colleagues.

How are they searching?

In addition to the common names for dental treatment, you want to write with the thought of how information is searched. In this era of voice to text queries, many times the “search” is in the form of a question, “Siri, how do I replace a missing tooth?” Again, you want to be the answer—very specifically. Perhaps the title of your blog post reads ‘How to replace a missing tooth’—known as a long tail key word. The article will give a high level overview of the implant process and your practice’s ability to take great care of their dental need and thus solve the searcher’s issue.

Are you interested in learning more about how to attract new patients to your dental practice? Discover this valuable information and more in Dr. Bobbi Stanley’s Small Business for Dentists courses

‍

In this modern age of dentistry, you are a business owner that offers the service of dentistry. Statistics show that as many as 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Therefore, you are subject to the same applause and objections as the hamburger joint down the street.

Here are some time-tested tactics for managing your online reputation-the good, the bad and the ugly.  

Step 1: Claim your business

Whether you love it or hate it, Google is captain of the search game—so you better know the rules and play by them. When your patient searches for you and finds an unclaimed Google listing, it really doesn’t matter that you graduated top of your dental class or how high tech your office is—you will look outdated. It’s a simple matter to claim your business. If you need help, here’s a quick guide.  While Google is the main player, be sure to claim your business on sites like Yelp and LinkedIn too.

Step 2: Start asking for reviews

Even if you just opened your dental chair for business, it is easy to build your online standing—and most patients are eager to help.  Every day you receive some type of compliment. Simply wait for the kind remark and ask the patient to please leave a review to help you grow your online reputation.  You can have the patients leave a review from their smart phone while they are in the chair.  Additionally, there are myriad software companies marketing to dentists. At our dental practice, we use YAPI for patient management and they have recently added a review feature for a nominal fee. In addition to on demand reviews, it will automatically interface with your dental software and contact the patient after an appointment to solicit feedback.

Be sure to make it part of your office standard operating procedure. It isn’t only the dentist that should focus on reviews. In the same way that your hygiene department offers oral cancer screenings, your team should be actively soliciting reviews—their job may depend on it. As mentioned in Step 2, it’s easy to ask for a review in the chair or at the front desk when given a compliment. And, it should be second nature.

Step 3: Don’t be afraid of your negative review(s)

If you’ve recently received a less than flattering review, take heart, it isn’t the end of the world. Remember, you must act and not “react”.  This is definitely the time to take a “less is more” approach. While you must respond to the review, you are still under legal obligation to protect your patient’s privacy. Respond with compassion and offer an invitation to discuss the matter in person. It is ok to site HIPAA and leave your office number as a reminder of the best way to reach you.  This signals a level head to anyone that comes across the online analysis.

If you do receive a negative review, kill it with kindness. Generally people are more apt to leave a negative review versus a positive one. After all, people are busy and expect everything to go well. When you receive a bad review (and you eventually will), remind your team to double down on asking happy patients to leave their feedback.  In your morning huddle, ask each team member to identify three patients they will ask to leave a review. Although well meaning, your employees will get busy as the day goes–help them be intentional.

Without fail,  we all want to take great care of our patients but remember there are cell phones recording and keyboard warriors everywhere waiting to document even the smallest perceived slight. As we navigate dentistry in the 21^st century, don’t fear the World Wide Web, have a strategy to mold your online reputation to correspond with your real world character.

‍

On Friday, July 13 Dr. Bobbi Stanley presented a course on Small Business Ownership for Dentists to clinicians from across North Carolina. The event was hosted by Live Oak Bank and supported by industry partners.

The course centered on a subject not focused on in dental school—how to run a dental business. While most clinicians are fully confident in their technical abilities, the responsibilities of running a business can be overwhelming. Dr. Bobbi Stanley and her husband and business partner Dr. Robert Stanley have successfully owned one of the North Carolina’s oldest and largest comprehensive dental practices for more than 25 years. “Over the years, I’ve simply had to learn along the way because there were very few business courses for dentists,” said Dr. Bobbi Stanley.

At Stanley Institute, we prompt students to shift their mindset. Dentists must realize they are small business owners offering a service of dentistry. Every dentist owns a small business—associate, partner or sole proprietor. This often means clinicians have two full time jobs and it’s easy to be consumed by your practice. Stanley Institute provides straightforward, sound business information that doctors can use immediately upon return to the office.

Small Business Ownership for Dentists concentrates on:

• Building better teams
• How to financially integrate new technology & techniques into your dental practice
• New patient financing solutions
• More profit & less stress
• Marketing that gets results
• More new patients for your dental practice
• Making the most of tax time and more

Dr. Stanley discussed using tools like Practice Analysis from Henry Schein to honestly evaluate and control overhead and operating expenses to improve net profit. She also reviewed patient financing alternatives with more favorable terms than traditional lenders like Care Credit.

“I love dentistry and I love to see my colleagues succeed. We all became dentists to help as many people as possible. By providing my insight and expertise, I can give back to the field that has given me so much,” stated Dr. Bobbi.

Dr. Bobbi Stanley has been practicing dentistry since graduating from the University of North Carolina School of Dentistry in 1993. She is now an Adjunct Professor of Prosthodontics at her alma mater and was elected a 2017 Leader in Continuing Education by Dentistry Today. Ready to take your dental business to the next level? Join us at our next business course for dental entrepreneurs.

Thinking about implants? Take a look at our distinctly unique implant continuum from Stanley Institute is the global leader in guided dental implant continuing education.

‍

After more than 20 years of practicing dentistry, two goals have remained; for my patients to be happy and healthy after being in my care. My ideal “dental world” is to save all teeth and help my patients be disease free while providing the highest level of service I can offer. But alas, over the years I have found that the impact of real-world issues such as fear and money tend to stand in the way on a daily basis. Fears some patients experience can be minimized with positive communication, advanced technology, & sedation dentistry, but the issue of money still lingers for many. Let’s face it, advances in technology have allowed us to perform better dentistry, but our discussions on the cost of treatment have remained the same for decades. The cost of treatment can be challenging because while most dentists look at comprehensive dentistry as an investment in yourself, patients often view the treatment presented as an added and unaffordable expense. Asking patients for thousands of dollars for an issue that may not be hurting or seemingly pressing to them can be frustrating and stressful. What options does that leave the dedicated healthcare provider with to help our patients? I have come to realize that patients don’t say no to treatment because of the cost, they say no to treatment because of the amount they are asked to pay at once. (Same idea as buying a car!) We as dentist have intuitively understood this and have been trying to get patients to say yes by offering a treatment plan that is spread out over time. A better solution is offering financial options to help with the amount patients are asked to come up with, but not all financing options are created equal. My practice struggled in the past with choosing a financial option that worked best for our patients and team alike because a number of issues arose.

THE ISSUE

When offering traditional dental financing, I found that many of my patients did not qualify and were left more frustrated than before. I began looking into why this might be happening and found that it’s not that our patients did not have cash flow to make payments but often times, it was that they simply had high debt to income ratio (Well, who does not in today’s society?) Divorce often leads to credit hiccups or perhaps they experienced a foreclosure in the down-turn of the housing market, like 5 million other Americans. In some cases, it had been years since there had been negative credit activity but they were still being penalized with a low credit score which lead to low or no approvals. All of that said, a low credit score does not deem someone as not being unable to pay their bills, it just means that they cannot get financing for their dental needs. Another financial option is to offer payment specials or split the total and offer in-office financing. In-office financing can help patients get much needed and wanted dental services, however, dentists have been warned by financial advisors for years not to lend money to our patients. We have been told that we will be the last paid and maybe not even paid at all and would have to rely on a team member to track down payments whilst accounting for them. Overcoming the issue of money has proved challenging but I finally found an option that worked wonders for my practice.

THE SOLUTION

Two years ago at an annual cosmetic meeting I discovered Comprehensive Finance Inc., an in-house financing company, that changed the way I viewed patient financing. I slipped into one of their seminars and was instantly intrigued by their unique patient financing service. The in-house financing company provides all the information needed to decide who qualifies for financing and what the terms are in order to get a monthly payment that fits comfortably into every patient’s budget. Additionally, I do not have to pay a percentage of my fee to provide the financing for my patients. Here’s how it works. When a patient needs financing for a pro- cedure we collect their information and input the data into their cloud-based system. A quick credit and banking check is run on the patient in order to determine if they are payment worthy by scoring their banking and credit history. Based on the information received, we decide if the patient should have credit extended and what interest rate the patient will be charged. The patient signs the paperwork and Comprehensive Finance takes care of everything else. The payments are automatically withdrawn from the patient’s account and directly deposited into our account every month with interest. This is not an interest free financial option but trust me, the patient is okay with that considering they are not only approved but able to get all their treatment done and fit it into their monthly budget. Now, I know what you are thinking; “What if the patient doesn’t pay? We can’t afford to lose money while trying to help our patients”. This concern is taken care of by collecting a down payment. We always ask our patients for a down payment that covers the “hard costs” of the treatment, meaning any lab fee or large supply fee like with the cost of dental implants. Rarely is a down payment an issue for the patient and can often be taken care of with their dental insurance payments. Remember, these are people who have good paying jobs, they just don’t have big bank accounts. A natural concern is that a patient will forfeit their obligation. We try really hard to lend to A+ patients (remember the credit check will grade the patients for you) but occasionally we will bend the rules and lend to a lesser scored applicant if we feel the patient sees the value in their dental treatment. Comprehensive Finance works diligently to make sure all payments are paid and there are no late payments. If a payment is late, communication is sent to the patient to work out the issues. Luckily, we don’t have to worry with that which allows my team members to focus on the patients within our office instead of spending their time on any financial issues. Our hard costs are covered so the only thing we lose is our time which would have been lost anyway on an empty schedule.

IN CONCLUSION

There are a few reasons why I decided to implement Comprehensive Finance and now have begun offering as the primary patient financing option in my practice. It’s simple really. I wanted to help my patients overcome the money issue and I had the time and space. I was not at 100% capacity in my dental office and had many patients who needed and wanted dental treatment but did not have all of the cash up front. I knew they were good Americans who paid all of their bills on time but didn’t have a viable option to help them. Since I had the capacity to accommodate these patients and knew they were employed and could make payments, I thought, “This could work!” And sure enough, it does. Now we have our empty chair time filled with patients who can and will pay. As an added benefit, we have constant revenue streaming in month after month as patients are paying down their loans and we continue to process more of them which allows my cash flow to be more predictable and helps to compensate for slow months throughout the year or vacation time I wish to take. Not only do I have more financial freedom in my office, my patients who need and want treatment no longer have to fear being denied the dentistry they deserve. With Comprehensive Finance, we can take the money issue out of dentistry and get back to what we went into dentistry to do…. help people!

Article by Dr. Bobbi Stanley; Originally published in DENTISTRY TODAY, MARCH 2016

‍

It can be maddening; you are all set up for your next hygiene patient and the hour comes and goes with no sign of your patient.  Your highly trained, well-paid hygienist is now stocking supplies instead of helping someone improve their oral (and systemic) health.  It happens more often than any of us care to admit.  Lost opportunities can really add up over the course of a week or month.  Some estimate it could be more than $6 million in lost revenue throughout a dental career. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. Take the time to implement a few extra steps to help your dental practice run like a finely tuned machine.

Appointment Reminders

Are you taking a one and done approach to reminding patients? Although it takes time to implement a multifaceted appointment reminder system, it will be worth it in the long run.  There are many options available in the marketplace but practice management software like YAPI  (and there are many) can help keep dental appointments top of mind for patients and offer their proven, best practice approach to communicating upcoming visits on various platforms. The purpose is not to annoy your patient but to recognize that life is busy and you are here to help patients get the care they need.

Run a tight ship

On the same note, no one has time to wait on a dental office that is running behind. Not only does this irritate patients, it can position your practice for a bad online review.  In the mind of the patient, it also discredits you as a doctor. Be a wo/man of your word.

• Keep regular hours that patients can consistently rely on. It frustrates patients to call an office that says it is open and yet they cannot get anyone on the phone.
• Do not reschedule patients unless absolutely necessary and do not overbook.
• Consider a prepayment discount–it is a service for patients and gives them a greater sense of commitment to honoring the appointment

Patients are following your lead, be certain you are setting the right example.

Be nice

This may seem obvious but people do business with people they like.  And you are running a business, the service you offer is dentistry. We suggest the four-minute rule in our dental practice. Clinicians spend about 4 minutes discussing anything other than teeth. We always try to keep conversation light and positive but take a genuine interest in the lives of our patients. This type of rapport can go a long way if your schedule gets derailed and a patient is not seen at their appointment time. As a general rule, people will try not to disappoint people they like. Be likeable and ensure that your team is doing the same.

Be kind but firm

When patients continue to disrespect your time, you have to show them that you are serious about respecting their time, the well-being of your team and time of your other patients with a set cancellation policy and subsequent fee. This is often enough to stop them from becoming repeat offenders.

As hard as you work to attract patients, sometimes you have to let go. It is a difficult decision to dismiss a patient. However, you must ask yourself- are you actually benefitting from a repeat no show offender? Work with your partner, a business consultant or your office manager to determine the threshold for dismissal.

Want more information on how to be the master of your dental practice schedule? Join Dr. Bobbi Stanley at her next Dental Entrepreneur Summit!

‍