Deliver Bad News to Dental Patients at Your Practice

One of the difficult parts of being a dentist is delivering bad news to your dental patients. In many situations, and depending on the type of dental practice you run, you may have to deliver bad news weekly or even daily. Because of this, it’s important that you know how to deliver bad news and how to encourage patients to make healthy dental decisions.

Delivering Bad New to Dental Patients

As a dentist, it is your job to examine a patient’s teeth, locate any dental disease, diagnose the problem, and then present your patient with his or her treatment options. Your patient may have questions or concerns, which you should always address and take seriously. Once all the treatment options have been presented, it’s up to your patient to make a decision about dental treatment. Sometimes this decision may be to refuse any treatment whatsoever.

While it can be difficult to watch a patient make a decision that you know is detrimental to their oral health, there is no way to force your patient to receive treatment. As long as you’ve done your best to educate your patient on his or her diagnosis as well as discuss the consequences of refusing treatment, you have done your job as a dentist.

Delivering bad news to a patient can be a difficult part of dentistry, but watching a patient refuse treatment can be even worse. Here at Pro Dental Designs, we know the challenges facing dentists and we’re here to help however we can! For more information, please contact Pro Dental Designs today.