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963: 4 Ways to Reinvent the Hygiene Op – Carlie Einarson

Do your hygiene visits feel too routine? Do your patients devalue appointments? In this episode, Kirk Behrendt brings back Carlie Einarson, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, with four ways to reinvent your hygiene op so you can take it from being transactional to transformational for your patients. To help patients feel educated, motivated, and to value hygiene, listen to Episode 963 of The Best Practices Show!

 

Learn More About Carlie:

Learn More About ACT Dental:

More Helpful Links for a Better Practice & a Better Life:

Episode Resources:

Main Takeaways:

  • Start off strong by setting clear expectations for your patients.
  • Use monitors to show the impact of their visit, not the news or HGTV.
  • A picture is worth a thousand words. Start using technology to its fullest.
  • Celebrate even the small wins and validate concerns so that patients open up.
  • Resist your “righting” reflex. Create space for learning rather than giving answers.
  • Make hygiene visits an opportunity for patient engagement, not just “routine cleaning”.

Quotes:

“You were talking about practices getting stuck, but hygienists in practices can get stuck too. Sometimes, hygiene visits feel like they're just a “routine cleaning” instead of more of a powerful opportunity to engage with patients and grow the practice. Ultimately, it feels routine, mundane, and the same thing all over again, every day. When patients don't see the value in hygiene, they cancel, they delay, and they push back. When the provider feels like it's routine, mundane, and the same thing, then the patient is going to feel that too. So, we want to use it as a powerful tool instead.” (2:29—3:07) -Carlie

“We first want to start by setting clear expectations. If you've been listening to the podcast for a little while, you've probably heard the term E – R = C, which stands for expectations minus reality equals conflict. Ultimately, we are going to begin every visit by asking one simple question: what are your expectations for today’s visit? So, we set the expectations for the visit. We can have reality meet those expectations, and we do not have that conflict. It's a quick question, and it's very easy to ask at the very beginning of the appointment.” (5:17—5:53) -Carlie

“You're asking for the answers to the test before you even start the test if you get those expectations first. Even if you get a simple reply to that question of, ‘What are your expectations for today's visit?’ and you get a simple reply of, ‘Well, in this hour I expect to get my teeth cleaned, and that's it,’ ultimately, it's a simple answer. But it does put people back in their seats to be like, ‘Oh, what is my expectation for today?’ or, ‘What do I want out of this visit?’ You might get some better answers talking about education, talking about wanting to look and feel healthy, a shiny bright smile. You might open some doors for whitening conversations. There are a ton of different doors you can open with just that question that you might not have thought about before.” (6:58—7:46) -Carlie

“Use monitors for patient education, not HGTV, or throwing on the news, or whatever else. Have the monitors actually have X-rays on them, IO photos on them, photos of any sort, and use them for patient education and for their purpose.” (9:36—9:58) -Carlie

“A picture is worth a thousand words, and we talked about expectations. They kind of go together. If you throw up a picture of a tooth that has a really dark spot, a big crack, it doesn't look great, the patient is already going to likely start asking like, ‘Hey, what can we do about that?’ or, ‘Oh, that doesn't look good. I don't want to see that.’ It's like, ‘Well, that's in your mouth. It's in your body. We want to do something about it,’ and it can help to set those expectations, as well as it gets them to have an active part in their treatment planning and co-discovery. As a hygienist, you do co-discovery with the doctor, and you share certain things that you've seen. The patient also should have an active piece in that, and the only way they can have an active piece in their co-discovery and their treatment planning is if you actually have the pictures on the screen. X-rays too but, ultimately, you have to explain the X-rays a little bit more. But the picture is, again, a thousand words.” (12:10—13:14) -Carlie

“You're going to save yourself time in the future. So, by showing some of these pictures and by educating, now you're going to have patients that are fully invested in their health come back and actually ask you, ‘Oh, how am I doing? Can you take a picture of that? What does it look like today?’ If they're invested, and they see it, and they're learning, then chances are you don't have to have those conversations every single time, all the time. They're learning, and they know, and it will save you time later, in my opinion.” (16:12—16:42) -Carlie

“Use technology to its fullest. So, it has to do with monitors too; a monitor is technology. But other technology, like the practice management software, you want to make sure that we’re using that to its fullest, using the periodontal chart to explain options and different disease data with patients. What I would do is I would actually pull the perio chart over to the monitor in front of the patient so they could see. They can hear when you're going along periodontal charting, but it is nice for them to see. Everybody learns differently. Some people learn by seeing, some people learn by hearing, or by doing. It's nice to give them a couple options and/or have them see both that backs up what you're saying on the screen.” (17:19—18:08) -Carlie

“There are so many softwares too, such as Pearl, that helps provide an easy and colorful way to explain things to patients. It backs you up in a way that is so much easier to discuss with patients. We have intraoral photos, scanners — scanners are game-changers to show how things can transform and what things could look like if we change something here, tweak something there, ‘This is what it could look like in the future,’ and showing the wear on teeth. There are so many amazing pieces of technology that are in practices that we don't necessarily use to the fullest . . . I'm not saying you need to use every single one of these things in every single appointment. It is going to be customized to each patient, what they want. Going back to that first question, ‘What are your expectations today from your visit?’ you can customize based on each person's answer.” (19:53—20:50) -Carlie

“Celebrate wins and validate concerns. So, ultimately, like you were saying, where our world is going with all this AI, and computers, and pictures, and everything, there is a piece of that personal connection that's so important, especially in the hygiene visit. I have had patients come back specifically for hygienists, not even for the doctor necessarily, and it's because of that personal relationship. I believe it has to do with celebrating wins, validating concerns, and being there for that person when they're scared or nervous. People don't normally love to come to the dentist. So, being there for that person and having that personal connection, celebrating those things, ‘Your gums look healthier than last time. Look at this picture. Oh my gosh, your buildup on the lower anterior was so much worse last time. Way to go!’ It brings that encouraging factor and that personal touch back to the dental office and to your cleaning appointment.” (21:28—22:28) -Carlie

“The “righting” reflex is a natural tendency that many helpers — so, “helpers” like dentists, doctors, coaches, parents — they want to just fix the situation by correcting any behavior, error, giving advice, persuading somebody to change. So, you're fixing something for someone else, and you're not giving them the chance to actually think, or fix it for themselves, or have that personal interest in fixing or doing something differently.” (24:00—24:29) -Carlie

“Hygiene can be more than a cleaning. It starts with patient trust, treatment acceptance, and those personal connections. It is the gateway to the practice, and changing the small things — using your space, technology, and communication to transform that patient experience — is going to be amazing for both you and your patients. It gives you something new each cleaning that you're doing, and it also gives the patient that customized experience. So, even if you just change one thing every appointment, whether it's some co-discovery, whether it's IO photos, whether it's using Pearl, whether it's doing saliva testing, just one thing in each appointment from here until the rest of your career, it is going to be so transformational and not transactional.” (30:07—30:56) -Carlie

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction.

1:47 Why this is an important topic.

4:00 Set clear expectations.

9:34 Use monitors for patient education.

17:15 Use technology to its fullest.

21:25 Celebrate wins and validate concerns.

23:50 The righting reflex, explained.

26:49 Help patients get out of their routine.

30:01 Final thoughts.

31:23 ACT’s BPA.

Carlie Einarson Bio:

Carlie Einarson is a lead practice coach who has a passion for helping others succeed in the dental field. She loves helping to create a stable foundation for practices so both professionals and patients have a great experience every time they walk in the door!

Carlie graduated from Utah College of Dental Hygiene. She has ten years of experience in the dental field, including clinical dental hygiene, front office, and leading teams.

In her free time, Carlie enjoys spending quality time with loved ones, traveling, skiing, playing volleyball, and golfing.
ACT Dental Team

ACT Dental Team

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