Dental Sleep Medicine Insider March 2015 | Page 12
KEEP
CALM
AND
SCREEN ON
By Cindy Herbert
One of the most common questions I field from
DSM practitioners is “How can I get new sleep
patients?” This is typically followed by a slew of
questions about billboards, radio ads, PPC ads,
paying an expensive fee to be featured on
websites that supposedly generate new patients
& many more. Some of the aforementioned
methods can be successful; and others wildly
unsuccessful. Fortunately, practitioner’s answer
to my next question usually generates further
discussion and alleviates some of the concern of
finding new patients. This is what I usually ask:
“Have you been screening your patients of
record?”
Most of the time, the answer is “No”. In a practice
with 2,000 active adult patients of record,
prevalence stats forecast that 400 of those
patients will likely have some form of Sleep
Disordered
Breathing. If you
have 400 OAT
candidates already
coming for a
prophy,
why
would you commit
your funds to a pricey marketing campaign when
there are patients in your practice that may need
your help and trust you? Even when those
marketing campaigns are effective, and some of
them certainly can be, there is still a significant
portion of your existing patient base that could
potentially benefit from your life-improving dental
device. Also, let’s be honest here, there’s a great
deal of production you could add.
If you’re not screening your patients, it’s unlikely that
they will broach the topic of their decibel-defying
snoring or excessive daytime sleepiness with you. By
screening all of these patients with the DS3
Screener, you are opening the door to an imperative
discussion. This can serve as your first step towards
dramatically improving their quality of life, while
adding additional revenue to your practice. We
suggest placing a couple inexpensive tablets (here’s
an Amazon link to some for about $100) in your
waiting room with the DS3 Screener pre-loaded
onto th