Help for dental professionals in dealing with complaints

Have you ever wondered how easy it is for dental patients to get help in raising their complaints? It’s getting easier. Extra regulation is coming for the dental sector courtesy of the Care Quality Commission and the environment for dentists is becoming tougher. The CQC have an interest in complaints handling as part of their remit.

A search on Google for dental complaints returned over 3 million results! There are almost no end of websites and blogs offering advice to patients to help them to complaint about their dentist. Some websites are offering helpful practical advice for patients, others are legal firms looking for “no win, no fee” business.

If you contrast that with a search for helpful content to assist dentists in dealing with complaints the picture is much different. Search on Dental Complaints Handlingon Google and only 117,000 results are shown. At first look that seems a lot, but flicking through the results once you are past the first few pages the content feels like it diminishes in quality and usefulness considerably. The advice available to the dentist is unsurprisingly from the protection organisations who are really keen to see you resolve complaints well. The regulator, the Dental Complaints Service and professional organisations also offer some help.

Being prepared – the tide is coming in

The challenge for dental professionals is to be prepared for the complaints. If you need help on handling complaints take a look at ourfree report designed for dentists.  You may not feel like you need to prepare because you have an excellent track record of patient care. Your service is sound and the practice ethos is excellent. That is great but there is a rising tide of complaints, so you may be affected soon.

It may be that tough economic times results in patients being less tolerant and more ready to complain.  In 2009 there were 1419 complaints reported to the GDC.  That was up from 998 in 2008.  The best way to manage the risk of complaints is to not have them in the first place.

Sounds simple but how does that work?

Avoiding complaints

Here are a few pointers

• Good communication is essential.  Most dental team members don’t have formal training in communication skillsso it is worthwhile investing in these skills.
• Patient surveys can give a good indication of issues that you may not know you have.  Test some of some of your freindly patients as a start point.
• Target complaints: sounds odd at first, but by asking the customer if there is anything that we could do better, creates a positive environment, shows you care and can often reveal niggles that patients have that they otherwise wouldn’t have voiced.  If you hear about something then you can deal with it.  Otherwise the niggles lie unresoved and may well surface later.
• Don’t make promises to patients unless you can and will keep them. Reliability is one of the keys to any good relationship, and good patient service is no exception. If you say, “Your new crown will last for at least five years.” make sure you are confident that it will.
• Listen to patients and give them the information they need, in a way they can use, so that they can make decisions. Ths means explaining options (including risks and benefits); and giving full information on proposed treatment and possible costs.

So there you have it, some ideas to get you started on building a better business by working to avoid the issues that cause complaints.