A New Way to Look at the Comprehensive Exam with Dr. Kevin Groth - a podcast by ACT Dental

A New Way to Look at the Comprehensive Exam
Episode #328 with Dr. Kevin GrothYou might get by cramming five-minute exams at the end of your appointments. But it isn’t the best way to learn about your patients. It’ll also get you quickly overwhelmed. To show you a better way, Kirk Behrendt brings back Dr. Kevin Groth to share his protocol process so you can help diagnose and solve your patients’ issues. His first step is to start slow to build relationships with your patients. For more tips you can merge into your practice, listen to Episode 328 of The Best Practices Show!
Main Takeaways:Five minutes is not enough time to discover anything about your patients.
Structure your office based on relationships and care. 
Slow things down and get to know your patients. Build rapport.Don't get sucked into the capital aspects of dentistry.
Believe that what you're doing is beneficial for your patients.
Co-discover issues with your patients.Don't assume that patients can't afford a service.
Don't take offense if patients refuse the exam. It may not be the best time for them.
Quotes:“It’s so easy to get bogged down into the doldrums of general dental life. And I was working 220 days in 2018 and running around with my head cut off, type of feeling, and doing examinations at the last five minutes of each appointment. And new patients would come in for a hygiene appointment, and then they'd see me for five minutes. And I just felt very overwhelmed and drowning in what we consider general dentistry. And you start really becoming resentful of the profession — and it’s an amazing profession. There could be a better way.” (04:48—05:24)
“My comprehensive exam comes from my current patient pool. I do a comprehensive examination on new patients as well, and we oftentimes discover a lot more. But a lot of times, these things come from the practice within. Like you've said time and time again, you can form a practice within a practice.” (06:44—07:04)
“Five, seven years ago, I would have new patients coming to my dad’s practice, and we’d see them. Right off the bat, they get their teeth cleaned. I would meet them after their cleaning and I would see them for about five minutes, 10 minutes, or whatever it may be. And it’s really difficult to really discover anything with the patient and build a rapport and trust with them, let alone say, ‘Hey, you need all this work done.’ So, you kind of get in that grind like you would in dental school where you're just looking for caries, looking for periodontal disease, looking for oral cancer — the things that you were trained upon. But, quite frankly, like they say in Dawson Academy, about 70% to 80% of the patient population all have some type of functional disease or issue going on.” (08:01—08:42)
“Unfortunately, you have a lot of people in the industry preaching that if you do this technique, or you do this procedure, or if you buy this technology, it’s going to make you productive and you're going to have a more fulfilled life, and you're going to have a better practice, and your patients are going to be better off. And you get sucked into that. And I think I was a product of that right out of dental school because I heard placing implants would do a lot of those things. So, I spent the $20,000 and did an implant course. And I don't place implants, to this day. And I think it’s just because I didn't really have a clear understanding of why I was doing something, and it’s because I didn't know who I was to begin with. And that's really what it’s all about in anything in life, is that you need to know who you are, which then flows into why you do something.” (10:38—11:26)
“I want to impact people. I want to change their lives. And from a dental aspect, I want to have a relationship with every single patient I have. So, if I treat people with the regard as if you are my brother, my sister, my wife, my mother, however it is, I have to give you what I would do on them. And so, I...

Further episodes of The Best Practices Show with Kirk Behrendt

Further podcasts by ACT Dental

Website of ACT Dental