In any busy dental practice there are all kinds of patients .Most of the patients are good natured, witty, adjusting ,understanding etc and are good human beings and go out of their way to please their dentist.
But the law of averages demands that there always will be a few patients who are bad, nasty and dirty human beings.
Now instinctively most dentists can identify such patients within seconds. However, many dentists are not able to phase them out quickly. Besides due to lack of rapport between the dentists in a locality most dentists do not make other fellow dentists aware of such patients.
Also many dentists are not able to differentiate between a “fussy” patient and a ” nasty ” patient. I have seen this happen even with senior health care providers who have been in private practice for decades .
In this blog I will elaborate on this topic
Let us first understand that every patient deserves the best healthcare that a healthcare provider and the facility can provide. However these ideal situations ,most of the time do not exist and every clinician in any health care facility works under mild , moderate or severe constraints.
These constraints may be in terms of manpower or trained manpower ,space, resources, equipment , IT infrastructure etc. These constraints prevent the dentist from delivering the best care although the dentist sincerely wants to do so.
Now a fussy patient is the one who wants the best care and is not basically a bad hearted person.
Most of the times there demands are simple like being taken in on time ,expecting the facility to be clean etc.
Some fussy have very high expectations and on careful observation you will find that these are not basically bad hearted but are crackpots or basically foolish.
Now the clinician must carefully explain to the patient the limitations of his facility . For example he must be explained that appointments cannot be issued on phone ,to come to the reception desk for the appointments etc.
Now most of the times these patients understand the limitations under which the clinician and the healthcare facility works and adjust accordingly .What is needed to manage fussy patients is courteous and firm communication.
Now a nasty patient is NEVER SATISFIED and REFUSES TO BE SATISFIED. These are basically bad hearted human beings who view life negatively. The clinician, the staff may do everything for them but they will never be satisfied.
A fussy patient ask questions and wants proper answers. Nasty patient makes unreasonable demands . He lectures to the clinician and staff.
A fussy patient seeks good relations with his health care provider. A nasty patient seeks to DEMEAN the healthcare provider and his staff and wants to make criminals of them and has a superiority complex.
A fussy patient if handled carefully turn out to be good practice builders. Nasty patient as would be obvious are reputation destroyers. Fussy patients are assertive. Nasty patients are aggressive.
Fussy patients do not mind paying professional charges but expect value for money. Nasty patients will keep on bargaining.
Now many dentists /clinicians feel insecure if the patient ask them a few questions and view fussy patients as nasty patients.
Clinician must learn to differentiate between fussy and nasty patients. Fussy patients need to be accommodated and most of the times these patients reciprocate by word of mouth publicity. Nasty patients must be phased out and other dentists in the locality must be made aware of them.
I hope the above few lines help clinicians in their daily practice.
In the next few blogs I will elaborate of some more points as to how to manage these kind of patients.
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