Blog - Page 82 of 310 - The McAnally Selling System

Justify a High Exam Fee With the Picasso Lesson

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How do I justify a high fee for a dental exam that only takes a few minutes? Think about Picasso. He was sketching in a Paris park when a woman recognized him and insisted he draw her on the spot. A few quick strokes, a couple of minutes, and he handed her a portrait that captured her perfectly. She asked the price. Five thousand francs, serious money at the time. She was stunned. How could a two minute sketch cost so much? His answer was the whole lesson. Madame, it took my entire lifetime to be ready for these two minutes [...]

Justify a High Exam Fee With the Picasso Lessonjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

What Is Risk-Based Treatment Planning in Dentistry

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

What is risk-based treatment planning in dentistry? It is planning around what is likely to go wrong, not just what is wrong today. Instead of cataloguing existing holes, you assess the patient across categories of risk. Functional risk, decay and caries, periodontal risk in both hard and soft tissue, and esthetic risk. From a single snapshot of a mouth, and the experience of having seen thousands of them, you can forecast what is probably coming for this person over the long term. That changes the whole conversation. You are no longer fixing one tooth, you are protecting a future. It is [...]

What Is Risk-Based Treatment Planning in Dentistryjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How to Make an Exciting Dental Exam Worth a Fee

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How do I make a dental exam exciting enough to charge a real fee for it? First admit the problem. Most exams are boring, and if yours looks exactly like every other exam the patient has sat through, you have given them no reason to pay more or to choose you. That is the trap. The way out is to put some real substance behind it. Move to risk-based treatment planning, where you are openly evaluating function, decay and caries, perio across hard and soft tissue, and esthetic risk. You are reading a snapshot of this mouth and telling the patient [...]

How to Make an Exciting Dental Exam Worth a Feejames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

When Patient Demands Should Raise Your Fee

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Can patient behavior and demands raise the fee on a case? They should, and you are within your rights to let them. Not every factor that drives a fee is clinical. A patient who needs it fast, who can only be seen on one specific day, who can only sit twenty minutes before needing a break, who has a long list of personal wants and demands, all of that costs you. It costs scheduling flexibility, chair time, and stress on your team. Those non-clinical realities belong in the fee conversation, not absorbed silently while you quietly resent it. Put patient behaviors [...]

When Patient Demands Should Raise Your Feejames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Clinical Factors That Set Your Big Case Fee

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

What clinical factors should change the fee on a big dental case? Three things drive your clinical fee, and you should be able to name them out loud. First, complexity. A harder case takes more skill, more time, and more planning, and the fee should reflect that. Second, predictability. When you are engineering something meant to last for the long haul, you are charging for a result that holds, not just a procedure performed. Third, patient risk. The same restoration carries a different fee in a high risk mouth than a stable one, because you are accountable for what happens over [...]

Clinical Factors That Set Your Big Case Feejames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Should You Apply the Exam Fee to Treatment?

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Should I apply the diagnostic exam fee to the patient's treatment plan? There is nothing wrong with it, and there is a real reason to do it. When you tell a patient the diagnostic fee will be credited toward their treatment, you have just removed risk from their mind. Patients hate loss far more than they like a deal. Spending a few hundred dollars and then wondering if it was wasted is exactly the kind of loss that makes people hesitate. Take that worry away and they decide easier. This also taps reciprocity. You gave them something, so they feel inclined [...]

Should You Apply the Exam Fee to Treatment?james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Retail and Discount Comprehensive Exam Pricing

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Should I set a retail price and a discount on my comprehensive exam? I would. Build the full retail value of the exam first, every test, every bit of doctor time, the imaging, all of it, and arrive at the highest honest number you can. Then discount back to your real price, with a clear reason why. Maybe they earned it by coming back within a set window, or by choosing your office over the others they could have picked. You always need a reason, never a random markdown. The point is psychological and it is legitimate. People want to feel [...]

Retail and Discount Comprehensive Exam Pricingjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How First Purchase Amount Affects Patient Spending

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Does the first fee a patient pays affect how much they will spend later? Yes, and the retail world has the data to prove it. The size of someone's first purchase sets the ceiling for what they will spend after. Make that first purchase tiny and the next ones stay small. Make the first purchase substantial and the additional spending climbs to match it. That is exactly why I do not want your diagnostic exam priced like an afterthought. A 150 dollar exam anchors the patient to small numbers, and then you are fighting that anchor the whole way through the [...]

How First Purchase Amount Affects Patient Spendingjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why Your Dental Patients Say They Have No Money

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why do my dental patients always say they have no money? Because you are skipping the qualifying steps and talking to the wrong people. When a dentist tells me every patient they see is broke, I do not believe the patients are the problem. The process is. If there is no diagnostic fee with any seriousness behind it, and no step that asks the patient to commit before you start presenting, then of course your chair fills with people who were never going to buy. A real diagnostic fee is part of qualifying. It asks the patient to show some skin [...]

Why Your Dental Patients Say They Have No Moneyjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

What Diagnostic Exam Fee to Charge for Big Cases

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How much should I charge for a diagnostic exam on a large dental implant case? Charge enough that it filters out the tire kickers. For complex cases I want that fee somewhere between 300 and 700 dollars, not the 150 to 200 most offices default to. Here is why. A cheap exam tells the patient this is no big deal, and it pulls in unserious people who will sit in your chair, eat your time, and never decide anything. A fee with some weight to it does the opposite. It signals seriousness on both sides, and it qualifies the patient before [...]

What Diagnostic Exam Fee to Charge for Big Casesjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Previous 818283 Next

Big Case Marketing Blog