Dental Patient Education|Ethical Selling Dentistry Archives

Patient Affordability Bias: Stop Pre-Judging Wallets

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

Should I decide which patients can afford implants before I talk to them? No. This is one of the most expensive biases you carry into the operatory, and it is almost always wrong. We size people up by their shoes, their car, their zip code, and we quietly decide who can and cannot afford treatment. Then we present accordingly, and we talk ourselves out of cases that the patient would have happily done. Your job is not to pre-judge the wallet. Your job is to give every patient the materials and the unbiased information they need to make their own choice. [...]

Patient Affordability Bias: Stop Pre-Judging Walletsjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

The Two Systems Behind Patient Decision Making

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

What are the two systems patients use to make decisions about dental treatment? Patients run on two decision systems, and your sales process either keeps them in sync or it does not. The first developed early in our species for survival. It runs automatic, on stealth, scanning for trouble while you go about your day. You use it without noticing, the way you avoid an accident before you know what happened. In subtle moments it just asks, does this feel okay in my gut, is something amiss. The second is the reflective system. It is slower, it brings in logic and [...]

The Two Systems Behind Patient Decision Makingjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why Decision-Making Science Is Missing in Dentistry

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

Why isn't decision-making science taught in dental school? Because it is not our discipline, plain and simple. There is a rich body of behavioral research built up over the last fifty years sitting in business and academic texts, and almost none of it shows up in our dental journals. That does not make it wrong or unimportant. It is extremely important, it just lives off to the side, off the radar of most of our colleagues. So it is on you to go get it. Either study how people actually make decisions and apply it yourself, or find someone who can [...]

Why Decision-Making Science Is Missing in Dentistryjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Eric Berne and Transactional Analysis in Dentistry

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

Who was Eric Berne and what does transactional analysis have to do with dentistry? Eric Berne was a Canadian-born psychiatrist who taught in the United States in the 1950s and wrote the popular book that launched transactional analysis. He moved past the Freudian obsession with personality and looked instead at the interactions we actually have day to day, because those exchanges are the foundation of both our personal and our business lives. Here's the part most dentists don't know. Berne had his own ah-ha moment with his dentist back in the late 1930s, centered on pain and patient experience, and he [...]

Eric Berne and Transactional Analysis in Dentistryjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00