What does a casual dress code in a dental office signal to high-fee patients? That you are working at the level of a casual practice. Patients buying expensive elective services read casual dress as a signal of casual standards. Scrubs and athletic shoes register as routine dentistry, not premium reconstructive work. The dot-com bust era and the post-2008 financial crisis both produced the same pattern: serious markets returned to professional dress because patients spending real money wanted real signals of competence and authority. The practice that looks like a high-end professional service gets paid like one. The practice that looks like [...]

What does a casual dress code in a dental office signal to high-fee patients? That you are working at the level of a casual practice. Patients buying expensive elective services read casual dress as a signal of casual standards. Scrubs and athletic shoes register as routine dentistry, not premium reconstructive work. The dot-com bust era and the post-2008 financial crisis both produced the same pattern: serious markets returned to professional dress because patients spending real money wanted real signals of competence and authority. The practice that looks like a high-end professional service gets paid like one. The practice that looks like [...]

What does a casual dress code in a dental office signal to high-fee patients? That you are working at the level of a casual practice. Patients buying expensive elective services read casual dress as a signal of casual standards. Scrubs and athletic shoes register as routine dentistry, not premium reconstructive work. The dot-com bust era and the post-2008 financial crisis both produced the same pattern: serious markets returned to professional dress because patients spending real money wanted real signals of competence and authority. The practice that looks like a high-end professional service gets paid like one. The practice that looks like [...]