Why should dental practices that treat children keep them visually separated from prospective consultation patients?
Because the prospective consultation patient is taking in everything around them, consciously and unconsciously, and a noisy or visible child population disrupts the calm environment that the consultation depends on. People love their own children and grandchildren. Few people enjoy the children of strangers when those children are loud or moving fast through a waiting area where the adult is trying to make a major dental decision. The visual and auditory cues raise stress, distract the prospect, and degrade the impression the practice is trying to create. Practices that treat both adults and children need to design the physical space and the scheduling to keep the two flows separated as much as possible. Different waiting areas, different operatory wings, different appointment-time blocks for pediatric versus adult consultation work. The investment pays back in calmer consultations and higher case acceptance among the adult prospects who came for serious decisions and found the environment to match.
If the answers you are finding here resonate with you, my team and I work with a small group of clients each year. The next step is a complimentary Discovery Consultation and Practice Review with Dr. McAnally.