When patients tell you they can't afford the dentistry you're presenting, they're usually right – or are they?

It's a fact of life these days that most people spend what they make every month. They spend on necessities like mortgage payments and groceries, and they spend on discretionary items like restaurants and entertainment, but the bottom line is every dollar goes somewhere. So when they say they don't have the money to go ahead with treatment, they mean it. But that's only because they're thinking in terms of short-term spending priorities.

The fact is these same people also have a number of long-term priorities. They invest in a lot of things that they can't pay for in full in any given month – cars, vacations, home renovations, etc. If they really appreciate the value over time, they find a way to make it happen, and often that way is to finance it.

Dentistry is very affordable when financed and very affordable in the context of how long the dentistry lasts. So when a patient has a knee-jerk “can't afford it” reaction, remember they're giving you a short-term answer to a long-term question.

Your challenge then is to change the way they think of dentistry. The goal is to get them thinking outside of this month's budget (where you don't have a chance of breaking in) and start thinking in terms of long-term value.

Most of all, YOU have to stop thinking that patients can't afford it. They can if they choose to, and they should because it's worth it.


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