Are You Guilty of Doing the 'Hygiene Check Hustle?'

It's a very common frustration among hygienists. They identify an area of concern during the hygiene visit and they tell the patient that the dentist will need to have a look at it when he or she comes by to "check-in."

Eventually, the dentist swoops in and does a quick "check" of the patient's mouth and is on the way out the door again without an acknowledgement of the issue.

It is understandable that in a profession where you are facing schedule pressures every day that you would like to speed things up wherever you can; however, the "hygiene check" is a great example of a situation where you can "slow down to speed up" by taking a few concentrated moments to capture the possibilities.

The process is simple. Just take a moment to confer with the hygienist and then approach the patient: "Nancy has advised me that I need to pay special attention to ..." If it turns out to be something you can address right there with some simple advice, fine. If it is something more involved, you can still deal with it swiftly, but in a way that creates the right value. Simply give your preliminary evaluation, then say, "Of course a hygiene appointment is not designed for a comprehensive examination. I would love for you to come back so we can examine this more thoroughly and spend some time talking about your possibilities. How do you feel about that?"

Here is another approach to take. I was speaking with Dr. Gary DeWood about this problem and he shared a system that worked well in his practice. The hygienist used a 4 x 6 pad in order to make short notes that were laid next to the sink before he or his wife Cheryl came in for the exam. While washing their hands and exchanging pleasantries with the patient they would read the sheet. They would now sit down, take a look, and find exactly the areas of concern that the hygienist had found with the patient even though the hygienist never "told" them about those areas. Talk about acknowledgement of the issue. The patient is now hearing about the concerns from two professional sources.

Either way, it only takes a few moments to make the most of a hygiene check and turn it into a proper exam – now or later. If you do it right you are confirming the value for your diagnosis that the hygienist has set up. At the same time you are building value for the hygienist by validating her intuitions and observations. Ultimately the patient feels surrounded by 360-degree integrated care.

So as tempting as it may be to speed through a hygiene check, remember that these few moments can end up meaning a lot to the patient's experience. It's often the place where patient-dentist trust is born, in a low pressure setting. It's where opportunities are discovered, as long as you're not too busy to rush past them.