Discounts and patient fees

One thing that I can say as a new graduate is that the moment you graduate, it is a big shock to your confidence. You leave the safe embrace of supervised treatments and enter something more of a solo practice. Even if you work in a multi chair practice or with a mentor, the same level of supervision isn't there and it can be very easy to start undervaluing your work. A big part of my practice in the first year out was discounting my treatments. Sometimes it was without even telling the patient I had done so. It was sometimes but not always because I thought my work wasn't worth full price but also because I thought that some of the costs were outrageous for what we had done or because I felt sorry for the patient. A few things yo umust keep in the back of your mind are:

-You are not responsible for the patient's current condition, you are only there to return them to a state of health and stability and you have to charge accordingly. Feel free to feel sorry for them when they are in pain or have poor self esteem but you must distance yourself from their problems. You didn't make them like this!
-When a patient says they can't afford treatment they are often saying to you "I don't feel like paying for this treatment". In the end you are providing a service that they require and if they don't wish to pay for it then they can seek those services elsewhere. Public clinics may be available for health care card holders or they can seek a better deal elsewhere
-Learn to value your work. If you put your best effort into what you do then you should be paid accordingly. Nothing is easy in dentistry. It may become easy after enough practice but even the provision of local anaesthetic is a skill that must be learned. Just because you think it is a simple procedure doesn't mean any member of the public can perform it; in fact they probably can't.
-Give them value for money. Don't lower your prices, up your service.Do things better than you did last week and try to always improve. This might help justify your fees in your head.
-Be sure to get financial consent. That way there are no surprises for yourself and the patient, if they can't afford your treatment plan and don't want to pay you can discuss further, more budget treatments or select the most urgent items. That way their health doesn't suffer as much and you don't completely lose the patient. If they do a runner after getting that treatment plan then at least you haven't wasted your clinical time on them without getting paid. I would rather they do a runner before rather than after treatment has completed.
-People are crafty. For bigger treatment plans especially with lab work involved, feel free to take a deposit from them before treatment commences. That way your costs are covered if they don't turn up for the insert. This will happen eventually!
-In the end it is up to you what you charge the patient. If after all that you feel like discounting your work then feel free to do so. But you are trying to run a business. A business can't run on good will and you must ask yourself what you are missing out. Are the staff being paid less or materials purchased poorer. Or in the end is it your wallet that suffers. Patients deserve our care but we can't deliver high quality dentistry in Australia and be cheap as well. The patient who baulks at a $2000 bill will be just as annoyed with a $1600 bill and you will be $400 worse off.

In the end you will get to a stage where you respect your work enough to charge well for it.Until then, respect yourself and your staff enough to value the time and effort you all put into improving the oral conditions of all your patients.