Have you heard about “The A-Patient Trifecta” which brings together attraction, creation, and multiplication? It’s the most fundamental, game-changing strategy to help you build a profitable, thriving and fulfilling dental practice.
Most dentists are stuck in a never-ending cycle of chasing new patients, hoping for better patients to come along and then complaining about the patients they already have. But the truth is, you don’t find great patients; you develop them.
To build a practice that generates difference-making profit, runs smoothly, and provides you with the four key freedoms of time freedom, insurance freedom, financial freedom, and turnover freedom, it’s necessary to intentionally build a base of A-Patients. These are the patients who accept comprehensive treatments, refer others like them, truly value your expertise, and stick with you for the long haul.
It's not about marketing alone. This is about transforming how you attract, create, and multiply the right patients for your practice. Specifically …
Attraction: Your message equals the patients you receive
To start attracting the right patients, you need to send out the right messages. If you use marketing language that screams, “sale.” “cheap,” or “insurance-driven,” you’ll fill your schedule with bargain hunters who cancel frequently and have low-case acceptance.
This is what I call “stranger danger marketing,” or when you bring in random people who don’t value you and force your team to do lots of heavy lifting to convert them into high-quality patients. Instead, focus on attracting patients who already align with your philosophy and value optimal health and comprehensive treatment.
Know that your messaging is like a boomerang and whatever you promote is going to come back to you. When you send out marketing based on price and convenience, you attract transaction-based, insurance-dependent patients. However, if your marketing message focuses on life-changing dentistry, expertise, and trust, you attract patients who seek quality care and are willing to invest in it.
Creation: The complete experience makes the patient
Once you attract potential A-Patients, the creation phase begins. Here, you engineer every single touchpoint the patient has from the first phone call to the first visit to pre-frame the patient for success. If you let them step into your office with transactional and insurance expectations, they’ll behave accordingly.
This is why it’s important to educate, elevate, and empower them from the very beginning:
- Is your front desk trained to position you as the expert and set expectations accordingly? It’s not just about answering the phone.
- Does your practice-environment reinforce a confident, professional, and inviting brand at all times?
- Does your intake process filter out patients who are a wrong fit and strengthen commitments with those who are a right fit?
- Does your comprehensive exam and case presentation showcase function, health, and beauty and not just focus on immediate problems?
To create an A-Patient, set processes and begin before a single patient steps into your office. This sets you apart from all of the “fix-it” dentists and moves you into the category of life-changing dentistry where you experience trust, respect, and high case acceptance.
Multiplication: Grow without new marketing
Now for the goldmine point — multiplication. Once you attract and create A-Patients, multiply them into more A-Patients.
This happens in three ways:
1) Follow-up
This is the number one multiplier. Stop leaving thousands of dollars on the table by not following up enough:
- Convert leads who don’t commit immediately with a follow-up system every time.
- Set a follow-up plan for every case presentation where patients want to “think about it.”
- Create a reactivation process for every unfinished treatment plan to bring them back in.
Your follow-up processes are profit multipliers. Remember, most patients don’t say “yes” right away. It’s up to you to provide consistent, value-driven follow-up, so they will.
2) Transform = multiply
If your patients have a life-changing transformation, they will refer others. But don’t expect referrals without giving patients a story worth sharing. Focus on creating amazing patient experiences that naturally lead to more testimonials, reviews, and organic referrals. The key to this is to focus on their outcome, and not just their treatment. People will talk about how you gave them a new smile, restored their confidence, helped them chew without pain, and more … not the crown you replaced.
3) Multiply referrals (the right way)
Instead of simply asking for a referral, engineer referrals into your patient experience. For example, you can:
- Incentivize high-value referrals with VIP treatments and recognition – not gimmicks.
- Invite spouses, partners, and family members to join the first visit.
- Educate patients on exactly who you want to help because the best patients know other great patients just like them.
Develop profitable patients and thrive
It’s time to prioritize value instead of volume. Instead of chasing patients and trying to sell them more treatments, focus on the top 20% of patients who generate 80% of your revenue.
- Attract fewer, better patients who respect your expertise and invest in their health. Instead of trying to get as many patients as possible. Place quality over quantity.
- Cultivate higher value cases and spend more time with the right patients instead of rushing through a high volume of appointments.
- Focus on the most profitable procedures rather than fixating on raw production numbers.
Freedom comes from more of the right patients
If you want a lifestyle practice where you get the pay you deserve along with freedom, it’s about obtaining more of the right patients. You can change the game and stop the endless grind of insurance-driven, low value dentistry. Start by auditing your marketing and see who you are actually attracting. Then, review your overall patient experience and confirm that every interaction moves patients toward higher trust and bigger cases. Finally, engineer your multipliers and leverage follow-up, transformation, and referrals to create exponential growth.
Shift from chasing patients to developing the right ones, and you’ll transform your practice. You’ll enjoy higher pay while working less and finally be able to create a practice that serves your life and not the other way around.
