Diary of a Treatment Coordinator (TCO) is based on real life stories. The practice and TCO is not mentioned for confidentiality reasons.
One of the most important roles of a Treatment Co-ordinator is to build rapport and trust with patients. A large majority of patients that visit the practice I work for are phobics. To be able to build up trust with someone, especially when they are anxious, can take time. I had one patient who visited me for 2 consultations before she even met one of our dentists.
During these two appointments, I spent time getting to know her, understanding the reasons behind her being nervous of the dentist and discussing the possible treatment options and the desired end result. Two main factors were behind her being apprehensive, one I have heard numerous times and is a very common complaint for patients over 50: the dreaded school dentist! If a tooth had some decay, even a small amount, then this dentist would extract it instead of removing the decay and filling it. All she could remember was the gas mask that was used to sedate her. Another reason was that she felt that her previous dentists had not listened to her and because of this she was unable to trust them.
She decided to proceed with complete dentures retained on 4 upper and 4 lower conventional implants. At each appointment, she requested I come see her to reassure her and I actually assisted for the implant procedure. Even though she was more than happy with the end result of implant retained dentures, she decided to upgrade to Fixed 12 unit bridges on 6 implants when she found herself in the financial position to do so. I was on maternity leave when she decided that she wanted the fixed bridge work, so she waited until I returned 3 months later to discuss this with me. When we fixed the final bridges she asked my opinion on the appearance. The teeth looked brilliant, but she wanted my opinion because she felt I would give her a honest answer. At the end of the day, she needed to be 100% satisfied and if that meant making further changes then we would of course do this for her. As a Treatment Co-ordinator it is very important that the patient knows they can approach you with any worries or concerns about anything to do with their treatment and that you will convey this to the dentist as their neutral liaison. Once completed, this patient was thrilled with every aspect of treatment and has written some wonderful testimonials for us, she is also happy to speak with other anxious patients to tell them about her treatment experience.
We had another patient we treated when I was just starting off as a Treatment Co-ordinator. Every appointment had to be scheduled weeks in advance because her husband did not know she was having treatment, let alone that she wore dentures. We spend approximately 4, 1 ½ hour appointments with her just to determine that she was happy with the appearance of her new teeth, we even put fillings on to the teeth to make sure they were as natural as possible. How hard must that have been for this patient to trust us with the information she had not yet shared with close family members? In the practice I work for, we allow 1 hour for the first consultation. That is a very small amount of time for a patient to feel confident enough to divulge such personal information.
I have been working as a treatment co-ordinator for 4 years now, and I would predict that over half of the patients who come to see me, are looking for a new dentist because they feel they were not listened to in the past. A Treatment Co-ordinator needs to be able to listen to each patient that visits them, this will help you to understand what the patient is looking for, what problems they have experienced in the past and this will help you build the much needed trust and rapport. If a patient does approach you with concerns about their treatment, then you need to be able to reassure them, explain to the dentist and arrange the appropriate appointments to solve the problems. The fact that the patient has the confidence to discuss any worries and/or problems with you, shows that you have done your job sufficiently.
A Treatment Co-ordinator's role does not end at the first consultation, you need to be available to each patient before, during and after their treatment. I love my job mainly because I get to see a transformation not only in someone’s dentition but also more importantly their confidence and outlook. Always remember that you are not just a sales person, you are a smile advisor and with your help people will be able to smile again.
