For those who celebrate and for those who simply love chocolate eggs – happy Easter! In the spirit of Easter, this week’s blog will show you how to create your own free dental day in 5 steps.
Giving back
Many dentists go into practice with the ambition of helping others. Dentists are exposed to dental volunteer work during school, and many continue their involvement afterwards with local organizations and community clinics. However, only a few dentists have endeavored to form their own free dental days.
Hosting your own free dental day is easier and more impactful than many realize. The process of organizing the event brings together your team and community in camaraderie of a common goal: to better the lives of others by improving their health and relieving them of pain. But why create your own when you can simply volunteer with a local organization? Well, you can do both! The benefits of having an in-house event are worth the effort.
Why do it in-house?
Associating your practice’s name with a local event will make you a cornerstone of the community. As you get the word out about the event, involving your patients can have two-fold benefits. Your patients will be proud to be part of a practice that prioritizes giving back. Happy patients are 83% more likely to refer their friends and family. Having patients share your event on social media and by word of mouth will naturally increase your name recognition in the community – basically, free advertising and mental real estate. But most importantly, bringing the community together for an altruistic cause is a priceless and immensely fulfilling experience.
get started in 5 steps
We have broken down the process of organizing a free dental day into 5 steps based on the experience of Asprodental co-founders who have been involved in operating and supporting community dental events since 2009. By partnering with organizations such as Rotary International and Lestonnac Free Clinic, Asprodental has taken many community clinics onto the cloud. Some of these include The City of Anaheim’s annual 2 day dental and health clinic at the Anaheim Convention Center, The Vietnamese Physicians Society’s annual dental and health fair at Mile Square Park, Rotary International’s annual dental and health fair in Fullerton, and the US Government’s Afghan refugee camp at Fort Bliss. And now, yours!
Step 1: Choose a date
We recommend choosing a date at least 3 months in advance. This gives you 2 months to plan and 1 month to get the word out. Next, decide if you want to schedule appointments, work on a first come first serve basis, or perhaps a hybrid model. Either way, allowing patients to pre-register and fill out their health information beforehand can make the day more efficient and decrease wait times. You can set up a “free dental event” location in your practice management software and send out the patient intake forms beforehand to support a fast-paced day. Automated reminders will also help with patient attendance for the special day (without adding to your team’s workload).
Step 2: Assemble your team & procedure catalog
Team
Regarding your team, you’ll want to consider whether this will be a completely voluntary event, or if you’d like to pay your team for their participation. As for clinicians, would you like to keep this in-house or invite other dental professionals in the community to join? Many local dental professionals may be interested in volunteering their time. In case you’re inviting other dental professionals, they can bring their own devices (phone, iPad, laptop) to the event for writing progress notes and viewing x-rays if you have a cloud practice management software.
Don’t feel limited to only dental professionals! You can make this a true community event by inviting family and friends to help with the non-dental aspects such as patient communication and decorations. Our blog on training tips has some great pointers if you are interested in inviting people from outside of dental to help.
Create a system for the day that’s streamlined and easy to teach. If you have outside volunteers, you may not have much time to train them on the system for the day – the less steps, the better. You may even want to print out “cheat sheets” of a step-by-step checklist for check-in, progress notes, and check-out.
Procedures
What would you like to do that day? Most common free dental day services include cleanings, fillings and extractions. If you’re considering doing lengthier treatments such as crowns, you may want to pre-register patients for the event due to time limitations. You may also want to set a policy of number of procedures per patients to ensure that you’re able to treat as many patients as you can.
There may be a possibility of a larger patient turnout than your team can serve or patients who have more extensive diagnoses than you’re able to complete that day. If these individuals cannot afford to be regular patients in your practice, it’ll be helpful to provide a resource for them to receive further care. You can obtain the contact information of the nearest free/low cost dental clinics or dental schools near you and share the information with patients at the end of their visit.
Step 3: Contact your vendors
Many might be under the impression that the responsibility for a free dental day falls completely on your and your team of volunteers. We challenge you to think bigger! Do you have a good relationship with your supplies representative? Many of these suppliers are happy to donate consumables like composites and other disposables, or anything else you may need.
If you’d like to make this a wider community event, consider reaching out to local bakeries and restaurants who would be interested in sponsoring breakfast/lunch/snacks. Don’t forget your patients! We’ve heard of patients sponsoring t-shirts and food for their dental offices on free dental days.
Step 4: Marketing
Spreading the word across a wide audience will ensure that those in need have the opportunity to be served. But don’t forget, a big perk of having your own event is that you get your name out there too! Patients will be proud to call you their dentist and be more likely to recommend their family and friends. Non-patients who see the event will be exposed to your practice and might become new patients.
Post the event on your own social media and boost the post to a local audience using Facebook or Instagram advertising. When patients come in for their appointments, ask them to repost your announcement to their own social media accounts – these are your organic, homegrown “local influencers.” You can also reach out to local news stations and newspapers to do a free press release. Churches, synagogues, temples, and schools are great places to share your event too. As you’re out and about spreading the word, consider pulling up your practice management software on your phone and register patients right then and there, while the interest is hot.
An example Instagram post to share a free dental event. This post’s goal is attract volunteers, but your messaging can be phrased to attract patients. You can easily boost your post and pay as minimal as $1/day to promote the event to your local community. The “Boost Post” button is visible if you have a business account (you can set this in Account Settings).
Step 5: Have fun!
You’ve done all the hard work – now it’s time to enjoy your event. There’s no need to stress because you’ve done these services hundreds of times. Have fun being surrounded by people who genuinely want to be there and want to help the community. If you have a TV or projector, you can even project a live stream of how many procedures have been completed throughout the day. This will make the patients feel involved and motivate the team. And don’t forget to take pictures!
If you are interested in learning more about cloud software that makes scheduling and follow-ups more efficient, an Asprodental consultant will be happy to chat. Book a time here.
Author: Tiffany Nguyen, MBA
