Convincing Our Patients to Put Themselves First

By Maggie Augustyn, DDS

In the ever-evolving realm of our calling, I would like to discuss a subject not often mentioned in our ongoing education: the role a patient’s self-worth plays in accepting proposed treatment. It’s common for us to see patients prioritize everything else in their lives except their well-being. Well-being, self-compassion, rest and reprieve are considered luxuries. Patients tend to undervalue themselves, and this tendency directly correlates with self-imposed neglect. Patients place their children, spouses and financial obligations at the forefront, leaving themselves at the bottom of the list. In fact, they often provide luxuries for their children that they deny themselves, like new clothes or the latest iPhone. Anecdotally, I usually see women and mothers in this position.

I have no doubt that similar scenarios unfold daily in your practices as patients contend with decisions regarding proposed treatments. Concerns about costs, insurance coverage and budget affect the judgment of what they will and won’t permit in their mouths. Questions of function or necessity take a back seat. While your treatment plan may cost the same as what they will spend on their children’s sports tournaments or prom dresses, the budgetary decision about whether to follow through with your treatment plan is made quite differently than expenses on behalf of their kids or loved ones.

Further complicating the issue is our patients’ (excruciatingly flawed) belief that if insurance doesn’t cover the proposed treatment, then it must be unnecessary. They may also consider that the only funds allowable toward their chewing ability rest on their insurance’s annual maximum. Patients are quick to reject treatment if a preauthorization is declined or downgraded on account of plan limitations and exclusion. Many patients are also often unaware of the intrinsic link between their oral and systemic health. Juggling work, childcare, eldercare, family functions and extracurriculars, they’re exhausted and believe that how they view themselves in the mirror should not and cannot be altered.

I recently took care of a patient who was a married mother of a 12-year-old soccer player. She relied on disability benefits from a work accident while her husband, who was battling cancer, was the only one producing a healthy income. Their son had been blessed with a talent in sports. The family spent tens of thousands of dollars a year on travel and elite club memberships. They’d flown him all over Europe, all while the mother suffered silently with infections and was in dire need of replacing an implant-supported bridge. At all of our recare appointments, the patient shared with me that she wanted her son to succeed. That was the reason she refused to follow up on the recommended care. She wanted the very best for her son — more for him than she’d ever had herself. She was willing to wait on her smile and masticatory function for however long it took to ensure her son could settle into a good life. I wondered if how she refused to smile and laugh — on account of the pain and infection — had affected how she expressed her admiration of him. No one had ever told her that preventing her lips from smiling would impact how happy she felt physiologically, not just psychologically. Had she been holding back celebratory smiles when he won championships? And did her son notice? Did that affect how he viewed his mother? I wondered if she ever realized that her son needed her or would have chosen for her to be healthy over the many championships he’d won or the trips to Europe.

Unlike our patients, we dentists understand that how much and how wide our patients smile affect their joy and happiness; it affects their outlooks and, most of all, their perceptions of life. It’s that very realization that led many of us to become dentists in the first place. We wanted to help people and change lives, and we knew that we could by attending to their smiles. I vote that we bring this belief front and center in all our treatment plan presentations. Emerging from the shadows of wanting to go unnoticed due to a missing tooth, lack of function or pain should never be considered a luxury — it is something all of our patients deserve. We should not be shy to point out that, beyond facilitating comfortable eating and speaking, a healthy, bright smile significantly influences self-esteem and confidence.

We watch our patients as they tirelessly engage in the care of others, but what if we were to convince them that the list of people in their lives who need and deserve attention should also include themselves? Within our operatories, we possess a unique opportunity to instigate positive change in our patients’ lives. Let’s use our voices, personal experiences and professional knowledge to empower them to invest in themselves. By doing so, they will not only enhance their oral health but also rediscover self-love and confidence. Together, our collaborative efforts will bear fruits of a better and happier generation, allowing us to make a meaningful impact. Let’s create a chain reaction by insisting our patients invest in themselves as much as they do in others. It will not only bring them great confidence, fortified by their new smiles, but also a sensation that someone, somewhere, took care of them. We must challenge our patients to shift their mindsets, and, if they ask why, we can remind them of what L’Oréal said more than 50 years ago: “Because you’re worth it!”

Maggie Augustyn, DDS, is a practicing general dentist, owner of Happy Tooth, faculty member at Productive Dentist Academy, author and inspirational speaker. To comment on this article, email impact@agd.org.