Are Dental Consultants Bad for Dental Practices?

Editorial
by Jim Du Molin

When Dental Consultants Go Wrong

The single biggest complaint from dentists who have had bad experiences with dental consultants is Scientology-influenced consultants, as I discovered in our recent dental consultant survey. Many within the dental community are unaware of the connections between the Church of Scientology and some dental consultancies.

The exact relationship between the Church of Scientology and the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises (WISE) is somewhat unclear. The church insists WISE is a separate, autonomous organization devoted to the secular use of L. Ron Hubbard's management systems. Critics insist that WISE's true purpose is religious recruitment; in fact, WISE's own incorporation papers state the organization "is organized under the Nonprofit Religious Corporation Law primarily for religious purposes."

Sterling Management Systems is a WISE affiliate. Sterling offers consulting services to dentists and other professionals "based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard." This management-by-statistics approach focuses on raising productivity in all areas.

There have been a number of lawsuits brought against Sterling and other WISE affiliates, generally alleging that employees of consulting clients were pressured to convert to Scientology. One anti-WISE website tells of a woman who "was employed in a medical office and told how a scientologist wanted access to patient files so he could see which ones were likely candidates for Scientology processing."

In fact, if you look it up on Wikipedia, you'll find that dentistry is the number-one field served by WISE consultants.

And believe me, I've heard about it from a number of dentists myself. "I got invited to a teaser meeting and returned the next week to experience an aggressive attempt to humiliate me into signing on to an outrageously expensive no-end-in-sight series of coaching meetings," said an Arizona dentist. "Not only that, it would eventually involve a religious change."

There are dozens, probably hundreds, of ways consultants can fail you – apart from interfering with your religious beliefs. Here are some red flags:

• They don't actually listen to you.


• They try to apply a one-size-fits-all approach to your practice.


• They ignore the unique aspects of your local market.


• They don't know enough about the logistics of running a dental practice.


• They avoid your calls or dodge their obligations.


• They make guarantees they can't keep.


• They are abrasive, demeaning or offensive.

So, how can you avoid these bad dental consultants and get straight to the good ones? By doing your due diligence.

• Check references. You won't believe the valuable information you can uncover with a quick internet search or a call to the right colleague.


• Have a trial period. Anyone who demands you hand over a massive amount of money right away might be trying to take your money and run.


• Give the program a chance to work. Only snake oil charlatans will promise you'll see overnight results. However, the being said...


• Don't be afraid to start over. If you've picked the wrong consultant, throwing more money into the relationship won't make it work better.

Full disclosure: I'm a dental consultant myself, and have been for more years than I'd care to remember. Now, it's possible I'm just a little biased, but I consider myself one of the good ones. And I know there are plenty of other great dental consultants out there as well. But some of the bad ones can be so monstrously bad that they scare some dentists away from the profession as a whole.

Check out our complete survey results for dental consultant horror stories and information about bad experiences with dental consultants!

Comments

[Marvin Mansky, DDS]

Not having any religious bent at all I was not bothered by Sterling Mgmt's invitations to become a Scientologist. What I did appreciate was the very clear information about running any business plus the emphasis placed on how it relates to dentistry. This is not a recommendation of Sterling because of some non-religious issues that developed with others I referred to them.

[Jeff Tomcsik]

Jim,
I really appreciated this piece. I too am a dental consultant and a business administrator for an extremely successful dental practice in Maryland. Having the luxury of time (I do not sit at the front desk), I have had the ability to study and learn from the best dental speakers, consultants, and seminars out there. I've read every book you can think of and I've investigated every pitch from consultants out there. I've also field tested most marketing strategies. Frankly, most of the consultants and their strategies make me sick. Promises of magic formulas and secrets that will make you wealthy overnight feed on greed and emotion. It is not ethical or fair to play this game. I've been suckered by some of these guys in the past, but I came out with knowledge. I know there is no golden egg. And what I have learned (perhaps the hard way) is that a good dental consultant will not make outragous promises. Also, a consultant is only as good as the character of the person (dentist) he is representing. What's the old saying... Can't polish a turd.
Furthermore, a good consultant will take each practice and obsorb it. They will create a strategy and a plan that suits the needs of the individual. There should be no blanket statements, a la Ed O'keefe "seven secrets that will turn your practice into a million dollar practice over night!" or the like.
Good practices are built through hard work, intelligence and guidence.
Thank you for being one of the good guys. We need more of us out there.

-Jeff Tomcsik
Tidewater Dental
301-862-3900
&
Apple Blossom Consulting
866-595-2921

[S Gibson]

I had experience with Sterling Management in the 90's and it was a nightmare, they are an agressive group. They tell you how inadequate you are and that your business will fail if you do not change, of course the only way to change is to drop more money into their pockets and become one of them. They are too strong to fight, I wish I was warned before I ever met them

[karen mcnulty]

Hi Jim....Since my experience in marketing
dentistry is, shall we say limited, the doc and i came across a dental coach who works for
Clifton and Associates in CA. His name is
Steve Sperry. We attended a seminar that he
gave and we signed up to have lunch with him
and he agreed to come in evaluate our practice
for free. Now mind you, the doc has been practicing 36 years in van Nuys and is a well
seasoned dentist but there is a lot of competition out there and i felt I could benefit in his findings. He spent one afternoon at the dental office walking around, talking to staff and looking trough
files and pulling charts and checking out
the plant physically and he had a general
opinion on how we could really help the
practice improve. He said he would schedule
a follow up appt. but never did. So I doggedly called him over and over and he felt that the dentist was not going to change his ways anytime soon so he did not
want the job but he spent and hour with me on the phone explaining what exactly he found wrong with the practice and he hit the
nail on the head. I used all of his advice and learned so much from him. Our problem was reactivation and we were not doing this
well if at all. In the last couple of months we have started two newsletters that
are aimed at active and inactive patients. We downloaded our patient base from 2002 t0
2006 and exported phone #'s to a voice broad
casting system and with the first blast last
Tuesday.....the phones were ringing off the
hook and we are getting patients back like
you can not believe....so I am thrilled with
this dental coach...he is a great guy, and
he grew up in Van Nuys where our office is,
and knew our area well. So Steve Sperry,
from Clifton and Associates is a star in the
dental marketing for me...Thanks,
Karen McNulty