Random Choice vs. Getting Patients to Choose Your Dental Practice; and Why It Matters!

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Intro: You are now listening to another episode of the Insurance Untangled podcast, where we explore the various challenges faced by dental practices due to their reliance on insurance. Join us in this podcast as we dive deep into the issues surrounding dental insurance dependence and offer practical solutions and strategies to help you take control of your practice’s financial future.

Ben Tuinei: Welcome to another exciting episode of the Insurance Untangled podcast. My name is Ben, and I’m one of the co-hosts on this podcast. And all y’all know that we’ve created this to help practices untangle themselves from insurance. Today, I have my good friend and co-host with me, Naren. Uh, we’re gonna talk about an important topic regarding, uh, this whole idea of how patients make decisions on where they go for dentistry. Naren, how are you, my friend?

Naren Arulrajah: I’m doing great, uh, Ben. I’m looking forward to this episode. And you?

Ben Tuinei: Yeah, doing wonderful, thank you. It’s always great chatting with you about marketing concepts. And today’s episode is equally as important as anything that we’ve ever talked about. And so the topic that we chose is random choice, right? Random choice, meaning patients just kind of randomly pick their dentist—random choice versus getting patients to choose your dental practice and why it matters. So, Naren, first question I have for you is, like, what’s the difference between patients making a random selection of a dentist versus a patient that’s being influenced to choose a certain doctor?

Naren Arulrajah: That’s an excellent question, and I’m so glad we are talking about this idea of random choice versus getting patients to choose you. Um, a lot of times—uh, let’s think PPO plans—um, you know, this doesn’t happen as much anymore, but it does happen once in a while. Um, a patient goes to their insurance website and, uh, finds any dentist and goes and sees them. The only reason they picked you is you are on that list, right? They didn’t really think about what they wanted, they—you know—what kind of doctor they wanted, and they didn’t really go through that process of selecting you.

So the problem with random choice is just like the word random, right? You know, if they choose you randomly, the chances of that relationship working out, the chances of them being an ideal patient, the chances of them, you know, um, staying with you for life and telling their friends and family about you is close to zero.

Naren Arulrajah: So I would rather have patients who choose me, or clients who choose me, than somebody who randomly, you know, chooses me for convenience. It’s kind of like, you know, when you buy milk—you don’t really think too much. You know, you’re driving home and you see a store, even a convenience store, you go and grab that milk.

But when you go shopping for the weekend, for your entire—you know—for the whole week, you think about where you want to go. You think about what kind of things you want to have, you—you put a little bit of thought and effort into it. And a lot of times, you, as the client, are much happier because that one hour you spent, you know, planning and shopping for the week is really a good one hour.

And you—you—you are loyal. And a lot of times, those places, you pay premium dollars, right? You want good stuff for your family. Uh, so you might—you know, depending on your beliefs—you might get organic, or you might get, you know, things that are very, very specific, right? So that’s good for the business owner, and it’s good for the—you know, uh, I think the—the patient as well, when they choose you versus random choice.

Ben Tuinei: Yeah. So, you know, in my mind, convenience—you know, like what you said about just going to a convenience store on the way home—you’re paying more, but you’re not necessarily… who knows whether you’re getting the best quality or not, you know?

And so you think about quality, Naren. Like, why is it important for—uh—quality, like the measurement of quality with the type of patients that you’re getting? Why is, uh, quality of patients important when it comes to new patients?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, that’s an excellent question. You know, most people that I know—um, you know, I have a lot of friends who happen to own dental practices. Some of them I’ve known for 15 plus years. Uh, most people I know, I’ve asked this question: like, why did you become a dentist? And almost without fail, they tell me a story, usually in their childhood, where they were inspired by somebody—a family member. And some, it happens later, you know, maybe in school they were inspired by somebody in dentistry, uh, and they were inspired by the idea of making a difference in people’s lives, changing people’s lives, you know, making them live healthier.

So, um, when people randomly choose you, they don’t care about those things that made you want to go to dental school in the first place, right? Um, you know, I—I love Simon Sinek.

Naren Arulrajah: He talks about, you know, the why, why, why, right? You know, like he talks about Martin Luther King didn’t say, "I have a plan." He said, "I have a dream." The why is the dream, right? You know? So when you are aligned on the dream—both the patient and the doctor—it’s a symbiotic, awesome relationship. You are glad to see that person. You want to jump out of bed, you know, to go to the office because of all those awesome people you love seeing. And they love seeing you because they also have the same why. They care about their oral health. They care about, you know, um, uh, the beautiful smile. And they don’t look at you as a transaction, like milk at a convenience store. They really—some even, like, I—I have clients who have patients flying in to come and see them because they love that relationship, and they really appreciate it.

Naren Arulrajah: I mean, literally getting on a plane a couple of times a year to go see their dentist. And it’s—they didn’t start out that way, but of course they move or whatever, but they don’t want to change their dentist. This can be such an important bond for lots of people. And, you know, let’s face it—I mean, those of us who are getting older and, you know, start asking the question: why are we doing what we are doing? You know, this becomes even more important, right? Like, why am I waking up in the morning? Why am I—am I jumping out of bed, or am I dragging myself out of bed?

So I really think, forget about everything else. Forget about the money that comes with it, the—the mastery that comes with it. Um, uh, Daniel Pink wrote the book Drive. He talks about what motivates humans, and especially those who work with our brain—it’s mastery, right?

Naren Arulrajah: Imagine doing bread and butter—you know, pulling teeth or just doing filling kind of dentistry—which is unfortunately what you get in the insurance PPO-driven world, because they will only cover $1100, $1200, whatever the amount is, versus doing dentistry that you look forward to, that you go to class for, that you learn, that you master. You go and find a coach or somebody, and you continue to master, right? Which one gives you joy? You know, which one makes you, you know, be happy that you are doing what you’re doing, right?

So I really think, um, from so many levels—like, having patients who choose you for the right reasons is not only satisfying, it makes you want to jump out of bed, but it’s also very rewarding financially, professionally, and so forth. So I think it’s like win-win-win all the way throughout.

Ben Tuinei: Yeah, I—I love that. I mean, it—I just, I just, um, was on a call with a dentist out of Anchorage, Alaska, uh, half an hour ago. And he contacted me because he heard me speak a few times in person, and then he’s been listening to podcasts—um, various different podcasts—that I’ve been featured on, including this one. And, uh, you know, it—it—it means a lot to me that these doctors reach out because they know you, they trust you, right? They’re reaching out to you because they view you as an expert. They trust—they’re coming to you for the reasons that you want them to come to you, right?

So they’re—they’re lining up for them to pick you for the right reasons, right? So they’re prepared to be a really good customer, a good client, you know? Um, and that kind of leads me to this next question there, Naren—is the whole part about, you know, what does it mean for patients to choose you for the right reasons? What—what does that mean when you think about patients selecting a dentist?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. Um, well, um, you know, I think when I select a dentist—let’s say—I know there are two big use cases, two big reasons why people choose you. One is for health, the other one is for smiles, right? That’s kind of why they choose a dentist. If it’s health, you know, I’m going to listen to you, you know, as a patient, I’m going to, uh, you know, take your advice seriously.

And, uh, now when we go through the process of choosing a patient—you know, sorry, a doctor—as a patient, there are certain things we do regardless, whether it’s for health reasons or, you know, smile reasons. One is we want to make sure the person has the skills to do the things that we want them to do. Like, for example, if it’s Invisalign, we want to make sure that the patient has done Invisalign cases and has helped a lot of patients with Invisalign.

Naren Arulrajah: And even if it’s an emergency dentist, you know, we want to make sure a lot of other emergency patients are choosing them. One of the ways we figure that out is we go to reviews and we read the reviews and what people say. You know, like, for example, if pain is a problem for you—like, there are a lot of patients who don’t go to a dentist because they’re afraid of pain, you know—and you are very good at sedation and making them, you know, really feel comfortable, and those reviews talk about that, they’re going to choose you for that reason.

So I think the beauty of choice is that we kind of think about what we want as consumers or patients, and then we go through a process of figuring out if that person is the right person. And typically, today, it starts by Google, where we start Googling and researching, uh, you know, whatever we are looking for. And then we discover the people who can help us, and then we whittle them down based on these cases and/or reviews and/or even like, do we like the person, right?

We go to the website and we see, you know, easy-to-like, you know, short videos that make us like the doctor and so forth. So, uh, I think, uh, that’s typically how they go through, um, you know, um, choosing a patient’s—uh, in—in 2025.

Ben Tuinei: Gotcha. Gotcha. You know, I imagine that most, uh, dentists, you know, that are, you know, really, really good, um, that sort of have an idea of the kind of patient that they want—most of them are not visible. Like, most of them are not seen by their communities, right?

Um, in your mind, why do you think it’s really important to be seen, you know, by your ideal patient? Or in other words, why is it important to be visible? So—or at least let the community know who you are and that you exist? Why is that so important in an effort to kind of filter and find the ideal patient for your practice or set of patients for your practice?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. It’s a great question, and I—I do think the way to think about it is, um, in the old days—this is pre-Google, pre-internet—people didn’t have information at their fingertips. So usually the way they would discover a dentist is they would call the local dental association, or they might go to Yellow Pages—those of us who are old enough still remember—and flip through the pages and go to the dental section to find someone, right?

So choosing somebody before the internet was really hard. Now, choosing somebody is so easy, and the way they do that is they just start Googling whatever they need. So let’s say they type in “dentist near me” if they’re just looking for a dentist for themselves and their family. Or they might type in “emergency dentist [zip code]” when they have a toothache and they need to take care of it.

Naren Arulrajah: And they—they’re typing that, or they’ve been thinking about, you know, having a beautiful smile and they don’t want to have metal braces. So they might, you know, uh, for example, choose, uh, you know, Invisalign. Then they will go to Google and type in “Invisalign best dentist near me” or “Invisalign doctor near me” or “Invisalign [zip code],” right?

So today—you know, we have been doing this for the last 18 years—uh, today people are choosing doctors based on Google search. And, uh, you know, we use Google, uh, you know, billions of times a day. Uh, and pretty much, we use Google as our answer engine.

So when we start Googling these things, are you showing up? And again, you don’t need to show up for the things you don’t want to be seen as a choice for, but for the things you want to be seen as a choice, are you showing up? Are you the one that they’re finding and discovering, you know, when they type those search terms in?

Ben Tuinei: And that’s wonderful. Naren, you know, I just have a couple more questions for you, uh, uh, uh, for this episode today, Naren. And you—uh, one of which is how—um, how does a marketing strategy determine your success in finding those types of ideal patients that you’re looking for?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, that’s a—that’s a great, great, great question. So when we think about a marketing strategy, um, you know, you have to look at the holistic patient journey, right? So we started by talking about you don’t want to be randomly chosen, which is what happens with a PPO plan, versus you want them to choose you.

So how can you insert yourself in that decision-making process the patient is going through? So step one is: when they’re searching for these things, are you showing up? And ideally, you should show up without paying for ads. Why? Because we all know as consumers, ads are not—you know, ads are paid for, therefore, we don’t trust it.

Anytime we respond to an ad, we are thinking in the back of our mind, "What’s the catch?" So you don’t want the ad. Option A: it works a lot less effectively, and B: it’s a lot more costly.

Naren Arulrajah: So you want the organic option. You want to make sure that the organic option is awesome and, you know, um, helps—helps, um, you stand out. So that’s the first thing you need to do.

So the goal I would give you for that is: rank for a hundred or more keywords. What is a keyword? "Dentist near me" is a keyword. You know, "Invisalign 60616" is a keyword. So similarly, you want to find a hundred-plus search terms that people are typing in.

How do you find that out? You use Google Analytics. So you log into Google Analytics and you see what are the people typing in, and are you ranking for a hundred of those, at least?

Why did I pick the number a hundred? Usually, if you’re ranking for a hundred or more keywords, you are in the top 5% of Google search results, which means you’re going to get 95% of the people who are looking for a dentist or dental services to find you.

Naren Arulrajah: So if you are in the top 5%, you have an unfair advantage, and your cost versus somebody who’s using ads is one-fifth or even one-tenth, because SEO and organic marketing gets better over time. So your cost will keep coming down, versus the cost for somebody doing ads is significant.

So you wanna make sure that, you know, when people are typing these things in, you are the one that they see. So that’s step number one.

Step number two is they go to that landing page. You have to convince them that you are the right person. They didn’t make a mistake by landing on your website.

How do you do that? You add these cases. You add these beautiful cases. For example, include the full-face after picture. I know one of the mistakes I see a lot of doctors making is they only have closeups.

Naren Arulrajah: The problem with closeups is the average person cannot come to understand, why should I pay $30,000 for this closeup picture of these teeth, which, you know, doesn’t look that pleasing, right? As opposed to a full smiling face—the after face—with the beautiful smile that was totally done over. That’s very compelling.

And I can apply the same thing for crooked teeth, Invisalign, and so forth. You wanna show them the after, after pictures of the transformation you’re able to do for them, right?

This only applies for cosmetic, uh, smile-related cases. Of course, you can’t do this for emergency, you can’t do this for, you know, toothaches.

So there, I would use reviews. I would find the relevant reviews, ideally in the form of video reviews, and I would highlight them. You know, when people talk about, you know, you and your practice and why they love you—get those reviews.

Naren Arulrajah: And if some people don’t want to be on camera, get an audio review, or even grab their Google reviews and then, you know, put it on your website saying, "As seen on Google." So these are all things you can do to give them the confidence they made the right choice in clicking on that link—again, for free.

So those are the two big components I would focus on as part of a marketing strategy. And of course, the last but not least—even the phone experience, right? Like, you know, is the phone experience providing that A+ customer service? Is the person on the phone friendly? Are they asking for appointments? Do they know how to navigate tough questions?

See, these are all the little things you need to do to master this. Now, a good marketing company can take care of SEO, can help you with landing pages. Of course, you need to have the cases for them to feature on the website.

But finally, the phone experience—again, a good marketing company should provide you insights. How are you answering the phone? How many are calling? How many are booking? What’s going on? What can we improve? And so forth.

Ben Tuinei: Yeah, love it. I, I love it. Naren, last question I have for you for today, Naren, is if I’m thinking about these things and wondering, well, what can I do to sort of get started on an area that, that, that puts me in a position for patients to choose me, right?

So when patients come in, they already know me because they chose me, uh, what recommendations do you have in that regard?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, I would recommend, you know, going to insuranceuntangled.com/msm. Uh, we’ll put a link in the show notes as well, and book what we call a marketing strategy meeting.

And that marketing strategy meeting will help you, um, you know, discover, um, um, you know, how you are doing with regards to, you know, your journey on helping people choose you. Where are your strengths? Where are your weaknesses? Is it Google reviews? Is it your landing pages? Is it your website? Is it your SEO?

And then once you know where you stand on this entire, you know, business of helping patients choose you, then you can fix the things that need fixing. And typically, regardless of where you start, our clients, by the end of 12 months, they love us. And 90% plus of our clients stay with us year after year after year.

Because once they figure out this methodology, they just continue on that journey—month after month, year after year.

Ben Tuinei: Wonderful. Well, there you have it, folks. If you’re—if you wanna make sure that your practice gets chosen by the right patients, then I would consider booking a marketing strategy meeting with Naren and his team. And that way, you know, you get some help to develop a plan that highlights your practice and ensures that, uh, you get, uh, the ideal patients that find you at the right time.

So, Naren, I just want to take a minute here to thank you for such an amazing episode. Your insights and your knowledge in this whole world about influence and getting patients—the right patients—to find you is really refreshing. So, thank you, Naren.

I wanna take this time to thank our listeners for joining us on another amazing episode of the Insurance Untangled podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to share this with your friends on social media. We also appreciate your reviews because that’ll help other doctors find our content.

So don’t forget to visit insuranceuntangled.com for future webinars and episodes that might interest you. But until then, until we meet again, folks, we wanna wish all of you the very best of success. Take care.