Tips for Growing Your Dental Sleep Medicine Practice

Dental Sleep Medicine is a developing necessity in dental treatment services. Dental sleep medicine is a growing field, as evidenced by the formation of professional scientific societies nationally and globally. Dental Sleep Medicine Institutes across the globe emphasize treating sleep-related breathing problems such as snoring and obstructive sleep apnea using mouth appliance therapies and upper airway surgery. Dentists are in a solid position to assess patients, refer them to the appropriate care, and, in many situations, administer therapy to prolong patients’ lives and enhance their wellness. Expanding your dental sleep clinic remains a concern for dentists because it is challenging to compete in this era. This article will explore some tips for growing your dental sleep medicine practice so you can take your DSM practice to another level of success.

Tips to Grow Dental Sleep Medicine

Here are the following tips to grow your dental medicine sleep:

Know and Show Your Stuff

With the proper training, you will stand out from other practitioners offering similar services in telling potential patients about your advanced education and providing higher quality services. When you do good work, your patients will say to their friends. Word of mouth is still one of the best ways to get new business. Word of mouth is direct from patient to patient; other times, you will see it in positive online reviews. It can be an arduous battle for many dentists as patients are unfamiliar with dentists treating sleep apnea. Ensure you get content on your website and announce the new service with a blog post, newsletter, video, or other messages to new patients about the unique, comfortable sleep apnea solution dentists can provide. You can also work with a professional web marketing team to create a personalized plan to target new patients.

Collaborate with Your Local Sleep Doctor

Cooperating with local sleep doctors and clinics is the easiest way to gain new patients. Referrals from these doctors will drive your practice and support you to thrive. Talk to local sleep physicians, and discuss how working with your office can be a unified transition for both doctor and patient.

Work to Maximize Patient Insurance Coverage

You already know how significant dental insurance coverage is to your patients. Many people will only consider dental offices that are favored providers. Ensuring you are ready to process and file medical insurance claims correctly to maximize coverage is one way to stand out from the competition and offer patients the services they want and need.

Train and Educate Team

The field of dental sleep medicine is expanding, and educational institutions should pay more attention. Dental sleep medicine is a highly interdisciplinary field requiring practitioners to have extensive professional medical knowledge. First and foremost, we recommend concerned dentists train themselves and their employees about the current state of dental sleep medicine. There should be training for everybody, from the front desk to the back office. Dentists must complete training in dental sleep medicine to treat patients with oral appliance treatment for sleep-related respiratory issues.

Focus on Internal Marketing

Raising awareness through patient educational resources is one of your marketing techniques for individuals who already make up your patient base. Utilizing your employees as awareness instructors is also a marketing tactic. To do this, ensure that you and your personnel are knowledgeable when it comes to talking about the CPAP choices you may offer and the significance of receiving treatment. By taking these steps, you will raise patient preferences and expectations that their sleep-breathing difficulties will be evaluated as part of routine dentist appointments and, if necessary, provide treatment. With your current patient base, you will gradually establish a reputation for offering dental sleep.

Promote External Marketing

The most significant marketing source for fresh dental sleep sufferers is word-of-mouth recommendations. Regular patients and local physicians are the elements for this. Older patients who receive sleep medicine are often satisfied and appreciative. They may be essential to recommending other patients to your office. Be sure you are famous for providing excellent collaborative care since this will encourage referrals from your medical professional. The ideal strategy is to collaborate with a medical consultant or a team of sleep physicians, who can also provide the client with the necessary screening methods, such as sleep tests, interpretations, or telemedicine if they don’t already have one. Primary care physicians use their professional competence to send patients to the most suitable specialist at the appropriate moment.

Price Your Sleep Applications Reasonable

How much you charge for your sleep appliances is heavily influenced by the location of your practice. According to a study, there are regional price trends for dental supplies and a wide range of prices nationwide. It would be the best strategy to keep the cost low because if your patients cannot pay for the therapy, your practice will not expand.

Follow Your Patients

Oral appliance treatment is a method of controlling chronic illness. The diagnosis and treatment of SRBD are changing rapidly; keeping up with new advances and monitoring your patients’ improvement is part of a professional’s responsibility.

Use Technology for Better Efficiency

During the previous few decades, new technologies have evolved dramatically. They are currently implemented in dental offices and help with everyday practice; the significant innovations in this field are primarily digital technology. Dentists must continuously stay updated on the latest technological developments. By utilizing technology, you may stand out from the competition and demonstrate to your patients that you have put money into giving them the ideal service possible.

Utilize Your Hygienists

Better sleep must benefit everyone, from young children to older people, and good sleep hygiene will play a significant role in attaining that aim. Hygienists play a considerable part in the dental sleep practice. Most dental hygiene programs in the United States incorporate dental sleep medicine. In addition to discussing OSA risks, symptoms, physician referrals, and possible treatments, dental hygienists will use questionnaires and other techniques during an inspection to determine if a patient has OSA. They have plenty of opportunities to evaluate patients for sleep apnea because they review the patient’s medical and dental history at every session. The test might be as easy as going over inquiries like:

  • Have you ever been suspected of snoring?
  • Have you ever had a sleep-breathing disorder diagnosed?
  • Have you ever had a sleep study?
  • Are you drowsy during the day?
  • Do you ever have headaches in the morning?
  • Have you ever woken up to someone coughing or gasping?
  • Have you ever been informed that you stop breathing while you sleep?

If a patient responds “yes” to any previous inquiries, the hygienist would further investigate the matter and inform the dentist of any information pointing to the need for a sleep study or oral appliance therapy.

Overcoming Obstacles to Dental Sleep Growth

According to Tiffini Stratton, who owns the dental sleep medicine practice Lucid Dental, the most significant barrier to the transition is medical billing and managing the administrative duties of this change. She says that the actual oral appliance device and clinical process is straightforward, and networking and getting doctors to refer you requires diligence and time but is relatively easy. But Stratton is a proponent for more collaboration among sleep physicians and dentists because there is so much sleep apnea out there that we need to work together.
According to Jon Nierman, president of Nierman Practice Management, a dental continuing education, medical billing, and Software Company, Medical billing can be challenging for dental practices because it differs from dental reimbursement procedures. Dental billing systems do not generally solve the “golden ticket to medical reimbursement” or the need for proper medical coding and documentation of necessity. First, educate your team in medical billing and communication; second, implement proven protocols or systems to effect change management; and third, decide whether to outsource or keep in-house medical billing.

How Medsdental Helps You with Sleep Medicine Growth

Medsdental will be the right approach for you because we assist our partners with precise and timely sleep medication claims submission services. Our expertise promises that claims are filed on time and accurately using HIPAA-compliant services to avoid future insurer rejections. We use pioneering technologies to provide customers with an impressive sleep medication billing audit. We offer our consumers very adaptable and reasonable price alternatives that precisely fit their needs and budget without costing any onboarding fee. Being a licensed company, we guarantee that our service will be of the highest caliber and error-free.

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