Unintended Consequences

By Richard Drake, Co-Founder of DS3

Last week I listened to a lecture from a PhD in Communications about the unintended consequences of connectivity: internet, smartphones, tablets, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Honestly, what she said scared me a little. Just a few stats for your Saturday morning coffee:

One hundred college kids were asked to “unplug” themselves for 24 hours: 72% could NOT do it. Not for a single day. “Why would you even sign up for social suicide like that?” a friend asked a participant.

Cyber bullying resulting in teen suicides. High school teachers bemoan trying to teach in a class where half are phubbing (you might have to look that one up). Teens spending the equivalent of a full work day on social media platforms every day. These are all negative unintended consequences.

Let’s switch gears, now that I’ve got your blood moving a little (social media effects is a hotly debated topic that few agree on) and talk about the unintended consequences of treating snoring sleep apnea patients in your practice.

Unintended Consequences of Treating Snoring and Sleep Apnea in your practice:

• Screening for sleep disordered breathing creates an atmosphere that you care more about your patients’ lives than you do their teeth
• Facilitating sleep testing for your patients creates goodwill, better relationships, and builds trust
• Goodwill, better relationships, and trust, simply means that your patients are more likely to get the work that you recommend done
• Patients who snore less create happy bed partners. If that bed partner is a patient of yours, she likes you more. In fact, you may be her new superhero

Treated patients who snore less and sleep better talk to their neighbors, their friends, fellow church members, to their doc-tors. This leads to more new patients, and the doctor part leads not only to a new referral source for sleep patients but patients in general.

I never said that creating a successful dental sleep medicine practice was easy. It takes work, but what most of you don’t realize is that a successful DSM arm of your practice makes the rest of your practice more successful, too.

Doing the right thing and for the right reasons is seldom the easiest thing to do, nor the path of least resistance. But it remains the right thing to do.

Screen. Test. Treat. Bill.

Saving lives, one dental device at a time! I’ll bet your coffee is still warm.