Roundtable · Case acceptance
The Real Barriers to Care, and How to Get Past Them
What are the common barriers to care, and how do you overcome them in your practice?
Practice Mindshare Podcast, Episode 4 ·
Every practice owner has watched a patient who clearly needs care walk out without it. The reflex is to blame price. The clinicians in this conversation say price is real, but it is rarely the whole story.
Two co-founders, one in optometry and one in cosmetic dentistry, name the barriers they see most and what they changed on their own side of the desk to remove them.
“Overcoming the barrier starts with realizing your own mindset when you're talking to patients.”
Dr. Rhue's most common barrier is, in her words, caring too much about the patient for them to want to spend the money. Patients have been conditioned to believe insurance covers everything, or that health is simply expensive. But they arrived with a problem they want solved, and if the practice does not solve it, they will go somewhere else.
Her fix starts with the clinician's own mindset. Be confident and clear, present the treatment without over-explaining, get from point A to point B, and then pause and let them hear you. Orthodontics does this well: you want the treatment or you don't. If they decline, she said, you know you will see them back in a year with the same complaint.
“Confused consumers do nothing.”
Dr. Harris ranks the barriers. First is confusion: patients nod along, but they do not actually know their options, and confused consumers do nothing. Second is cost, and the more open and direct you are about it, with options to pay over time, the more success you will see.
Third is trust, which takes time and cannot be rushed. The only way to build it, he said, is to provide massive value before asking a patient to buy anything: serve them at the highest level and answer the three questions everyone walks in with. Who do I trust, what are my options, and what does it cost. The sooner those are answered, the faster trust arrives.
What the panel agrees on
- Cost is a barrier, but confusion and lack of trust stop more patients than price does.
- Present treatment with confidence and clarity, then stop talking. Over-explaining reads as doubt.
- Be direct about cost and offer ways to pay over time. Patients decide faster when the numbers are on the table.
- Earn trust by answering who to trust, what the options are, and what it costs, before you ask for anything.
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