Dental Drills and Tinnitus
The drill is one of the biggest problems that tinnitus patients face when it comes time to have dental work done. The drill is required for many dental procedures. There is no way to put in a filling or doing a root canal without the drill. The drill makes a loud, high-pitched sound that can damage your hearing.
Wearing ear protection won't help much with the drills. You can plug your ear all you want. But the loud drilling noise doesn't really affect your ears through your ear canal. It creates sound and vibrates your jaw bones, which then travel up to your ears. The damage to your ears comes from within your head and not the outside.
Wearing earplugs will not help you in this situation. The best recommendation that we can give is to tell your dentist to drill in short bursts instead of in a prolonged style. This will minimize the damage caused to your cochlea; it's not perfect, but it is better than the alternative. The drilling does not cause tinnitus but it can make symptoms worse.
Fillings and Tinnitus
There is also a link between tinnitus and fillings - those ugly things which dentists put in your teeth to get rid of cavities. We are referring to amalgam fillings which are made from silver and mercury. You might think amalgam fillings are mostly made of silver. In fact, they contain more mercury than silver.
Mercury is the obvious problem. It has been shown to cause neurological problems, mercury poisoning and death. If you have more than two fillings in your mouth, this can be the cause of your tinnitus symptoms. It has been shown that people with multiple mercury fillings in their mouths absorb on average more mercury per day than the World Health Organization deems acceptable.
In other words, these fillings can cause tinnitus or just make existing symptoms worse, which is due to the high level of mercury in your body. We aren't going to get into the exact science of things, but the bottom line is that mercury-based fillings can have an impact on tinnitus. Ask for composite resin fillings. We would recommend this regardless of whether you have tinnitus.
Jaw Clenching
The technical term given to jaw clenching is bruxism, and it is yet another thing that can cause tinnitus symptoms and cause existing symptoms to increase in severity. Clenching your jaw can cause serious nerve damage.
As everything in your brain is connected, clenching your teeth can affect your ears. It is not a serious problem, as the causes of clenching are usually easy to solve. At the same time, there are special treatments, such as a simple mouth guard, which can reduce the severity and occurrence of your clenching.
Tinnitus and Dentistry - Other Causes
Other dental procedures can also cause or worsen the symptoms of tinnitus.
* Ultrasonic plaque removal
* Removal of impacted Wisdom teeth
* TMJ
* Abscesses in the mouth
Dentists and Tinnitus
Not surprisingly, it is shown that a ridiculously high number of dentists in the word suffer from some kind of hearing loss in conjunction with tinnitus. This is related to the dental drill we just talked about above. The use of high-speed dental tools has been shown to worsen or cause tinnitus in a majority of dentists.
A small study found that dental practitioners experience tinnitus twice as often as other medical professionals. A very high percentage of dental professionals, between 30% and 100%, suffer from or will suffer from tinnitus at some point in their career. It is said that working with a dental drill all day is the equivalent of having your head beside a running gas-powered lawnmower.
The bottom line is that musicians and people who operate heavy machinery are not the only ones who are at risk of developing tinnitus due to their occupation. Therefore, most dental schools now require students to wear ear protection when working with dental drills.
Conclusion
When it comes to dentistry and tinnitus, things are a little tricky. On one hand, dental work can make the problem worse, but on the other hand, dental work is usually a necessary thing.
Over the recent years, the UK dentistry market has seen significant growth, with the market value rising by around 90% between 1999 and 2010. The market is valued at PS5.73 billion per year. In the UK, there 49, 350 dental care professionals and another 32,900 who are working in the general practice sector.
Your patients are your most valuable asset as a dentist. And it's not simply a matter of new dental patients that your practice brings. To successfully start a dental marketing campaign, it is important to know the value of each patient to your practice. The total profit, delivered over time by those patients is what can break or make your dentistry business. If you are to retain a steady and growing number of patients, you must also now what keeps them happy.
Many Irish people now choose to have their cosmetic dental treatment abroad in countries like Turkey, Spain and Portugal. Dental clinics in some of these countries offering their patients savings of up to 70% on what Dublin has to offer. These countries may offer more value to their patients, which is why your practice should re-evaluate marketing strategies.
Value of a new dental patient
Most dental practices allocate a portion of their marketing budgets towards acquiring and locating potential new patients. The amount that should go towards attracting new patients will, of course, vary substantially from one dental clinic to another. It is a given that marketing dollars spent to attract a new patient should not exceed the lifetime value of that patient to the dental practice.
This makes calculating the value of a new patient a vital component in determining the most prudent way of allocating your marketing budget. Marketing experts have different estimates when it comes to the long-term value of a new customer. Some have placed the estimates at just a couple of hundred dollars, while others place it well over $10,000.
A Wealthy dentist survey revealed that only a quarter of the 68 respondents had ever attempted to estimate the value of a brand new dental patient. Generally, the estimated value of new patients given by the respondents was in the range of $200 to $3,000, with per dental patient average of between $900 and $1,200.
Determining Patient Lifetime Value
To build meaningful dentist-patient relationships, you need to have an estimate of the lifetime value each dental patient brings. You can then structure and market your practice in a strategic way to maximize revenue and take your business to the next stage. The concept of Customer Lifetime Value or CLV is an estimation of the total value of a customer to a business during the entire period you have an engagement.
Customer Lifetime Value is a vital marketing tool for any business. It is particularly critical for businesses that are relationship-driven like dentistry. Among the factors to consider in estimating CLV for your particular clinic includes:
* Lifelong relationship: Average time spent by a patient at your dental office.
* Average Annual Value: Revenue made annually from each patient.
* Client Referral Value : The average number of patients referred by a client.
The following formula can be used to calculate the lifetime value of a patient on average:
Lifetime Patient Value = Lifelong Relationship x Average Annual Value + Client Referral Value
The importance of patient lifetime value calculation
Once you have an estimate of a new dental patient's lifetime value, it becomes possible to make decisions that are more informed in regard to advertising and marketing. You won't want to spend more money on acquiring new dental patients than they will bring to your practice over their lifetime.
When you have a clear idea of the current worth of each new patient, it also gives you a guide client target figure that needs to be exceeded. If, for example, you think the new customer is worth $500 and you have invested $5000 in a patient postcard campaign, then, for you to consider your campaign a success, you will need to bring over 10 new patients.
Alternative valuation method
Another method of estimating the worth of a new dental patient is by asking yourself the amount of money you would be ready to receive from another dentist were you "selling" one of your patients. Would you accept, for instance, less than $400 as payment? In all probability, you would ask for more.
Often, dental patients who need emergency services tend to return to their regular dentist. In such a scenario, when calculating patient value, consider how you can convert that emergency patient Dentist in Victoria Park into a regular one. Your dental office will be more successful and valuable if you can increase the lifetime value of your patients.
Conclusion
Armed with how to calculate the value of your new dental patients and why you need to do the estimation, your dentistry practice will be in a position of making marketing decisions that are more informed leading to higher Return-On-Investment. The Customer Lifetime value measurement methodology will help you assess the profitability of marketing and promotional campaigns. It guides in highlighting which promotional efforts should be abandoned or kept. If you can increase the lifetime value of every dental patient, then your practice will see steady profits over time.