Patients are people and people are different. Each of us has a uniqueness, a set of values and a way of looking at the world.
To improve your performance as a health professional who deals with people on a daily basis, you need to develop your interpersonal relationship skills more and more each day.
We’re not psychologists, but we have some tips to help you improve the conversion rate of your treatment plans, especially if you’re a doctor or dentist who performs and sells procedures.
3 types of patients and how to deal with each of them
There are several sources of literature that group people according to behavioral and social characteristics.
We won’t go into the conceptual part of these different classifications, but we want to introduce you to the 3 most common types of patients that you as a doctor or dentist have to deal with on a daily basis.
Analytical Patient Profile
A person with an analytical profile is usually linked to details, data and facts.
A typical patient with an analytical profile will ask you several questions about the proposed treatment, the technique used and will probably like to know statistics about success and failure rates of a certain type of treatment.
How to deal with the profile of the analytical patient?
Demonstrate your knowledge on the subject, base your conversation on data and similar cases, bring citations from literature on the topic, use number-based language, be direct, but wait for more questions, set aside more conversation time to talk to the analytical.
Know that a patient with an analytical profile will take more of their consultation time because they need to feel confident that they are making a decision based on data and not mere speculation.
Visual patient profile
The visual appreciates patients and values the form of what he is buying.
Visual people usually have a good aesthetic sense and are very attentive to finishing details and whimsy that other patients don’t have.
They are usually quite demanding with the result.
How to deal with the profile of the visual patient?
Use models, photos and videos in your demonstration. Use the more figurative language seeking to lead the patient to “visualize” the solution to their problem or her desire.
Objective patient profile
Objective people are very focused, they are usually very sure about what they want and they don’t like bullshit.
They are direct, they often ask objective questions that may sound aggressive, but for them they are nothing more than a normal argument.
How to deal with the profile of the objective patient?
Objective people hate long explanations and technical details. They like short, to-the-point answers.
They don’t tolerate indecisive people or doubts. They are often suspicious and therefore any social proof that their work solves one of their pains will help in their argument.
Conclusion
The types of patients listed above are not exhaustive of the many possible types of people you will encounter in your daily practice.
However, it is very common for a large part of the population to have a predominance of one or more personality traits that fit the profiles listed above.
Learning to “read” your patient is essential to calibrate your speech, your approach and your explanation for each type of person who enters your office, thus increasing the chances of conversion.
Senior Consulting