As one of the country’s leading private dental education providers, Tipton Training has an excellent reputation for helping its past and present delegates prosper in the world of dentistry.
Now the training academy is taking this a step further by exclusively teaming up with CompareMySmile.com – the UK’s very first patient finder site for the private dental market – to ensure that its alumni can take advantage of new private treatment requests from patients sourced by the new comparison service.
It’s thought that the new stream of patient enquiries generated from CompareMySmile.com will help Tipton Training’s delegates prosper in both educational and business settings. So how exactly does the partnership work?
Finding live patients and creating future patient enquiries
Tipton Training educates hundreds of dental professionals each year and has helped launch many successful careers since its foundation by Dr Paul Tipton 24 years ago. Its courses cover restorative dentistry, operative dentistry (practical courses on phantom heads), along with cosmetic and aesthetic dentistry.
In addition, Tipton Training also runs a dental implant course, which offers qualified dentists the chance to place their first implants on live patients. The agreement with CompareMySmile.com is especially useful here, as the service can be used to find patients that are happy to receive dental implant procedures from delegates under the supervision of Tipton’s implant surgeons.
The first dental implant course under this new agreement with CompareMySmile.com is set to start on Friday 14 March 2014 in Manchester. The partnership will give enrolled delegates a rare opportunity to learn through practical application and to continue to improve their skills through live case work on the Tipton Training’s extended mentoring programme.
According to Dr Paul Tipton, CompareMySmile.com has real business benefits for the everyday private practice too.
“Many of our delegates are Principals that are looking to take on more private cases, or Associates wanting to acquire their own practices.” Paul Tipton stated.
“We teach them best practice and practical techniques which they can apply to increase their private income and build their client base. Our relationship with CompareMySmile.com will certainly help bring patients straight to our alumni for treatment. That’s tremendously powerful and a unique offering in private dental education.”
How the comparison service works
Under the terms of the deal, current Tipton Training delegates can use CompareMySmile.com to respond to the patients in their area on an exclusive ‘pay as you go’ basis. Past Tipton Training alumni will also benefit from exclusive terms.
Brad Jones, operations manager at CompareMySmile.com, said: “Tipton Training delegates and alumni have the skills and experience profile that our customers are looking for when making an informed choice.
“Comparison shopping is now a part of the nation’s psyche. Our panellists will enjoy significant competitive advantages over other dentists when it comes to converting new business. Being a member of our select panel, elevates our dentists above the commercial noise of dental directories and listings. Our panelists have the opportunity to respond directly to customers’ needs when they are deciding whom to visit.”
The founders of CompareMySmile.com are advocates of simplicity. The service is designed to make it easy for prospective patients to search for their desired treatment in their geographical area. After a short process of filling-in personal information on a submission form, one of CompareMySmile.com’s patient co-ordinators then makes contact with the patient to qualify their dental history and treatment requirements.
From this discussion, the co-ordinator then sends a dental brief over to a relevant pool of dentists who match the patient’s location and treatment requirements for an indicative estimate.
It’s then up to the pool of dentists to return tailored estimates back to the patient, who can then make an informed choice of where they would like to proceed with treatment.There are added perks of booking dental treatment through CompareMySmile.com too. These include a free 15-minute consultation with the chosen dentist to assess the patient’s treatment needs and options ahead of any procedure. If both patient and dentist are happy after the consultation, it’s simply a case of the two parties booking an appointment for the treatment..
After treatment is completed, CompareMySmile.com offers its patients a free 90 day dental insurance policy, just incase any unplanned repair work is required.
“It’s not just a question of price. People want to make informed purchasing choices,” Jones explains.
“Our panellists get to showcase their distinctive capabilities and skillsets to customers actively seeking treatment. How they engage in their response will influence the patient’s purchasing decisions.”
Comparison’s impact on private dentistry
As for comparison’s potential impact on the training business, Paul Tipton is upbeat about the future.
He says: “With the private dental sector set for growth and changes in NHS contracts looming, not only will dentists will have to offer more private work, more patients will be seeking treatments which are not provided on the NHS. This arrangement puts Tipton Training in a great position.”
Jones agrees: “Dentists who join us now will benefit from being amongst the first to do so. They will learn what works, how to differentiate themselves from other responders and be able to win more than their fair share of new business.”
For further information, please visit www.comparemysmile.com.