During the pandemic, Dr. Ashley Ciapciak started a TikTok channel where she would post videos with tips for patients, talk about life as a dentist, and share funny and insightful moments in the office. Her videos have received millions of views and have propelled her past just industry fame and into the public arena.

In her interview on Dandy’s The Margin Line, Dr. Ciapciak shared her knowledge about creating content for dental practice websites and social media. Here are her content creation tips for dentists:

1. Don’t sleep on digital content’s effectiveness for new patient referrals

Dr. Ciapciak shares that many Millennials and Gen Z patients are finding their dentists through social media—which is why it’s important to have social media accounts for your dental practice. The content you post should represent your dental practice (positively) and provide plenty of information useful for your patients. 

Your website should be up to date and have both a digital scheduling tool and a phone number to call. Dr. Ciapciak also recommends having relevant Google keywords incorporated into the website and blog posts (yes, you should have a blog), so that your practice shows up on search engines.

Tip: Use Google My Business to make sure your dental practice is showing up on Google.

2. Post consistently and respond to comments

It’s important to post consistently on social media because it helps people see that your business is active, involved in the local community, and it makes them feel more comfortable trusting you with their dental care needs. The more engaged your followers are, the more likely they will refer new patients to you. It also helps build trust with potential new customers who may not know much about you yet. 

Tip: Don’t forget to respond to comments on posts – this shows your audience that they matter and they’re being heard!

3. Ask your employees for help

If you’re feeling like there isn’t enough time in the day for all of these important tasks like posting regularly on social media platforms (or any type of content creation), ask your dental assistant or office manager to pitch in. In Dr. Ciapciak’s experience, normally the younger the employee, the more social-media savvy they are, however, any employee can learn how to use social media if given the time and training.

Your staff can take photos and videos of dental work before and after (ask the patients’ permission, of course), events at the practice, or post helpful tips about caring for teeth and oral hygiene habits. This will help spread awareness about the culture of your dental practice, which in turn will build trust between you and your potential clients!

Tip: If an employee is showing enthusiasm for your social media content, talk to them about becoming your social media coordinator. Dr. Ciapciak recommends paying them for this additional skill.

4. Keep your website and social media content up to date

Your website and social media are the “front page” of your practice. You want it to be a place where people can go to find out about you and your services, but also where they can see the cases you’ve worked on recently. As you gain more expertise and skills over time, you want to ensure that all of your content is up-to-date, both in terms of what you offer at the practice and what patients should know about you and your staff. This way, if someone visits the site or follows a page, they can get an idea of what you’re like as a doctor right away. 

Tip: Dr. Ciapciak recommends making your content feel personal, as that is what people are drawn to.

5. Remember that “everything is content”

It doesn’t matter if it’s just a photo or video—everything that comes out of your business should be considered “content” because it has the ability to help build trust with customers and attract new ones. Some ideas include:

1. Before/after photos of dental work
   

Dr. Ciapciak recommends getting into the routine of taking photos of your work. “Replacing old amalgam filling with composite filling? Snap a picture before and after. Throw that up on your Instagram. Throw that up on your website. Why not? People see that and they see, geez, they kind of know what they’re doing.”

2. Pictures of you and your staff at work
   

You can share photos interacting with patients or just doing jobs around the office. This helps people feel like they’re getting to know you and your staff members, which can lead to a better relationship between patients and the staff.

3. Photos of your dental practice
   

Whether it’s inside or outside, these photos give potential patients an idea of what it looks like when they visit you for an appointment or procedure, and can calm dental anxiety when they know what to expect when they walk through the door.

4. Videos with dental tips for patients

These videos can even be short (less than three minutes), but they’re great for keeping patients informed about new trends in dentistry, ways they can take better care of their teeth on their own, or what to expect when they come in for dental treatment. Short videos, posted on social media channels like TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube, are also a great way to get in front of a new audience. With consistent posting, Dr. Ciapciak has seen viral success and many new patients from this recognition.

Tip: You’ll want to make sure that your content is professional and trustworthy, so make sure it’s created by a doctor or staff member who is experienced in the field of dentistry. 

The post Dr. Ashley Ciapciak’s content creation tips for dentists appeared first on Dandy.

Dr. Ashley Ciapciak is no stranger to digital dentistry. She explains, “I was trained by Boston University School of Dental Medicine, where they often make a really big push for us to learn digital scanning and digital techniques.”

Because she was trained in CEREC, that might have seemed like the best option for going digital. But there were two problems. First, not all the dental labs in her area accepted CEREC scans. On top of that, Dr. Ciapciak found the CEREC machine difficult to use when scanning for dentures.

She was stuck.

“I considered sending scans overseas to get my dental work done, to get my crowns finished,” she admits. To compound the problem, COVID-19 would make training difficult, especially for a senior dentist in her practice who was hesitant to switch to a digital scanner.

“He thought that it was going to be poor margins.” Dr. Ciapciak says. “He thought that it was going to be grainy. He didn’t think that he could get a really good scan.”

Undeterred, Dr. Ciapciak did extensive research and recognized that Dandy was the solution she’d been looking for.

It all started with the scanner.

Dandy has allowed us to cut down on chair time probably about 15 to 20%. Now I can see four more patients in my day than I was able to before.

Dr. AshLEY Ciapciak

The Dandy Difference

Dr. Ciapciak is a perfectionist when it comes to dental work for her patients. “I am a Type A person, I want perfect dental work for my patients. And part of that is we need really, really, really clear dental impressions.”

“The Dandy scanner is incredible,” she says. “It’s one of the best scanners on the market. That was really important to me. I wanted really good detail.”

Training and Support

Dr. Ciapciak assumed it would be up to her to train her staff on the digital scanner. She was pleasantly surprised to learn that a Dandy professional instructor would train her, her colleagues, and the staff.

“I was really relieved that I didn’t have to take on that responsibility,” she says.

Still, her team was dreading training, anxious about having to learn something new. What if it was hard to learn? What if they couldn’t get it right? The anxiety was unnerving. And since the COVID-19 pandemic was ongoing, the Dandy training would be virtual instead of in-person. How on earth would they learn to use a digital scanner via a computer screen?

All those fears were put to rest when training started.

If I had known that the transition was going to be this easy, and that teaching my staff how to digitally scan was going to be this simple, I would have switched to Dandy years ago.

“Our trainer was patient with my team,” recalls Dr. Ciapciak. “They were kind. They talked us through absolutely every step. And they were available for the next few weeks in case we had problems, questions, or concerns as we were scanning.”

The Dandy trainer spent a morning with Dr. Ciapciak’s practice – about four hours – teaching everyone how to use the digital scanner virtually. By the end of the training, everyone was buzzing with excitement.

In fact, the most senior dentist in the practice – the one initially most hesitant – was the most adept at using the scanner. Why?

Dr. Ciapciak thinks his years of dental experience made the transition effortless.

“He knows what he’s doing around a patient’s mouth,” she explains. “So, it wasn’t a difficult transition for him to hold a different instrument in his hand and run it along the teeth and get a good impression.”

The Results

Dr. Ciapcak decided to run a test.

She continued to take traditional impressions along with digital scans. If she didn’t like the work coming back from the digital scan, she planned to use the physical impression instead.

What were the results?

1. Consistent, High-Quality Restorations

“The reality was I loved the work that was coming back. And I’ve had no complaints and no problems fitting crowns for my patients. Really, all of the work that’s coming back from our labs has been beautiful. I haven’t had anything returned to them.”

But that’s not the only result.

2. Reduced Chair Time = More Patients in the Chair

How long does it typically take a dentist to capture a physical impression? How does that compare to doing a digital scan?

“I can scan in about a minute, rather than waiting 5, 10 minutes for my impressions to set,” says Dr. Ciapciak. Redos aren’t a problem either. “If I have to redo an impression with my digital scanner, I just cut out that little piece that I don’t like as much and I rescan and it takes 10 seconds maybe.”

All of that saved time adds up to more appointments in the day.

3. Faster Lab Turnaround Times

Going digital with Dandy made a significant difference in turnaround times.

“It’s incredible to see how quickly I can turn around a case for a partial denture or a complete denture through our scanners with Dandy,” says Dr. Ciapciak.

Before Dandy, dental assistants had to wait for Dr. Ciapciak to formally write a full traditional lab prescription. Then, they would box up the prescription along with traditional models that they had to pour up, and ship the package out to the dental lab. Now it just takes three clicks of a button for a case to be sent out.“Using a traditional dental lab for partial dentures takes six to eight weeks. Using Dandy … takes a week, maybe two, to turn around that partial denture and get it back in the patient’s mouth and get them back to smiling.”

Smiling patients are the best benefit of all.

4. Happier Patients

“Our patients are much happier to receive digital scans rather than traditional impressions,” says. Dr. Ciapciak. “I have a significant number of patients with a gag reflex. And then we have to hold them down for two to five minutes with traditional impressions. It’s just too long.”

“They were very uncomfortable.”

Dr. Ciapciak is also seeing greater patient buy-in to recommended treatment plans, thanks to Dandy digital scans. It helps when patients have a visual image of what’s going on in their mouth.
“Now they see it on the big screen and they’re saying, ‘Oh my gosh, doc, you’re right. Now I see what you’re talking about.’”

Adopting New Workflows

Switching to Dandy meant a change in some of Dr. Ciapciak’s workflows. But the benefits are clear.

Switching from Invisalign to Dandy Clear Aligners

Even though Dr. Ciapciak is Invisalign-certified, she prefers the Dandy clear aligner program.

“I’ve really found Invisalign to be a little bit frustrating,” she explains. “It’s more expensive for my patients, it takes longer for us to get a treatment plan, and it’s just become a frustrating process.

“When I switched to Dandy, I loved their clear aligners. It’s just super easy for myself and my patients to receive their cases and to receive their clear aligners in a really timely manner.”

With Dandy, the entire process is easier, quicker, more affordable for the patient, and far more straightforward.

Digital Dentures

Using a traditional dental lab for partial dentures would take six to eight weeks. And that meant a lot of gooey impressions and several follow-up visits for patients who were often older, with limited mobility; those repeat visits were challenging. But with Dandy, a partial denture is done in 1-2 weeks and most full dentures are completed in only 2 appointments.

“My patients are much happier that their dental work comes back way, way quicker than it ever has before,” says Dr. Ciapciak.

Dr. Ciapciak’s only regret is that she didn’t find Dandy sooner. For those dentists on the fence, she recommends taking the leap of faith.

“If you’re hesitant about switching to Dandy, you really shouldn’t be,” she counsels. “They hold your hand throughout the whole process.”

“If I had known that the transition was going to be this easy, and that teaching my staff how to digitally scan was going to be this simple, I would have switched to Dandy years ago.”

The post How Dr. Ashley Ciapciak decreased chair time by up to 20% by going digital with Dandy appeared first on Dandy.