How to Incorporate Digital Photography into Your Dental Practice

Mark Kleive, D.D.S., is a dentist in private practice, based in Black Mountain, North Carolina. He is also a proponent of incorporating digital photography in the dental practice as a means of increasing case acceptance. It’s one thing to tell a patient about the treatment they need, Kleive says, and quite another to show them. In this clip, Kleive discusses how he’s seen photography lead to increased case acceptance.

Interview Transcript (Modified for Readability)

“What makes cameras so effective at increasing case acceptance is that patients, oftentimes, for the first time, have a new and heightened level of awareness of ‘This is what my current conditions actually look like,’ and they are way more likely, once they have awareness, to say, ‘Okay, so what do we do about this?’

The best way for dentists to incorporate a digital camera into their office system is to pick out the appropriate camera for their team and create a system in their office (like a new patient system) where they’re going to take, say, these same six photographs on new patients that come into the office. As soon as [the dental team] develops some skill at taking those six pictures and incorporating them, then they can bring them to other patients and other procedures in the office. But my [suggestion] is for [dentists] to consider taking six photographs on new patients, or half of the new patients to begin with, so that they can begin to incorporate that technology into their practice.”