Ideas to Get Dental Hygiene Patients in School
September means back to school, which means back to patients for many dental hygiene students. Finding patients and managing your schedule is one of the trickiest parts of hygiene school, since patient care is so important for your degree, but has so many wild cards involved.
Recently, a dental hygiene student asked us online how to find patients, and we put a call out to our community for some advice. And you delivered. Here are some of the ideas:
“Call homeless shelters. Recruit in low income communities as a group.”
“I used a lot of family. In my program, we had patients on State insurance sent over.”
“Make a posting at the unemployment office!”
“Ads at churches, homeless shelters, coffee shops, anything with a bulletin board.”
“Have trusted friends/family/acquaintances ready to come in as back up patients.”
“Ask people their schedules, and if they’d be open to coming in last minute. Some people have schedules where they always have, say, Tuesday morning off, and would be free to come in then.”
“Find retired people! We reached out to a couple retirement homes etc”
“See if your program will offer free/reduced fees to veterans in November. Post fliers about it.”
“I would make small talk everywhere I went- grocery stores, banks, restaurant.”
“I asked family and friends. And ask them to ask their friends too.”
“Local Facebook Groups! Life saver”
“Ask patients that you do have if they have any family or friends who would like to come in too."
“Make business cards and hand them out to places who don’t offer dental insurance.”
“Next Door app, Facebook posts, and their community help pages”
“Post on a local Facebook yard sale page or something similar”
“Facebook Marketplace! Many don’t know how cheap it is for those without insurance”
“FB groups, small business groups. Owners and staff are often uninsured and have flexible schedules.”
“Ads on Facebook and Craigslist”
“Family and friends, then after 6 months they came in again”
“Join an intramural sport, club or group of some time and make some friends!”
“Beg at the library. I’ve heard girls having Tinder/Bumble strictly for patients too!”
“I would make posts on Facebook. That worked really well.”
“Made business cards and handed them out to people I met just about anywhere.”
“Call previous patients from past years. Spend a lot of time in the front office doing recall.”
“Make sure to call and confirm a few days before, then you know it’s on them and not on you.”
“I had a classmate use a dating add. It worked well for her!”
“Hehe! Going clubbing and getting patients there! Before Covid of course.”
“Facebook Yard Sale Pages SAVED ME!”
“Go to the library/entertainment part at school and ask!”
“The Next Door App!”
“I walked around campus and asked other students! But it wasn’t easy”
“Family and friends you can trust! And pay them to show up”
“I did a Kijiji ad. It actually worked- no weirdos”
“Explain that your grade and degree relies on them showing up and being there.”
“Walk around the school and look for people hanging out.”
“I also got close with upperclassmen and took on their patients when they graduated.”
“Made a Google number and posted online. Craigslist, etc…”
“KSL, Facebook pages. It gets deleted but it gets out there they notice.”
“Look at surrounding towns. Other than people I know, that is where I found most of my patients”
“I paid them”
“Walked about my neighborhood with cards. Made posts online. It was way out of my comfort zone.”
“Being persistent and constantly reminding everyone that they made a commitment.”
“I literally negged my heavy SRP patient to come in every time I had a cancellation. He was the real MVP”
“Posted it on Offer Up to get local people and keep track of all my patients in details”
How did you end up finding your patients in dental hygiene school? Let us know to help others!