How To Start or Create a Fee For Service Dental Practice

How do you start, or transition to a fee for service dental practice?

This is a great question and there’s no right or wrong answer, but it really just depends on your goals and what you want to accomplish. First, we typically suggest practices put together that we call a 1-Page Practice Growth Plan (PGP).

It’s simply a single sheet of paper with two sides printed on it. On your PGP, you’ll put your goals for this year, your goals for the next 3 years and your goals for the next 10 years. Then, from those goals, you’ll work backwards and decide what you want, who you’re going to involve and the (Big Why) purpose behind why you’re doing it.

The biggest and most important use of your time in this exercise is to sit down and put a pen to paper, and ask yourself “what is the purpose of your practice?” 

Don’t be mistaken…

You DON’T want to create a patient driven practice, a doctor driven practice, or even an insurance driven practice. That’s right, I said “DON’T!” 

Why you may ask? 

Because what will really drive you, and give your team meaning is when you develop a purpose driven practice. All those other resins are important, but they’re not as important as your Purpose.

So if you’re going to set up a fee for service practice, you need to first decide and write out your mission and why you want to have a fee for service practice. Because a lot of dentists that I’ve met over the years have good intentions. They often say, “well, we don’t want to be insurance dependent and we want to do what’s right for our patients.”

But then the real world hits you right upside the face, and you start to get questions about insurance and cost, and you realize that your patients have lives that are involved around a lot of things. Going to the dentist is often low on the priority list for many people. So you can get desperate and lose your purpose trying to please too many people.

Don’t become a “we treat everybody” practice. That is a quick way to a stressful disaster with lots of loose ends and an overworked team and doctor.

For example, we encourage you to be insurance friendly, but not be insurance driven.

The first practice we purchased (back in 2010) was only seeing patients about two days a week. We implemented new services and some marketing because I wanted to be in the office four days a week.

After about a year we grew to five days a week. Then even some six day weeks until we added more providers and was able to ease back off some of the days I was seeing patients. In that process, we learned a lot about insurance patients, fees for service patients and how to approach each one. We learned that by developing membership plans we could better attract and retain the right patients for us and our Purpose. 

Keith Cunningham author of The Road Less Stupid, put it this way: “growth is what you say ‘yes’ to. Success is what you say ‘no’ to.”

Are you just trying to grow? Or are you working to be successful and profitable?

(And my biggest caution would be if you’re going to have a fee for service practice, don’t mix it with too many insurance driven systems because your patients will get a mixed message.)

We take the approach that we are insurance friendly, but not insurance driven. As of right now we do accept one insurance plan and that’s because we’ve negotiated a much lower write off and it has been an excellent source of quality new patients. Because get a higher reimbursement than average and we look at that write off as essentially a marketing expense to acquire new patients.

The dark side of accepting a plan is that you have to pay that “marketing” or acquisition cost every time you see the patients. That write off is much less than what it would be accepting with most insurance contracts, which we’ve chosen not to pursue. 

We’ve learned over the years that our membership patients are 5x to 8x more valuable than our cash patients or insured patients. Many of our patients even come to the office with insurance and they end up dropping it and going with our membership plan, especially if they’re looking for an individual type plan. These are often your patients who are retired or self-employed, or they’ve changed jobs.

And when you run these reports and your software, there are a couple that we suggest you run. One would be what your collections are based on. Insured versus non-insured patients. And then you can extract that data and compare it. And that’s how we’ve figured out. You know, that our membership patients are bringing five to eight times more to the table that might make it easier for you to drop some insurance plans that you’re not interested in.

Remember, it’s not the best use of your time or your team’s time to continually chase the lower and lower potential opportunities. So, hopefully this has been helpful. We look forward to your questions for the next video and we appreciate the feedback and insight.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can reach out to us by reaching us at the contact information below, and we look forward to seeing you next month.

Best,

Dr. Tyler Williams 

For just $7, you can download a really cool tool we’ve put together. It will allow you to attract as many patients as you want month after month using Facebook. And did I mention, no expensive ads?!?

To be frank, it will need a little “elbow grease,” to get the results you are looking for. These could be the patients that are going to help you and your team meet your annual goals for the rest of 2022 and beyond. 

If you’re interested, simple email us at twilliams@yourpracticegrowth.com and put “Qualified Referrals” in the subject line.

How to attract new patients to your dental practice?

This is a fantastic question. And you want to start out by defining what type of patient you want to attract now. If you just say, “Hey, we just want any new patient” then you’re probably already on the wrong track. There are many patients looking for lots of different types of services and different outcomes.

For example:

  • There are patients who care more about insurance.
  • There are patients who care most about cost. 
  • There are patients who care most about the provider.
  • There are patients looking for specific services, many which know they are not covered by insurance.
  • There are patients who care most about the experience.

Most people care about a combination of these things, but there was a great study several years ago by 1-800-DENTIST that shed some more light on this topic.

In the study, they went through a whole list of things people want in a dentist. Number one was…..you may not have guessed it….a clear conversation about cost  upfront.

Then the study went  into some other areas such as: 1) Convenience – being located near their home. 2) Availability – to get into an appointment. 3) Np a list of, you know, some other things that you can find. The full online study was done about 10 years ago, but the information is still very relevant.

Now, the interesting thing is that one of the top five questions WAS NOT: Do you take my insurance? 

That’s because a lot of people don’t know what else to ask and they don’t know that there are other things they should know. So when you’re looking to attract new patients, more importantly than where and how, you most importantly want to think about WHO.

So who is the type of patient you want to track? Are you looking for families? Are you looking for baby boomers? Are you looking for patients who could benefit from implants? Are you looking for patients who could benefit from preventative checkups? Do you have some type of niche or specialty in your practice and then really target those people?

It may now be more expensive to obtain those types of patients, but it can be well worth it. If you’re just looking to attract any type of patient, you’re going to get a wide range. And many of those patients may not fit the values, the goals, and the purpose of your practice. 

Now we have a really cool trick that we’ve learned, and this is a new way that you can attract patients for a very low cost, or even free by using Facebook.

For just $7, you can download a really cool tool we’ve put together. And that’ll allow you to attract as many patients as you want with add to your practice month after month using Facebook. And did I mention, no expensive ads?!?

Now, this isn’t an “effortless” way to attract more qualified new patients, but it absolutely works if you or one of your team members will commit to doing it each month.

It is a strategy that very few practices take advantage of, but with a little “elbow grease,” you’ll be able to really hone in on the type of patient you want to attract and be able to target those patients who align with the goals and purpose of your team. I look forward to helping you.

And those patients are really going to help you and your team meet your annual goals for the rest of 2022 and beyond. If you’re interested, simple email us at twilliams@yourpracticegrowth.com and put “Qualified Referrals” in the subject line.

Examples of Dental Membership Plans

There are a few ways to approach creating a membership plan or to revive it in your practice.

If you’re part of our Advanced Membership Master Network, we provide a lot of done for you examples and templates that you can just simply change the name on and run with.

However, if you really want to get into the nuts and bolts of this, and you want to do it yourself, the best thing to look at is examples around you of things that you already subscribe to or clubs that you’ve already personally joined. 

Costco is a great example. Think of anything that you subscribe to where there are levels, tiers or upgrades. Another really good one is phone companies. They are really good at selling their services in terms of what the monthly payment looks like (not the total amount or slashing prices on an iPhone).

When you compare all the benefits of your dental membership program to a phone or a cable bill, often, the membership plan is the same cost, or even less. 

Even if it’s more, you can really make a compelling argument that it’s still much more valuable, because with a phone or with a cable bill, once you stop paying, all of that service goes away and that phone will be quickly outdated. However, with a membership plan your patients become members rather than patients.

By simply taking these ideas, putting them into a word doc or a Google doc, and then sending them off to a designer to put something nice together and build it, give it some color, and enhance the style.

Before you know it, you’ll be off to the races. Study the most popular services that dental insurance does not cover and can really set you apart and help you stand out in the crowd. 

Have a great month. 

The Membership Income Crossover

Savings Plan vs Membership Plan

This month we are talking about an important distinction, which is, should you offer a membership plan or should you offer an in-office savings plan to your patients? While they may sound similar on the surface? There are some very important and different distinctions. 

Recently I read an article and it was talking about Costco versus Sam’s club. (Costco has been discussed before in Advanced Membership Mastery.) Sam’s club has about a hundred more stores in the US than Costco, but Costco’s revenue is more than double Sam’s club. There are some things that Costco does exceptionally well, but the important thing to remember is that as a Costco member, you have an annual membership, not an annual savings plan.

If you use verbiage in your practice that makes dentistry sound expensive, or not worth it, or, if your team says things like, “well, it’s going to cost this much” or, “well, this isn’t covered by your insurance” or even “this isn’t covered by your savings plan,” then you’re going to groom your patients to think that way.

So the question I want you to consider in your practice is that you have three options that we call the membership income crossover. The membership income crossover is when you get to the point where two thirds or more of your practice revenue is coming from your patients, not from insurance.

This can include both insured and non-insured patients, but 66% or more of your collections revenues needs to come from your patients. This can include credit cards, patient financing, FSA, HSA, checks, and cash (including self-pay and co-pays).

These can be non-covered services and these can be membership exclusive services. When you hit the membership income crossover, that means at least two thirds of your practice revenue is coming from these sources rather than insurance.

The magic lies in the power that it gives you, with a lot of freedom and a lot of confidence to really master and make decisions for the future of your practice.

So what are the three questions that I alluded to earlier? Here they are:

  1. Would you rather do more for fewer patients?
  2. Would you rather do less for more patients?
  3. Would you rather scale and do more for more patients? 

Option one, doing more for fewer patients, would be what some people would call a boutique practice or a comprehensive practice. This is where you’re not trying to appeal to everybody, but you’re getting more production, more collections, more treatment provided for fewer patients. This can be a great model if you’re a single doctor and your goal is to not get on the insurance bandwagon or discount all of your treatment. If you feel that you’re just running and running and running and continually doing more for less. Especially right now while we’re fighting off inflation and the rising cost of doing business. 

If you go down that insurance path (which I’m not saying is right or wrong, it just depends) you just have to know the nature of the beast. You will have to continue to do more for less. So you have to be incredibly efficient, incredibly lean, and you can’t kid yourself into being the high end, best quality, best relationship practice. You won’t be spending more time with your patients in creating a 10 minute comprehensive evaluation (or longer) with your patients.

Option two would be less for more patients. That would be where you were spending your time with patients for just a few minutes. You’re likely going to be personally doing a ton of crowns, fillings and emergency treatment and lots of insurance with PPO and/or HMO plans to grow. Just like Maslow’s 4 levels of learning, you need to be “consciously competent” to make this model work for you. 

Not right or wrong, just what it is, but this is where your aim has to be quantity over highest quality. At Pinecrest Practice Growth, we would never recommend you do less than standard clinical treatment, but at the same time, you’re not going to be able to provide top shelf treatment and still create a profit with this model.

That being said, there are some strategies you can implement, such as implementing HITECH fees that you can charge your patients for ethically and legally, and that are in their best interests (for more on that you can read more on previous newsletters or on our podcast, The Practice X-Factor, where we’ve talked about that…

For full access to these tools and tips, join the Advanced Membership Mastery Network today.

If you identify with these principles you may be a good candidate…

  • The ache to achieve a truly independent practice.
  • The drive to move the needle in your practice to something truly great.
  • The pull to do something that really matters.
  • The longing to move people in your community to join you.
  • The desire to heal the crippled smiles, comfort the “uninsured”, set the record straight about what insurance is and what it isn’t
  • The thirst to make big leaps in growth.
  • The aspiration to leave a practice legacy…whether you’re 32 or 68.


You cannot even fathom why some folks are content to just “do what their insurance covers”. But their lack of information, benefits or understanding isn’t their fault. It’s how the “big boys” talk to their HR department at work. Your preoccupation is in this calling you have to transform your practice, reform the way and why patients want to see you, be a catalyst of change for the health and benefit of your patients, your team and your community.

Do YOU know, deep down, that YOU are a mover and a shaker, a driven clinician and business owner, a trailblazer, an honest, integral, doctor of doing what is right (not what you are told to do by insurance companies)? If not, ignore this message and move on with the rest of your day. If the answer is yes…I’m talking to you. 

Visit https://yourpracticegrowth.com/amm to learn more

Bowl Games & Memberships

Welcome to another episode of the practice X Factor. I think we just hit episode number 30, which is pretty exciting. And I hope you’re off to a great new year. If you haven’t planned out your new year and set your goals and got with your team and identified your membership goals and new patient goals and collections goals for the year, there’s no time like the present. If you need some help with that you can shoot us an email or reach out to us at the office, we have some resources available that can help you plan for a great year. And also, there’s a whole bunch of free resources on our website, yourpracticegrowth.com.

So I want to share a little bit about an experience I had recently and I was able to go to the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day. And it was a lot of fun. I Went down there with my dad and brother and took my son and we did a quick road trip down to Pasadena. We’re big Utah Utes football fans. So we were excited to have our team playing in the Rose Bowl against Ohio State. And it was a great game. Heartbreaking that we lost the last few seconds of the game but I think it was the second most watched bowl game this year when I was looking at some reports. So really exciting game with two great teams, a lot of fun, and definitely something that I would do again

Even though my son who was 13, he was kind of bummed to miss out on some New Year’s Eve parties with friends and family and things we knew this would be a once in a life experience and something that if you haven’t done, I recommend you definitely check out a bowl game or championship game, if you have a team that you follow. Because it’s a very powerful and fun experience. You know, and as I was there, I was kind of thinking about how much emotional energy is zapped by something like an event like this. I mean, we were standing up probably 75% of the game, you know, yelling, shouting for our team, lots of plays that were, you know, stressful, and we’re all anxious to see if our team scores or, you know, catches an interception, all those kinds of things. And, you know, I thought about it, because we were and we got some food and things and it almost felt like we didn’t even eat because, you know, you’re just so hyped up, and anxious. I think it kind of boosts your metabolism or something where you can eat. My son was like, you know, they had this big bucket of cookies you can buy. It was like 20 bucks for 36 cookies. And my son is like “Dad, we gotta try that.” And they looked really good. So we split it between a few of us. And I told him, I said, Man, if our health insurance knew we bought this, they’re gonna drop us for reckless driving of our medical health,

And, you know, I just thought about the, you know, the physical exertion, the emotional exertion, the mental exertion, you’re out there and it’s kind of hot for a few hours, and then it gets cold and you’re putting jackets on that the lengths you go to beat an outdoor event, even though Pasadena is a pretty temperate climate overall. Compared to Utah, where I live, you know, you got to prepare for these things. And there’s a lot that goes into that. So the lesson that you can apply to your practice, especially to creating membership plans for your patients, options that are alternate to insurance, and often better.

You know, for us when we have patients who sign up for membership plans, the advantage is, there’s no billing, there’s no third party administration, and there’s no limitations. There’s no deductible, there’s no waiting period. There’s no compromise of the options you offer your patients. You know, sometimes patients can feel like their options are limited because of what dental insurance will cover.

You’re probably well aware that dental insurance really isn’t true insurance. You know, dental insurance is almost like a prepaid benefit or, you know, almost like kind of like a health savings or flex spending works where there’s some dollars set aside for dental care, but the disadvantages, you know, there are a lot of things that, as you probably know, are not covered or not covered completely in patients are misled. You know, I had a discussion with a great longtime patient this week because she’s, you know, going on to Medicare and changing our plan and things and you know, she’s being very misled by what The representative at the insurance companies telling her because she needs things like gum maintenance and fluoride, and she’s got old crowns and bridges to replace.

And they’re telling her these percentages that you and I both know are not accurate, because when it comes down to it, they’re gonna cap out at a certain dollar amount. What they’re telling her is preventative is not, you know, because she’s on periodontal maintenance and other things. So those are the kind of things that we really have to think about when we create a membership plan and how you can really make it better.

And most of all, being obsessed with the experience you provide for your patients. So when you look at great businesses, great practices, they become very obsessed about the experience they provide for their customers or patients, and how they’re treated. And everything that happens a tizzy what happens before the visit, during the visit after the visit? Not just the dentistry. And when we’re in the chair and have our heads down, it can be very difficult to see the big picture of what’s going on around us. And then we could sit back and wonder, Well, why is the hygiene schedule falling apart, we’re all the new patients, while our collections went off the charts last month, and this month, a little bit slow. I was looking at some things this week in my own office and noticed a couple patterns in some of the things that our hygiene schedule was, you know how it was evolving. And fortunately, you know, because I have an associate, and I’ve set the schedule to have some days where I can plan and work on the practice not in it, which is something I highly recommend. But because of that it allows me to adapt and improve the care we offer our patients and really think about their experience. So you know, when you go to a sporting event, you buy a ticket to get in. So we paid pretty good money, you know, to get a Rose Bowl ticket per ticket, easily a few $100. But that ticket doesn’t include your food and drinks and souvenirs and anything else you may want to buy inside. You know, when you go inside of a game or a theme park, the food’s not cheap, relatively for what you get, you know, but they have a captive audience. They’re really good, making the food smell good and look attractive. And like I said, even if it’s a bucket of chocolate chip cookies, it’s made to look really attractive. So that you want it now.

Now, when patients can be misled with dental insurance if they think because they have insurance, it’s gonna entitle them to all those other things they want: implants, crowns, whitening, veneers, you know. And a lot of people are really misinformed on that. And so when you when you craft your membership plans, and you put those together, think about how you can improve that, you know, when I was thinking about at the Rose Bowl specifically, you know, if they would have offered me some type of VIP meal voucher that I could have purchased in advance, that maybe would offer you know, some kind of price you pay up front and then maybe you get you know, a meal and drinks and you know, souvenir cup or whatever they may offer, I probably would have gone for it. Not necessarily because I’m, you know, a coupon shopper, I don’t really, you know, do that kind of thing. I personally think it’s a waste of my time. But, you know, I do like and appreciate convenience, and simplicity when, you know, you go somewhere and they say hey, if you buy this package, it contains everything you need, and it’s gonna get you there. You know, and maybe for a one time football game, you wouldn’t have something like a season pass or a membership. But you know, a VIP pass or a game they pass that provided you with, you know, a commemorative t-shirt and a drink and an entree or something. You know, I bet they would have sold a lot of those.

I mean, I saw so much gear that fans were wearing on both sides, not knowing if their team was going to win. Buying that, you know before during after the game, and I’m always amazed, you know, a couple companies that come to mind. Costco, you know, I think they have the best membership model of any retail company. If you know, if you haven’t listened to it, you go back to a couple other recent podcasts we talked about but you know Amazon is obviously the 800 pound gorilla when it comes to volume of retail sales. But when you look at profit per employee, and the profit margin, Costco blows Amazon and Target and Walmart out of water.

So, with your dental practice, you know if your practice in a city or town where there’s competition, which, you know, it’s no secret, that there’s almost nowhere there isn’t now, thanks to social media and the Internet, we all know all the good places to live. So if you live in a place that’s fun to live, there’s probably some competition. And the truth is, I don’t think that other dental practices are even our biggest competition, our biggest competition is indifference putting off care, lack of urgency, being confused, you know, looking at the family budget, we’ve got a vacation coming up, we’ve got to get new tires on the car, we’ve got to get contacts or LASIK, you’re competing against all those things, that’s your true competition.

And, you know, what Costco does really well is they sell their memberships up front, which is really just admittance, inside the building, you know, it admits you to go inside, they’re selling air, essentially. And then you go in, and you see all these great products, you know, their warranties, excellent, you can return almost anything.

Whereas when you buy things on, you know, sites like Amazon, you can still buy some really cheap quality things. Costco is generally known for a little higher quality, and higher profit. And so, you know, unless you want to be Amazon, which means you’re the biggest, largest practice in your city or your state, you may want to look more at the Costco model, which is, how can we be really profitable, and deliver incredible value to our members. And that’s a much more sustainable model for most of us, because we’re small businesses.

Disney is another one, Disney, you know, they’ve kind of changed this from my understanding. But over the past 10 years or so, up until the pandemic hit, my family had gone to Disneyland once or twice a year. Now, the visits have been a little less frequent, because of park closures and things. But Disney always had an annual pass, and annual pass holders get discounts on dining and souvenirs and those kinds of things. And we weren’t actually Annual Pass holders, we didn’t consider it even though we lived out of state, you know, if you go I think, two or three times a year you breakeven on what was their annual pass and but you know, those kinds of things provide ongoing value for their customers and members.

So it’s not just a, hey, buy this and get in the park, it’s by this, you’ll get in the park unlimited to some capacity, and then some and so with your membership plans, think about things you can offer on an unlimited basis, and you have to excuse me, I’m kind of fighting through a cold here, home from the office today. So anyway, you know, when you look at how they do things, you can think about how could you offer something, your own practice that maybe have extra value to your patients.

That is different from insurance, because you really should think about your membership as apples and oranges don’t try to be like insurance, sound life insurance, smell like insurance, or you’re going to be compared to insurance. And that might be a battle that you lose. But if you offer something like, you know, unlimited emergency exams, on your membership plan, you know, that can be up to one per month, or that can be completely unlimited. That’s something that no dental insurance on the planet offers.

And it might be very valuable to your patients, you know, that alone might be enough of a proposition for them to say, hey, you know what, this sounds pretty cool, then I don’t have to feel like I can’t go to the dentist or I’m going to have a big bill every time I walk in. It provides the patient with some peace of mind and security, so that they can come see you. You know, obviously the other services and charges are extra. But you know, that’s just one example of something you could offer in your practice.

So what might your patients be looking for or asking for? To really reach and give value to their unspoken needs that they have? You know, you can look at things like whitening, you can look at things like office visits, you can look at things like implants, clear braces, sedation.

Those are some things that we commonly incorporate to our membership plans because that allows for you to, you know, be an apples and oranges comparison, right? Some implants are now covered by dental insurance. But you know as well as I do when a patient comes in, and they need three or four, six or full mouth implants, that’s not something that’s going to be covered by dental insurance. And when you can build some savings into your plan, and I’m not suggesting, or even recommending that you give those things away for free, you have to, you know, protect your bottom line and make sure you’re making a profit.

So knowing the numbers is important. As you know, the famous marketing legend Dan Kennedy said marketing is half psychology and half math. So when you are putting together a membership plan, that’s a form of internal marketing, and even external marketing doesn’t mean it’s salesy, or pushy, or, you know, a big billboard, saying, Look at me, it simply means you’re seeing who’s interested in raising their hand. And you have to know the math, and you have to know the psychology behind your patient.

Aside from those two, what you offer matters much less than knowing your patient. And we use, you know, a free app called Survey Monkey. There are others like it that I recommend, we’ve been doing this for many years. We will text or email patient surveys, and ask about their experience in their visit. And I would recommend you do paper surveys as well. Some people prefer paper surveys, obviously, they take a little more work to distribute.

But when you do paper surveys were nearly 90% or higher completion rate of people who fill those out. So we will actually give our patients a survey that’s pre stamped with envelopes, they go home and fill it out. They don’t have to look for a stamp by a stamp, send it back to you.

Most practice owners won’t do this because they think well, stamps are too expensive, or nobody’s gonna fill that out, or how’s that going to help me. But I’m telling you, right now, when you get those surveys back, and you read through them, and have someone in your office, enter those data sets into a spreadsheet, or, like we do, they enter right into Survey Monkey.

And then there’s a separate one for the link that we share with our patients to fill out in Survey Monkey. And, you know, I think we actually had to upgrade Survey Monkey because they give you, I think, a few 100 or a 1000 Free surveys. And then when you get to a certain point, you have to use the paid feature, but it’s well worth the press, because that’s a database of what our patients want.

So your patient demographic is different from mine. And it’s different from your friends. So when your friend says you should do this, or do that, you always have to take it with a grain of salt. And think about, you know, your top 50, top 20, top 100 patients, who they are, what they do on the weekends, what makes them tick, what kind of work they do, what their lifestyle is, like, what their family size is like. And that’s when you craft your membership plans accordingly.

So be careful of, you know, companies who are telling you to set up this membership plan and you just do a blanket discount on everything. And to me that is very vanilla. That’s a very easy way. But it’s also a less effective way of building loyalty with your patients, right. Because if you just do that your patients may hop back into insurance, you know, or they may go to another practice offering the same thing. So you have to really customize and personalize your membership. And it doesn’t have to be hard. You know, we started out with this seven or eight years ago, and it was pretty bare bones. But it started to gain momentum and people saw value in it. And people who had been cash patients for years now had a loyalty program that helped them stay as patients in the office. It helped them have a great experience.

And our renewal rate is incredibly high for those I have. I don’t have the numbers in front of me. But the renewal rate on patients who you know, don’t move away or pass away, or maybe change jobs where now their job offers insurance. These are people who a lot of my patients are retired or they’re self employed. And so you know, they’re not offered dental insurance, our renewal rate is 80 to 90%. On the majority of our membership plans and when you look at you know dental insurance people bounce around that year after year after year and That’s where, you know, you have to be careful of what insurance plans you take, especially if you’re, you know, not a drill-fill-bill office that is high volume. You know, because that can really eat away your profit margins. And, you know, your patient might get a new plan, and you don’t accept that plan, but you just kind of sit down and explain to them, “Hey, look, we can still work with your insurance, here’s how…” whether you accept the benefit or not, and remind them that, you know, in 12 months, they’re probably going to get another plan and for your patient to transfer dentists usually cost more than the out of pocket from being out of network or not having their insurance.

So what I mean is, you know, you know, as well as I do that if a patient goes to 10 different offices, they’re going to get 10 different treatment plans. And that’s not because, you know, dentistry is not on board with what’s right for our patients. It’s because we all have different services we offer, we all have different personalities, we all have different ways of treatment planning. And as long as you’re giving patients options, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with different treatment plans in different offices.

But when a patient bounces from office A to B to C, over a few years, if they had to have any work redone, if they had something to slip between the cracks, and now it turned into a root canal when it could have been a crown or filling that caused the patient a lot more. And that’s where you know, your renewal rate on memberships is a number you should know and measure and really look at because if the renewal rates low, if you have a lot of people who are doing a membership for one year in your practice, and then next year, they’re off to back to insurance or they’re out talking to their insurance agent looking for a plan. That means your plan probably didn’t meet their needs.

And so we do have, you know, a little brochure we typed up in our practice, and I would recommend you do the same. And if you’d like a copy, you can email me at twilliams@yourpracticegrowth.com. I’d be happy to share the template with you. But it’s essentially a guy that made our patients that explained the difference between traditional dental insurance and membership plans. And you’re welcome to use that. Or you can make your own. And that’s something I would have on hand so that your patients can really know what that means. And you can preempt or intercept their questions about well, “I better wait on these implants because I’m getting insurance next year.” And, you know, “HR told me that they’ll cover it,” we know that’s not true, at least not in the sense of what the patient has in mind. So I hope this has been helpful. You know, I always am seeing examples in real life of membership plans. And you know, when you own a practice or you own a business, it’s a great lesson to go and be a customer or prospect, other businesses, other events. And so I would encourage you this week as you go shop places online in person, other health care facilities, where you interact, take some notes on things that you see and hear and people want.

Another good place is if you go to your local grocery store, and pull out some magazines, yes, those paper printed magazines, you can look through things anywhere from AARP. If you have patients, you know, in that age range, you know Better Homes and Gardens Health magazine. You think about your patient demographic and what types of media they read, what type of social media channels they’re on, and what’s appealing to them. And you can really use that to reverse craft new and better benefits to your membership plan.

So thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on iTunes. If you didn’t enjoy this episode, please leave us a review on iTunes.

We’d love to hear your feedback and mention a couple resources. So if you want more information, please reach out. I love helping my peeps grow their membership plans and take your practice to the next level.

Hope you have a great 2022 And we’ll see you on the next episode.

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