My last two posts explained and justified my recommendation for considering the introduction into your practice of a formal structured plan that will benefit patients who do not have dental insurance. If you agree with my analysis and decide to implement such a plan, here are my suggestions for getting the word out.

• You need to tell EVERY patient every day that your office is now offering this new exciting opportunity–and that includes patients who have dental insurance. Patients with dental insurance have friends, acquaintances, and relatives who do not have insurance. These patients with insurance will spread the word. They become your emissaries and ambassadors. The message and information you are delivering to your patient base has to be concise and clear and obviously all staff members need to be trained on the specifics. There has to be a definite plan as to which staff member delivers the information and when. This has to be carefully orchestrated.

• I recommend a very large sign to be hung on a prominent wall in the reception area. This sign should be professionally designed by a graphic artist. It is an announcement of the plan, but no details. ” No dental insurance–no problem. Ask us about our very own in-house membership plan.”

• I suggest reserving a prominent space on the Home Page of your website to announce the plan. Again–no specific details. “Call us to learn how you can take advantage of our members-only dental plan.” Tracking the calls should be easy because prospective patients are clearly interested  and calling because of their curiosity about your plan.

• Create an e-mail blast to your patient base announcing the new plan. Again–no real details should be provided. You are hoping that your patients will call the practice for information. Most every practice these days uses some kind of program like Patient Activator, Demand Force, Lighthouse, or Smile Reminder that allows you to easily e-mail your patient base. You should also in time consider sending out an electronic newsletter with a greater description and many more details of your in- house dental benefits plan.

• I am more and more impressed with the power of Facebook. But before I would recommend a post on Facebook announcing your plan, I would hope to see you accumulate a minimum of 500 Likes. Ask every patient over the next six months to Like your page from their phone while they are in your office. This is so easy. Once you have reached this “critical mass”, then you should put a few posts on Facebook talking about the benefits of your members only plan.

I have always been a strong advocate for internal marketing= marketing to your existing patient base. There is very little expense to any of these five strategies. The key is to be consistent with the internal promotion and the clarity of the message. As always, I welcome your comments, ideas, and feedback.

In my last blog post, I offered my observations on the disparity between insurance patients and fee-for-service patients regarding their commitment to undertaking comprehensive restorative treatment. I concluded that offering an in-house dental membership plan for your patients without dental insurance would stimulate existing fee-for-service patients to initiate treatment while also attracting new fee for service patients to your practice. Here are the basic parameters of such a plan.

• Patients pay in advance–in full–for a one year membership that includes two prophys, two exams, and a set of BW X-rays. The total cost of those basic services is discounted by about 20% from your published fees. So for example if the normal fee for those services would be $325, these same services are offered at $260.

• While enrolled in the plan, the patient can purchase any dental service that you provide for a discount from your published fees–usually in the range of 15-20%.

The calculation is that even though you are receiving less money from your fee for service patients for these procedures, they will be agreeing to do more of the procedures. In other words, isn’t it better for you to do ten crowns at a fee of $1050/crown rather than two crowns at $1300/crown?  Adopting such a plan does not need to alter your current business relationship with the dental insurance companies you work with. There is nothing “illegal” about offering your own membership plan. However, there are many extremely important details that need to be addressed during set-up to keep it from appearing like insurance and/or a dental discount plan which are regulated by state governments. And as long as the fee that you charge is more than the fee that you receive from Delta Dental, Delta should have no issue with you.

I realize that while it would be possible to do this “on your own”, I am strongly recommending a company called Quality Dental Plan to help you be successful right from the start. Quality Dental Plan was started by Dr. Dan Marut in 2009. The company currently works with over 400 dental practices nationwide. QDP Is more than just an in-house dental plan or dental membership. It’s a complete system for getting patients into your office, accepting treatment, and referring many others. Essentially what QDP does is give you a systematic approach to creating, implementing, and maintaining an in-office patient benefits system. QDP gives you an easy-to-follow recipe and from there, unlimited support along the way from the QDP administrative team.

QDP has been developed and refined since its inception by conducting market research, hiring PR experts, copywriters and designers as well as soliciting feedback from patients, dentists and staff. The best part is that you remain in complete control of all fees and services. There is no third party involved. Once people pay your office for their QDP membership, they will want to use the benefits they paid for, so treatment plan acceptance goes up.

I feel comfortable suggesting that you call Dan and his team at 888-960-1221 or email them at info@QualityDentalPlan.com and get the details yourself. Their fees are extremely modest. The training they offer on how to sell the plan, how to track it with your management software, how to handle renewals, what to say and what not to say, makes the price worth it. Why reinvent the wheel when the wheel already exists?

Next time–in my concluding blog on this topic–I will offer my own ideas on how to successfully market a membership plan.