The Second Half of the Story

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.