This week we are here to talk about the biggest mistakes Practices make when dealing with Insurance Driven Patients and how to avoid them altogether and fix them for good.
Yes, that’s a bold statement. But, you wouldn’t expect anything less from me, now would you; otherwise you would just be disappointed.
I want to emphasize this week’s Profit Report has major implications – far more significant than you could possibly realize just from reading it. We are talking about the ingrained habits of you, your team, and your patients and the way they view dentistry, accept treatment, and most of all invest in your services.
The profit implication is dramatic.
I routinely see Practices increase their net profit by 30-45% in a matter of months by being more strict and structured with how they accept money, present payment options, and incorporate insurance into the treatment planning process.
This is life changing for all parties involved.
I would encourage you to take this very seriously and really study the profound points I’m about to make. Practice these and prepare your team for the application and implementation of these principles into your patient dialogue and financial flow within your visits.
Finally, you should make special note that on Tuesday May 17th at 8:00pm ET …
I will be presenting my most advanced Insurance Domination Training and System for beating the insurance companies once and for all. This is achieved by profiting, controlling, and capitalizing on the opportunities you have. You can stand out head and shoulders above the competition and kick discount, corporatized dentistry in the face while converting and saving otherwise respectable and worthy patients from the evils of watered down, insufficient, insurance dependent dentistry.
It’s time we took back our proud profession and restored the integrity and prestige of dental care and put the control and influence of treatment back into the hands it belongs in – yours.
Here are biggest mistakes I see every single day in Independent Practices all across our great country… and I’m starting with three because they are big enough and will probably already be more than you can handle…
Treatment Acceptance Destroyer Insurance Mistake #1
Bringing up Insurance throughout the Patient Experience
I could talk all day about this one. Instead, I’m going to keep it very simple. Play patient in your practice and walk through the process from phone call all the way through completion of treatment, not presentation of treatment, completion of it.
And pay attention to how many times You or your Team intentionally or accidentally bring up insurance in some way shape or form. All too often it is brought up before the patient even mentions it.
We have to control the conversation and educate patients on the purpose of insurance and we absolutely can’t be feeding the problem, putting the wrong ideas in their head, and otherwise giving them reasons to bring it up or to object more so than they will already do it anyways.
Monitor this and train your team to talk about optimal care not insurance dentistry.
Treatment Acceptance Destroyer Insurance Mistake #2
Presenting Money tied to Insurance and otherwise giving Patients a way out by using Insurance as an excuse.
This is a very complicated one to write about. I will be talking more about this and actually demonstrating it on my Advanced Insurance Domination Training Session. I’ve also included, woven throughout this special Profit Report, examples of how to avoid this and a variety of ways we put our foot in our mouth.
For Mistake #2, I want to focus specifically on the way money is presented regardless of the type of treatment plan. If you are not asking (or even requiring) Patients to pay in advance of their treatment at the time of scheduling, you are really not running a business you are running a hobby.
When asking for money if you “wait and see what the insurance pays” or you present the fee for the treatment plan and then allow patients to fall into “whatever the insurance is going to cover” you are quite literally placing yourself and your entire production and profitability at the mercy of the insurance company – not even the patient (which is bad enough) but the insurance company.
You can avoid this by placing the focus on the Patient’s responsibility instead of the insurance reimbursement. It is a part of the investment not the entire investment the insurance company is paying you on behalf of the patient not the other way around. The patients are responsible for their treatment plan, you are not and the insurance company is not.
Simple choreography, changing the order of discussion and presentation of the fees and incorporation of the insurance portion will make a dramatic difference. This is about psychology, just as most everything else is in life.
Treatment Acceptance Destroyer Insurance Mistake #3
Tying Benefits to Diagnosis or basing Treatment Planning on Insurance
And last (for today) but certainly not least – the single biggest mistake that Practices make is having any aspect of insurance tied to the treatment plan to begin with. For one thing, its total fraud and illegal to predetermine insurance benefits in order to designate the proposed treatment. If you think I’m joking, you wait until insurance companies really come after Dentists the way they have Physicians and Chiropractors and others. They will. Which is why you must protect yourself now.
If you are checking benefits and then tailor making treatment to match them, you are a time bomb of insurance fraud waiting to happen. In medicine they have laws about this, in Dentistry it’s still primitive and the wild west.
Of course, you should be maximizing reimbursement and that’s fine but you should not be tying treatment planning, diagnosing, or even discussing patients’ decisions based on their insurance.
But, the reason I’m talking about has nothing to do with what’s right or moral or ethical – it has to do with what’s best for the patient.
The only way for you to determine the best treatment for your patients and present comprehensive treatment is to have no idea (as the clinical team and especially the Doctor) what their insurance will cover or what it will not.
Just like we leave the diagnosing and the dentistry up to you, let’s leave the money and the financial arrangements up to the people in the front. You want these two things to stay as far away from each other as possible.
If you are talking insurance in the back or you are basing treatment on it, you are most definitely shooting yourself in the foot, never getting to profitable dentistry, and diminishing the chance for comprehensive cases.
Stop doing this. Separate the clinical decision from the insurance benefits and in addition to doubling your profits you will be conditioning your patients to make smart decisions and helping them get healthy faster. And best of all you’ll be doing more of the dentistry you love.
There are other little things that happen, which aren’t so little at all, but for the sake of this I’m assuming you are being more contentious than this. But, you do have to make sure you are not dealing with insurance over the phone and making it all about their benefits because you never even get a chance to make a good impression and help them to make a decision.
You also do not want to delay finding out about their benefits either. If you are in fact going to bill insurance then you have to be prepared on the visit where you are going to present treatment. Otherwise you are just wasting your time because they will use this as their excuse for delay.
The solution is very easy and you’ll think it is common sense once you hear it. One tiny little thing that will result in tens of thousands of dollars of new otherwise missed, lost, neglected treatment acceptance and collections every single month again and again…
For another time…that’s enough for today.
Next week, I will do the reverse of this and teach, train, and explain exactly how to remove the dependency and combat the inclination of the patient to based their treatment decisions and financial investment on insurance.
You won’t want to miss this.
It’s going to alter your perspective and elevate your optimism and once again put the advantage in your favor against one of the greatest enemies we face in dentistry today.
Until then, reserve your seat for The Dental Insurance Cure on Tuesday May 17th at 8:00pm ET
