Dental Insurance | Dental Practice Solutions

Boosting Dental Practice Success: Cut Out The PPOs

By: Debbie Seidel-Bittke, RDH, BS

July 12, 2023

In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of cutting out PPOs and highlight the proven effectiveness of the Celebrity Smiles Club Patient Loyalty-rewards program in fostering patient loyalty and practice growth.

The PPO Predicament: For years, dental practices have been forced to navigate the complexities of PPO contracts, which often lead to reduced reimbursement rates and increased administrative burdens. While participating in PPO networks can attract new patients, the financial impact and limited autonomy can undermine the profitability and long-term sustainability of a dental practice.

This has prompted a growing number of dentists to reassess their relationship with PPOs and explore alternative strategies to retain patients while ensuring practice growth.

Cut Out The PPOs

By choosing to cut out PPOs, dentists can regain control over their practice and focus on providing exceptional care without the constraints imposed by insurance providers.

Compelling Reasons Why this Approach is Gaining Popularity:

Enhanced Revenue: Without PPO restrictions.
- Dentists have the freedom to set their fees based on the value they provide.
- This allows for fair and transparent pricing, leading to improved profitability and a sustainable practice.
Streamlined Administrative Efforts.
- PPO contracts often necessitate additional administrative tasks, such as pre-authorizations and claim submissions.
- By eliminating PPOs, dental practices can reduce the administrative burden, freeing up time to concentrate on patient care and practice growth.
Improved Patient Experience.
- Removing PPO limitations will allow dentists to focus on personalized care tailored to the specific needs and preferences of their patients.
- This patient-centered approach fosters trust, satisfaction, and loyalty, which are crucial factors in attracting and retaining patients.

Celebrity Smiles Club Patient Loyalty-Rewards Program

One effective strategy proven to cultivate patient loyalty and encourage returning visits. The Celebrity Smiles Club innovative patient loyalty program offers a range of benefits that are proven to enhance patient satisfaction and practice success:

Exclusive Benefits: The Celebrity Smiles Club provides your dental patients with exclusive perks and rewards, such as discounts on whitening products, and a free whitening pen at pre-scheduled hygiene appointments.
- When patients enroll they understand more clearly what’s expected when they need to “change” an appointment. “Think about this loyalty program to REDUCE CANCELLATIONS!”
- Patient incentives create a sense of appreciation and exclusivity, making patients more likely to choose and recommend your dental practice.
Engaging Patient Communications: With the Celebrity Smiles Club, dental practices can engage patients through regular communications, including newsletters, email updates, and social media interactions. Tell all your patients about this loyalty-patient rewards system you have.
- Effective patient interactions foster a sense of belonging and keep patients informed about the latest advancements in dental care, further strengthening their connection to the practice.
- Celebrity Smiles Club teeth whitening products are exclusive to dental offices. Patients can’t buy on the internet or in retail stores.
New Patient Referrals: Satisfied patients are more likely to refer their friends and family to your dental practice.
- The Celebrity Smiles Club Loyalty Program motivates patients to spread the word about their dental office and generates more new patients to your dental practice.
Data-Driven Decision Making: A patient loyalty-rewards program provides valuable insights into patient behavior, preferences, and treatment history.
- By leveraging this data, dental practices can make informed decisions about their marketing strategies, service offerings, and patient engagement initiatives.

Conclusion.

Dental practices are increasingly recognizing the benefits of cutting out PPOs to regain control, enhance profitability, and provide exceptional patient care. Alongside this strategy, implementing a patient loyalty-rewards program like Celebrity Smiles Club offers a proven pathway to cultivate patient loyalty and keeps patients on your schedule indefinitely.

Celebrity Smiles Club currently offers free patient loyalty resources to you at no-cost.

Grab them here today because they will not be offered free for long.

These resources are immediately available to every dental practice who uses the Celebrity Smiles Club “wholesale” – dental grade teeth whitening products.

Not sure about implementing this?
Click our calendar link and schedule a quick call to learn more.

Creating a Culture of Payment

By: admin

December 4, 2018

I recently had a chance to sit down with the A/R Ninja, Andy Grover Cleveland.

During this short conversation we not only talked about how to create a culture of payment, but we talk about how important it is to bill your patients and call them regularly when they owe you money.

Andy will share why it is important to use a 3rd party to bill and he will let you know when it is best to get a 3rd party involved in collecting money in your dental practice.

Stick to the basic principles:

Outsourcing your dental insurance.

In today’s world dental professionals have a lot more responsibility and therefore outsourcing your dental insurance is very helpful for efficiency.

Empower your team to use their judgement when doing their job.

“Mr. Patient, it will be $599 today, how would you like to take care of that today?” Now the PAY-tient says, “My brother-in-law plays golf with doctor, so I will talk to the doctor about this.”
You must have parameters and stick with the plan.
Payment options must be clear.
Know what the rules are and empower your team to live by the rules.
Doctor, you can’t change the rules and make exceptions.

Pay-tients must pay at the time of service.

Billing and Calling Pay-tients regularly

Communicate routinely when your Pay-tients owe you money.

You can do collections but maybe.
Checkout the Tennessee Backwoods Dentist on youtube to see, are you equipped to do some of these important tasks yourself?

Where do you spend your time daily in the dental office?

There are too many things “to-do” in a given day in the dental office and outsourcing collections, etc., can be very efficient for running a dental practice.

Question: What is the average for accounts receivable (A/R)?

Answer: Debbie and Dental Practice Solutions recommends 98% collections.

Andy mentions that for a start-up, you don’t want a high overhead.

If you have a mature practice, now you can do in-office financing and you may not need to have the high monthly collections.

If your personal finances can weather a higher A/R to allow more patients to make payments (in-house) on high-end services, then a higher A/R may work for your dental practice.

Andy states: “Every time you send a statement to a Pay-tient you are sending a message that you have made a mistake.”

What is the best way to contact a patient who owes you money?

Andy says that it depends upon the individual person. Keep the end in mind and try not to send statements. Try using all the avenues for sending statements; email, paper statement mailed and/or a text message with a link to pay.

Andy also says,
Dentistry is non-recourse.

Recap of the Podcast:

All patients are asked to pay at the time of service.
If patients do not pay at time of service, they will leave with a statement
Work A/R weekly.
Call outstanding A/R Pay-tients to ask, “how is (state the last service, area in their mouth treated), feeling?
If it doesn’t get done, it won’t get done without someone doing it. Hire a service that will get it done.
Focus on your “core competency…for doctor that is clinical dentistry.”

Debbie says:

Understand, has your engine light come on? Is it blinking? If you said Yes, you need to outsource this area.

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