Strategies for Expanding Access to Care

Case acceptance rates have consistently been a challenge in the dental industry, often stemming from patients' concerns about the cost of treatment. In response to this problem, membership plans have emerged as a compelling solution, providing affordable and transparently priced care, particularly for the 76 million+ uninsured Americans nationwide. A dental membership plan aims to reduce episodic dentistry and provide improved oral health outcomes, while also unifying your organization and standardizing discounts.

With a more strategic focus on same-store growth, how can dental groups put an added focus on expanding access to care and retaining existing patients? 

There are so many different ways to attack same-store growth goals, so it often depends on where you’ve identified gaps and opportunities within your own organization. If you have a higher than average patient churn rate, have seen decreasing case acceptance rates, or have a higher than average cash-paying patient base, a dental membership plan can be a great solution for your offices.

A well-designed membership plan can be a great tool to build patient trust and increase treatment acceptance rates. In a recent survey, we found that 88% of members say they’re more likely to stay with their current dentist after joining a membership plan. Combine an increase in loyalty and an increase in treatment acceptance and you’ll be a few steps closer to your same-store growth goals.

Not to mention, a lot of specialty procedures aren’t covered by traditional insurance. Implementing a membership plan that includes specialty services gives you more opportunity to increase services rendered, further expand access to care, and standardize any one-off discounts that may be currently given out by practices.This would include forecasting any unexpected changes to schedules; staff shortages, doctor days/hours, changes in office hours, etc. to ensure you have appointments available to accompany your marketing efforts. Patient Visit Goals What goals are you looking to hit each month? They could be related to new patients, existing patients, ratio of new to existing, etc. From there, reverse engineer how many doctor days/patient slots you have available and what marketing efforts you will need to apply to fill the schedule.

What challenges do you typically see with partners who might be administering their own in-house plan? 

We’ve seen some in-house plans that have been administered extremely well, but more often than not dental groups will face some common challenges of in-house plan administration, and ultimately it comes down to the time and resources needed to truly roll out an effective, long-lived membership plan.

Many in-house plans don’t have a dedicated solution for managing member enrollments, accepting payments, and setting up auto-renewals of the membership plan. On top of the software needed to manage and track members, marketing materials, member support, and plan compliance are all big-ticket and time consuming items that the right plan administrator will take on.

For example, with larger organizations especially, dealing with member support inquiries can be demanding. Our member support team spent 244 days worth of time on the phone helping members last year, taking a significant burden off of our partner practices. The right partner will take care of the tactical aspects of the membership plan so your team can continue to focus on other priorities and initiatives.

How can a DSO measure a membership plan's success?

Dental groups can measure the success of a membership plan through several key metrics. One crucial indicator is retention rates, which can be enhanced through the auto-renewal feature of a membership plan. Higher retention rates demonstrate that patients are remaining loyal to the practice and finding value in the membership plan. Moreover, practices can assess the success of membership plans by tracking the frequency of patient visits for preventative care rather than just emergencies, which helps move the needle away from episodic dentistry. An increase in regular visits and treatment acceptance signifies better access to care and improved oral health outcomes - which is the goal we are all here to achieve together.

Want more insider insights? Check out our latest eBook, featuring expert insights on the top growth strategies of 2024. Learn how to optimize patient experiences, integrate strategic marketing, implement cutting-edge technologies, and more, by downloading it today: