Make The Most of Your Patient Communication System:

With the ever increasing use of smart phones, we are experiencing a cultural shift in what is now considered “personalized customer service”. Rather than every patient wanting a phone call, patients today expect to be able to choose HOW they are communicated with. Since
your practice base is likely a mix of Baby Boomers to Millennials, we encourage you to provide a choice of email and text in addition to calls and direct mail. Fortunately, this has been made easier through patient communication systems such as RevenueWell, Lighthouse, Demandforce, Solution Reach, etc. According to our most recent survey, about half of you are now using one of these programs.

But, did you know that beyond the ability to systematize appointment reminders and contact patients when they are due for their next hygiene visit that there are a number of other benefits for both keeping in touch with patients between visits as well as attracting new patients and building your online presence?

Here is a checklist to make sure you are taking advantage of those additional perks:

Collect patient reviews on Google, Yelp, etc. (use post-appointment messages to collect feedback and direct patients to your social sites for reviews).

Feature patient reviews on your website (stream a feed of your reviews chronologically on your website for prospective patients).

Make sure your business information is the same as on your Google listing and website footer/ contact page (name, address, phone number – some services subscribe to a list aggregating service to help build your online presence so you want it to be consistent).

Make sure your important directory links are connected (Google, Yelp, Healthgrades, etc. – again for building your online presence).

Add link for your Patient Portal on your website to bring patients back to your website repeatedly to pay their balance online, request an appointment, etc. (Google likes to see repeat
traffic).

Develop your one-page website for additional online presence (most services offer you microsite which is optimized for search with all of your important office and contact information, as well as another place to see your reviews).

Subscribe to their social media content for ideas to keep your Facebook page fresh and up to date (not available through all services).

Keep in touch with patients after their appointment with post-op information and treatment plan follow up (not available through all services).

Personalize your birthday message with a team photo – or better yet – a video of you wishing them a happy birthday!

Use campaigns to customize messages to promote pertinent services/technology to subgroups of your patient base.

Over the years, as a front desk person, office administrator, Dentrix Trainer, and Consultant, I’ve been involved with over 20 offices with these types of plans.

I think most of you are familiar with these kinds of plans by now. Typically, the patient will pay a fee from $199 to $300 per year, which will include two regular checkups (and x-rays, fluorides, whatever is needed) and 15%-20% off additional treatment.

It’s been my experience that these plans really help encourage patients to return regularly for recall and to go ahead with treatment. We are gathering the data on this now, but it’s not unusual to see practice production per patient increase by 50% or even double for patients on these plans.

It’s sort of a “Costco Effect.” If you have a membership, when you go there, you want to get lots of stuff because it is such a deal. I also think it is a good idea because it is equitable. We give insurance patients a break (in effect) and there is paperwork and lots of hassles involved with that, waiting periods, limitations, exclusions, etc. Why not give patients without the benefit of insurance a benefit?

Moreover, some patients through the MNSure site are coming up with plans that pay very low for us and have many limitations and so are not a good deal. At least you can give the patients in these situations an alternative to buying a plan online that has a very lowfee schedule for you.

These plans are easier to administer than insurance. If you have a plan or are setting up a plan, I can help you line things up so you can track them closely.

We all know that insurance participation (namely PPO participation) affects new patient flow.
Practices with little or no insurance participation generally, not always, get less new patients than practices with more participation. However, is there a point where there are diminishing returns on increased PPO participation? That’s the question we looked into.

Anecdotally, it’s been my experience that practices that participate in almost every PPO available don’t necessarily get that proportionally a greater number of new patients. So, we asked our statistics guy, Anantha Santhanam, to look into our considerable database and sort this out.

As a marker for PPO participation, we use the collection percentage. With increased PPO participation, the collections percentage (gross collections/gross production) is going to be less than for offices with no PPO write offs.

The graph shows that with zero or very little insurance participation new patient numbers are
quite low. However, when you get past mid-range participation (so that the collection percentage is under 80%- 84% in our area), the marginal increase in new patients for the increased write offs fades quickly.

As with all things, balance matters. Balancing PPO participation is just as important as it used to be to have your fees balanced and set wisely. In fact, PPO participation decisions are beginning to trump fee setting as far as importance to your actual reimbursement levels.

Presented by: Shelly Ryan

Friday, November 4th, 8:30 am to 12:30 pm Embassy Suites—Bloomington, MN

NEW SPECIAL SEGMENT

2016 and 2017 CDT Codes: Learn which codes get the best reimbursement and when to use them.

Everyone on your team has to deal with patients, money and insurance. Make sure they know how!

A Must for Your Team – Collections Made Comfortable is coming soon – Friday, November 4th: This seminar is almost always a sellout. Clients get first dibs! So, CALL TODAY to reserve your space. $198 first person and $178 each additional. $20 discount per attendee if registered by September 15th.