Virtual Dental Office
  • Home
  • About
  • Services
    • Claims
    • Benefits
    • Insurance Payments
  • Pricing
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Employment

Insurance is Part of the Patient Experience

2/23/2015

2 Comments

 
Dental insurance
Every once in a while something happens that really validates what you are doing.  This happened recently when a friend, Suzy told me a story about a couple of experiences she had with her dental practice.

Shortly after the first of the year, Suzy went for her dental hygiene appointment.  Her insurance carrier had just changed and she had planned on checking to see if her current dentist was covered under the new plan, but she got busy and forgot.  As soon as Suzy walked up to the front desk for her appointment, she realized that she forgot to check on the benefits of her new insurance.  She asked Mary at the front desk if the dentist was in-network for the new insurance policy.  Mary responded that she didn't know, but didn't offer to call her insurance company to find out.

Suzy said her first reaction was to leave and reschedule for another day after she checked her insurance benefits.  She said she didn’t want to be stuck paying for the full amount if her insurance didn’t cover this dentist.  Suzy said that Mary asked someone else in the practice if they were aware of this insurance, and then she asked the dentist.  Mary finally said to Suzy, “Yeah, I think you should be fine.”  Suzy stayed for the appointment, but she said was uneasy about it.  She was laying in the chair thinking of her financial situation and how she hadn’t planned on paying for this appointment. 

A few days later Suzy brought her two kids to the same dental practice for their 6-month appointment.  As they were leaving Mary asked Suzy, “Does your insurance have a co-pay?”  Suzy hadn’t really look into the details of her insurance, since at her last visit Mary said she thought she would be fine.  Suzy said to me, “I was a little shocked that they would ask me about my insurance, aren’t they supposed to know?!”

Patients have an expectation that the dental office is going to know what their plan covers.  When the bill comes back higher than the patient expects, it is the dental practice that they are going to be unhappy with, not the insurance company or themselves.  Right or wrong, is not the issue.  The question is how can we, as dental office team members, continually exceed our patient’s expectations?

2 Comments

Every Patient Touchpoint Matters

2/4/2015

0 Comments

 
Dental Confirmation Calls
A common business statistic shows that getting a new customer costs five times more than retaining a new one.  Yet most dental practices put more effort into getting new patients, than working on their continuing care list.

This list is a potential gold mine and should be treated as such.  These are the patients that have been to your practice and more likely than not, with some minor encouragement, will come back.  You just have to ask them!  Unfortunately, in a busy office, this is one of the practice building activities that fall off the list of priorities.

I have seen this happen in practice after practice, which is why when I started Virtual Dental Office I wanted to offer confirmation calls as a service.  It seemed like a perfect solution for dental practices that didn’t have the manpower to attend to the continuing care list.  I have since rethought that decision, and although we have seen a lot of success in getting patients scheduled, I have decided to discontinue that service.  Not because it isn’t important, because it is!  We stopped doing them because I don’t believe it is in the best interest of the patient or practice to outsource it.

Continuing care calls are a patient touch-point that should be used as a way to build the relationship.  This is a perfect opportunity for someone from your dental office to talk directly with the patient.  When a question comes up during the call there is someone from the practice on the line that knows them, their family, and their history. 

So for an office that just doesn’t have time to do these calls, what are they to do?  I am advising my clients to look at what else they can delegate that is behind the scenes.  Let someone else take on things like marketing, insurance, compliance and coding/billing.  This will free up time for your team to focus on the patients, including continuing care calls.

While it is always hard to turn away business, I believe that by focusing our services on dental insurance benefits and aging claims, we are able to help our clients provide the best patient experience. 

0 Comments
    We'd love to share with you our latest insights to help you manage your dental practice. 

    Our  email newsletter will be a welcomed addition to your inbox. Sign up now!

    Archives

    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013

    Categories

    All
    Client Communications
    Client Relationship Building
    Continuing Education
    Creating Value
    Dental Front Office
    Dental Insurance
    Dental Office Employees
    Dental Office Human Resources
    Dental Office Manager
    Dental Office Training
    Dental Practice Growth
    Dental Practice Software
    Dental Team Training
    HIPAA Compliance
    Insurance Training
    Patient Communications
    Patient Relationship Building
    Practice Expenses
    Productivity
    Secondary Insurance
    Virtual Assistant

    RSS Feed

If you’re trying to do it all yourself, you are missing your potential!   
Contact us to learn how we can help reach your full practice potential.

CLICK HERE to schedule your complimentary 15 minute consultation
​
317-991-1740​ -  jenniferschultz@extradent.com
Picture
  • Home
  • About
  • Services
    • Claims
    • Benefits
    • Insurance Payments
  • Pricing
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Employment