by Sponsored Content: Membersy
In today’s ever-evolving landscape of dental care, offering a dental membership plan has become a popular choice for dental practices aiming to make treatment more accessible to their patients. However, a crucial question often arises: Should you self-administer your plan or delegate the responsibility to an experienced third-party administrator?
With over a decade of experience, Membersy has worked with many DSOs that have internally administered in-house membership plans and have seen common trends as to where internally administered plans often fall short, or cause operational inefficiencies at both the practice and DSO level. Today we’ll dive deeper into some of those challenges.
Managing Members
In the best-case scenario of an in-house membership plan, you may be able to track members via your practice management system or another technology tool, but it may fall short or not be intuitive to staff if you’re tracking in a system that isn’t dedicated to member management. Member management methods vary widely across DSOs, often relying on spreadsheets or even paper, making it challenging to manage a membership plan across multiple offices.
By partnering with the right organization, you can say goodbye to the spreadsheets and inefficient management tools. Your DSO will have access to a membership dashboard that simplifies eligibility checks and member enrollments. Streamlined enrollment, whether done in-office by your team or by patients themselves, saves time and keeps your data organized. Members will also be able to access their own online dashboard, reducing the time your office spends on phone inquiries regarding their membership plan details and benefits.
Collecting Payments
With an in-house plan you might have an online payment system, or maybe just the ability to collect payment during appointments in the office. Having a strong process for collecting subscription payments and managing members is often one of the biggest hurdles facing in-house plans to best assure member retention and loyalty.
One of the biggest benefits of setting up a membership plan for your DSO is the ability to manage payments as a recurring annual subscription. Consumers today are accustomed to recurring subscriptions and a dental membership plan is no different. The technology should allow for auto-renewals to be turned on at the time of payment so they’ll be set up to keep coming back to your office to get the most out of their annual plan.
Tracking Plan Performance
Without proper tracking, it’s challenging to determine whether your plan contributes to your practice’s success, how different locations are performing with enrollments, or what member retention looks like. For many in-house plans, effective performance tracking can be a hurdle.
With a trusted partner, having a dedicated, all-in-one platform provides real-time insights into enrollments and renewals across all your locations, making it easy to filter and analyze trends. Data literacy is key to optimizing plan performance, and between you and your dedicated account manager, there will always be eyes on your plan’s performance ensuring your plan is on the right track.
Marketing Your Plan
Self-administered plans require organizations to handle all aspects of plan communication and awareness, from creating print materials to executing email and SMS campaigns throughout the lifecycle of a member. This DIY approach can be time-consuming and potentially ineffective or disjointed across all of your locations.
Leveraging the expertise of a plan administrator, like Membersy, streamlines the marketing process and takes the burden off of your DSO. Automated emails throughout a member’s lifecycle, in-office print materials, an online website, and SMS campaigns are just a few of the ways an experienced plan administrator can not only increase plan enrollment but also enhance patient loyalty, contributing to your plan’s overall success.
Remaining Compliant
Compliance is a multifaceted challenge that requires staying up-to-date with evolving laws and regulations. Self-administering a dental membership plan means taking on the responsibility of monitoring and adapting to these changes, which can be overwhelming alongside the day-to-day operations of a dental practice.
A good administration partner should have a deep understanding of compliance requirements; they stay vigilant and adjust their processes as needed to ensure practices remain in good standing with regulatory bodies. With Membersy, practices can rest assured that their membership plans are compliant, reducing the risk of legal complications.
What’s the right call?
The decision to self-administer or partner with an experienced organization, like Membersy, for your dental membership plan is a critical one. And, if any of these challenges rang true with your organization, it might be time to look for a trusted partner to take your membership plan to the next level. With Membersy’s proven track record, innovative technology, and dedicated support, over 5,000 practices have entrusted their membership plans to us. We know what works and are here to support you every step of the way.
If you’re ready to explore what a membership plan could look like for your organization, visit membersy.com or schedule a demo today:
