by Sponsored Content: Kleer
The coverage options patients use to access care is foundational to practice success. It determines everything important to you – from patient visits to treatment acceptance and practice profit.
On one hand, coverage plans provide huge benefits since patients with coverage visit 2-3 times more often and accept 2 times more treatment than patients without coverage. On the other hand, coverage plans create huge issues since reimbursements and profits vary by 50% or more depending on the plan used. Since 75% of patients utilize coverage plans to purchase care, it’s imperative to understand how dental plans impact patient behavior and practice performance.
A Weak Coverage Foundation
Unfortunately, most dental practices have a weak foundation. They participate with many PPOs and discount plans that are unprofitable, complicated, and controlled by third parties. These plans get patients in the door but force practices to accept 25-50% discounts, deal with unnecessary hassles, and utilize inferior treatment protocols. They also provide overly complicated terms to patients that are difficult to understand.
Most practices also ignore the needs of their FFS patients. They assume that FFS patients visit regularly, accept treatment, and pay full price. In reality, FFS patients visit once every 2 years, accept less than half the recommended treatment, and receive average “day of treatment” discounts. Why? FFS patients feel exposed when they visit your office. They are worried about price and feel no one is looking after them. They avoid visits and treatment, and your teams are forced to offer discounts to incentivize treatment.
Strengthening Your Coverage Foundation
Forward-thinking DSO leaders are increasingly implementing membership plans to strengthen their practice foundation by reclaiming control from PPOs, improving FFS patient commitment to care, and increasing practice production and profit.
A membership plan puts you in control. You control everything from designing care plans for the specific needs of your patients to determining the annual subscription price and controlling the fee schedule. And your patients get access to affordable, high-quality care without confusing terms, annual maximums, or pre-approvals.
A membership plan is the perfect alternative for unprofitable PPOs. By removing the insurance middleman, you can control care and remove unnecessary costs and hassles for your practice and your patients.
Membership plans are also the perfect solution for improving FFS patient engagement. Membership plan patients visit 2-3 times more often, accept 2 times more treatment, and generate nearly 3 times more collections than FFS patients. A patient’s commitment to an annual subscription creates a commitment to care, and the savings they receive incentivizes treatment acceptance.
Kleer for A Guaranteed Return
Kleer combines an advanced, cloud-based platform with dedicated and personalized support to ensure your group or DSO has everything you need to easily and quickly design, implement, and professionally manage a successful membership plan. Kleer has implemented membership plans at over 300 group and DSO practices and has a team dedicated to your success.
Learn more about improving patient access to care and building a better, more profitable practice by visiting kleer.com/groups.
