Are You Mad Enough Yet to Take Back Your Dental Practice?!?

Could you use more revenue? Sure. Increased Net Profit? Of course. Then, with our guest author, Mr. Rick Willeford, let’s take a journey to take back your practice from the insurance companies.

Are you drowning in PPOs and feel like your practice is running you instead of the other way around?

Do you stress every day about:

• Fighting to control overhead?
• Battling to find/retain—and afford—good staff?
• Feeling ‘busy‘ but not ‘productive’?
• Feeling like you have no choice but to put up with PPOs?
  
  

In short, does your current practice not look anything like what you had dreamed of when you graduated from dental school?!?

Then, let us help you regain control of your practice! Let us help you realize that you have more power than you realize if you are ready to kill the PPO beast!

There are at least three thoughts to wrap your head around if you are committed to making a change.

• Recognize—and be angry about—the fact that the amount of PPO write-offs may be the largest single ‘expense’ in your practice, and that does not even appear in your Profit & Loss report!
  
  

In addition to lost revenues, understand that you bear other ‘costs’: additional administrative staff to handle paperwork, appointment changes, and telephone calls. Also, you often have additional clinical staff and chairs to service low-production appointments.

• Believe that one thing you have that PPOs and DSOs don’t have is the trust of your patients. In fact, your patients probably love you more than you give yourself credit for! (After all, aren’t they already driving past ten or more other dentists to come see you!?!)
  
  

Keep that trust/love in mind to overcome any natural fear you have of losing patients if you drop PPO plans. Most patients are not coming to you because you have Delta or others. They will certainly use Delta if it is available, but they will see you either way! (Frankly, you probably would not mind losing most patients who only come to you because you are in Delta.) Statistically, we find that 80+% of PPO patients will still be with you a year later!

• Understand that the quality of patients/procedures is more important than high volume or a full schedule. High volume keeps you busy but does not make you productive. So, ‘more’ is not necessarily better. Remember, the most important KPI (‘key performance indicator’) is production per patient visit. (Wouldn’t it be great to see just one $5,000 patient in the morning and one in the afternoon!?!)
  
  

In a recent ADA survey, 27% of respondents said they intend to drop PPOs in the coming year. But you know what road is paved with good intentions! Give us a call if you want to move from “intentions” to action!

PS: We use a proprietary PPO Wizard/Analyzer from DentaMetrix to quantify down to the employer/plan level just how much you are leaving on the table!!

Not sure where to start? Contact us today!

Learn More

With its Professional strength and robust analytics, DentaMetrix is a great add-on to retail programs like DI for discerning consultants and sophisticated practice administrators.

DentaMetrix explains the “why” behind the numbers as it helps you track PPO changes, NP enrollment, Retention (to ‘close the back door’), and many other Profit Leaks and Revenue Opportunities.

Let us know if you want to add this tremendous analytic tool to your practice toolbox!

https://dentametrix.com/

About the Author

Raymond F. “Rick” Willeford, MBA, CPA, was a Dental CPA for 40 years—and he also has an Electrical Engineering degree from Georgia Tech! He developed DentaMetrix, a professional strength analytics program used by Parkhurst Consulting to automatically extract the KPIs he discusses. Let us know if you want to dig into any of those KPIs further.