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JdSG's Practice Resource Centre (PRC)
… Gateway to Excellence
| 8. Getting Paid For What You Produce |
You deserve to get paid appropriately for the services you provide patients. Not only do you deserve it, it is critical to the financial health of your practice. Without strong cash flow you are not able to invest in your practice and team, and are constantly worried about meeting your overhead expenses and your family’s personal financial needs.
It is essential that every member of the team, starting with the doctor, be 200% comfortable discussing patients’ financial responsibilities with them. A referred patient has already ‘bought’ before they even walked in the door. They do not need to be sold& hellip; they just need to be educated about the needed treatment, the benefits they will enjoy as a result of having the treatment and any limitations they may experience if they chose not to move forward at this time.
As Dr. Clyde Schultz says, “an educated patient can only say ‘yes’.” When a patient buys into the treatment benefits, money is a non issue. The only issue the patient has is HOW they are going to pay for it, not IF!
Getting Paid is divided into 3 key areas
| A. How to Ask for Money, collect it and still feel comfortable program |
There is only one successful approach to discussing money with patients … to be proactive, positive, totally buy into your services, the benefits the patients will enjoy and the fees being charged. When this happens, for the vast majority of patients, the cost becomes a financial investment in their oral health.
| B. ‘My dental insurance should pay for that … they pay 100% don’t they?’ |
Do you ever wish that dental insurance had never been created? It is so easy to get emotional about the perceived role dental insurance coverage plays in patients treatment acceptance. Educating insurance patients to their financial responsibilities is key to eliminating misconceptions, misunderstanding and increasing treatment acceptance and cash flow.
| C. How to Eliminate your Past Due Accounts program - a program you might not need |
It is important to acknowledge practices not having an account receivables issue; where collection calls have virtually been eliminated, and aged accounts receivable reports show that 99.9% of balances are due from insurance companies. How is this possible? These practices offer patients a choice of Financial Options designed to guarantee full payment. Practices not utilizing this approach find themselves with a problem. $1 on the books for 6 months is worth 49 cents! To solve a ‘we have too much past due money on the books’ requires a practice to take a two step solution. Programs A and B take care of the future and program C takes care of the past.
Focus:
► Designing Financial Agreements for increased cash flow
► Reducing the impact of dental insurance on the bottom line
► Eliminate account receivables as experienced in the past
| Q. |
I would like to implement the Financial Guidelines you recommended in your course, but my doctor is afraid the patients won’t like it. |
| A. |
Remember ‘one can not be all things to all people at all times.’ 95% of your patients who accept the doctor, the team and the services provided will also accept the business practices. If the team members truly believe in what they deliver, then confidence is what the patient is buying and money becomes a non-issue. It sounds as if we have taken a complex issue and reduced it to a pretty basic level; actually that is really the case. |
| Q. |
If all my patients pay as they go, why would I even consider enrolling in a patient financing program and be charged a discount fee? |
| A. |
One of the all-time great questions in practice management which I am asked in my programs. The best scenario happened in October of ‘05 in Melbourne, Australia. A dentist in the audience made the statement that “all my patients pay as they go, I have no money on the books” and his question was “so why would I sign up for a patient financing program and pay a financial institution a fee for a service I don’t need?” By the end of the program, after he had thought about my answer for a couple of hours, he raised his hand and acknowledged that my answer had changed his thinking about this key issue. As my answer is too detailed for this FAQ format, I refer you to Care Credit for more information. |
| Q. |
I am collecting 98% of production and I feel that is pretty good … would you agree? |
| A. |
Well, I would say that everything in life is relative. Over the years I have felt very comfortable espousing a 105% collection rate goal to our clients. It was a figure I was personally able to achieve when I ran the practice, (once I learned how to do it!!) so not only do I know it is achievable, I have letters in our files from clients confirming their success rate at 105+%.
As I said, it is relative, so there are two things you need to do :
- Look at the practice reports and see how much the 2% write off is costing the doctor in actual dollars.
- Analyze the Financial Options being offered patients to see which option(s) are causing the problem.
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| Q. |
Balance on the books after 90 days is 29%, how am I doing? |
| A. |
The guideline I find that most consultants work with, is approximately 17%. However, a key financial figure a practice needs to be most aware of when taking assignment of benefits is, “how much money is owed to the practice by the patients AND insurance companies not just one total figure.”
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