Skip to main content

What is the difference between a dental subscription and a discount dental plan?

Dental offices have different pricing and marketing strategies just like other businesses.

Consider Amazon and Bed Bath and Beyond. When shoppers visit Bed Bath and Beyond, they typically have their 20% off coupon. Amazon does not offer coupons. If you compare the cost of products at Amazon and Bed Bath and Beyond with a coupon they are often the same. Similarly, dental offices create different marketing strategies.

In its simplest form, a dental subscription is a way to smooth out the cost of dental care into a manageable monthly amount.

A discount plan is an incentive to encourage people to join a practice or to join a subscription. Some offices include a discount as part of the subscription. For example, an office may offer to provide hygiene care for $30/month and as an incentive to join this month, offer members of the subscription 15% off any other treatment they receive in the office. 

Is a straight subscription or a subscription with a discount better? It depends. Every business has a required return on their investment, or profit that they require to stay in business. If two businesses require the same return on their investment how can one offer a discount and the other not? One of two things has to happen. Either, the business finds a more efficient way of operating such that they provide a service faster or using less labor or the business changes their fees, similar to Bed Bath and Beyond. 

With Cirrus, dental offices have the option of creating a simple monthly payment, or a monthly payment with a discount on other services.

Dental offices have the relationship with patients and determine what they offer. Cirrus provides the efficient system to allow them to do this. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Investigate Dental Subscription Options - New Learning for the Dental Team

If your dental team is faced with downtime, you might consider having them learn about a new product or service that results in more patients and more income for the office. A dental subscription is a way to create recurring revenue for your office and create loyalty with your patients.  But what type of subscription is right for your office and what should you consider when setting up your subscription program? Who will administer the subscription?              Option 1 : Dental office does everything from designing the plan, crafting legal documents, contacting patients monthly for collections and renewals, maintaining financial records of transactions, maintaining renewal dates. Administering this plan is possible but requires significant startup costs, time and labor to administer.              Option 2 : Contract with a dental membership ad...

Dental PPO’s Will Drive You Out of Business

Dental PPO’s Will Drive You Out of Business Significant changes are underway in the dental marketplace as a result of the novel coronavirus. The ADA Health Policy Institute is forecasting a 2/3 decline in dental spending in the next year. This is coupled with increased costs for PPE and decreased capacity to see patients due to social distancing and new infection control procedures. The economics associated with PPO’s likely mean many of the procedures you perform will cost you more than you will receive in payments. Do you have the ability to set fair rates of reimbursement when you participate with a PPO? How long will you be able to continue practicing when you are losing money on procedures? With many traditional dental insurance companies retaining 40 percent or more of patient premiums, now is the time to consider a new economic model, an in-office subscription. A subscription service allows you to capitalize on the inefficiencies of traditional insurance by increas...

Fat Cat or Lean Machine

As we move forward with continual changes in the dental office, creating new efficiencies is necessary to improve costs for patients and increase profits for dental teams.    Dental insurance has played a critical roll in allowing individuals to seek preventive care over the years for a fixed monthly cost. However, over the years the insurance executives have become “fat cats” often retaining more than half of the premiums patients pay while decreasing the reimbursements to dental offices. The insurance executives advise dental offices to find more efficient ways of operating.   Dental memberships allow a more efficient way to operate, transforming the dental office into a lean machine and eliminating the high overhead associated with traditional insurance. The patient subscribes directly with the dentist, allowing for lower monthly costs while boosting the office income.   A membership program can also help you to escape the PPO trap, by offering your patients an al...