Skip to main content

My Decision to Leave the Dental PPO's

In the fall of 2019, Delta Dental announced that they were going to reduce benefits for all of the patients in my practice with Delta coverage. I decided to make a change. I became a non-restricted provider. 

It was a very scary decision. I had prepped my team that I was considering this change for months. But when the time came, I wasn't sure what the result would be. Would I lose 35% of my patients, would my practice be able to survive? Would I be able to retain my staff? I have great patients and a great staff and want to be able to provide the best dental care with the best staff.

I sent a letter to all of my patients letting them know about my decision, that we still welcomed them in our practice, and letting them know that we were offering an alternative, an in-office membership. I had calculated that the membership was a great value that would cost the patient significantly less and allow us to earn more.

To my surprise, very few patients left, many subscribed to our membership program (mycirrusdental.com), while others kept their Delta coverage and paid at the time of service. My patients were loyal to our practice, not to the insurance company. After terminating our Delta relationship, we had the best year ever and were expanding our office.

Then came COVID-19. We completely closed, except to emergency patients. I analyzed our numbers and things needed to change. Blue Cross, was the remaining insurance company with whom we were a participating provider. We needed more chair time for each patient, we couldn't operate with the same efficiencies as before, and PPE costs were astronomical. Blue Cross was an unsustainable business model for our office. I made the same decision to change to an unrestricted provider with Blue Cross, in the middle of the COVID closure. It was scary!

At this time, we are in the middle of the transition with Blue Cross. I have informed our patients of the change and about our membership program through Cirrus. The initial signs are great and we are having a huge surge in subscriptions to our membership!

I'll be posting more about this transition in the future.

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 administrator. There are many companies offering services and the level of service varies greatly. Some offer dental practices a wo

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