Membership Plans: Innovation at its Simplest

Seize the opportunity to offer your patients what no other dentist offers

Specialize. Find something to set yourself apart. Look at your local competitors and ask yourself what’s missing. Is the nearest dentist who places implants 20 miles away? Maybe you should invest in the training you need to start placing them yourself.

Are most neighboring practices closed on weekends? Try closing on Mondays and working on Saturdays.

The Pitfalls of Dental Insurance

Insurance presents a lot of opportunity to offer your patients something new because the “benefits” of having insurance are pretty poor, treatment is often not covered and even when it is, the cost to the patient is still significant… especially when weighed against their annual premiums.

Patients don’t like dental insurance any better than we do, but it’s still widely seen as their only option for affordable, quality dental care. The third parties haven’t exactly set the bar high.

What if you could provide a service to your patients that reduced or entirely eliminated the need for insurance? That could certainly set you apart. And what if you could provide the same services for the same price but you kept 100% of the revenue ?

QDP has pioneered an in-house prepaid savings plan which can be extremely helpful in this process. It offers tremendous value to existing patients that, in turn, will encourage them to mention your practice and the plan to their friends, neighbors and associates.

Reaching a New Segment of Patients

Small businesses across the nation are struggling to retain good employees by offering employee benefit packages. Dental coverage is one of the most common benefits included in these packages. But is it worth the cost?

As you most likely already know, dental insurance premiums for small businesses can vary greatly depending on the number of employees, their ages, the company profile and the type of coverage provided. Most of these insurance plans require that the employee pay upwards of 20% of the total fee due for each office visit, and exclude many common treatments.

Although this is a great system for the insurance companies, this structure doesn’t work out well for the local family or small business owner on a tight budget. It also creates a major financial disincentive for the insured patient to seek quality dental care. Worst of all, the provider is left with the added administrative expense and hassle of dealing with the insurance company’s low fee schedules, paperwork and collection issues.

Maximizing the Benefits of Innovation in Your Practice

On the other hand, when your practice offers a prepaid savings plan, you can customize your annual enrollment fee and your menu of benefits to best meet your patients’ needs. You can offer enrollment to individuals, families and even small business owners. In fact, the cost for business owners to purchase a prepaid savings program in your practice for their employees will likely be less than half what they would spend on group dental insurance, while providing a much higher value benefit to the employees.

In addition, patients now have a major incentive to come into your office for an initial visit, oral exam, cleaning and other dental services, since they’re all included in their prepaid annual enrollment fee. By marketing your plans to local business owners, you could potentially attract hundreds of new patients to your practice, without having to make hundreds of individual sales.