Expanding access to care for patients is integral to removing barriers to dental treatment. In fact, the key to group practice performance lies in consistent patient engagement driven by access to dental coverage. Given the limitations, exclusions and nuances of traditional options, group practices often miss an opportunity to offer a simpler, more affordable alternative that removes barriers to dental treatment while creating a more consistent, reliable revenue stream for their business.
The key is to offer a solution that gives patients affordable access to care while increasing group practice performance. Membership plans make necessary preventive and treatment services accessible to uninsured patients and creates a predictable payment model to improve revenue cycle management.
To ensure that your membership plan is sustainable and providing consistent value, dentists and DSOs can leverage these 9 steps to simplify the initiative and position each of their o ffices for measurable success.
1. Personalize care plans on treatment preferences and patient demographics
Getting buy-in for a dental membership plan across multiple practices requires flexibility for each plan to be localized. "Practice localization" is when input is gathered from the team at a practice explaining what plan would ultimately be best for patients. One practice may cater to specific patient demographics, such as younger, working age patients with predominantly hygiene needs, while another may treat mostly older, retired patients with more restorative needs.
It's not only patients that differ between locations, your dentists do too! Every provider has their own philosophy of care. Your membership plan should respect that autonomy while creating broader organizational alignment.
Collaborate across your local teams to determine:
- Which procedures are included as part of the preventative care plan
- How to price the plan, monthly and yearly payment options
- Savings for additional restorative treatment, and specialists if needed
2. Customize fee schedules and subscriptions
The cost of living differs across the country, so your fee schedule and subscription prices should reflect the local economic climate. After all, California is not the same as Connecticut and each location has vastly different demographics, economics, and fees. Customize your membership plan, just like a fee schedule. This is a crucial step, especially if your offices are spread across cities, states, or zip codes with different economic characteristics.
3. Simplify the deployment process
Being a connected enterprise doesn’t mean having tons of tools, it means having the right tools that are ideal for organization-wide alignment and visibility. Often enterprise technology implementations at group practices can be burdensome, costly, and confusing. To simplify the process your solution should consider the following:
- Determine whether you want to roll out your plan by individual office, by region, or all at once
- Ensure you're utilizing a tool — like a cloud-based platform — that can be easily accessed from anywhere and includes:
- Virtual training that can be completed at anytime
- Intuitive interface that supports office team and patient self-service
- Responsive support team that is easily reached
4. Adapt as your group expands
As you add new locations, your membership plan should support expansion, while keeping processes simple and consistent across every practice. The right membership platform makes it easy to keep things running smoothly, from updating plans to enrolling new members and tracking performance.
With smart integrations, patient data flows securely between your membership platform and practice management system. No spreadsheets. No messy workarounds. Just less time spent managing plans and more time focusing on care.
5. Embrace making changes to your plan
Change is good, and it doesn’t have to be difficult. Most dental practices make changes to their membership plans within six to 12 months of launch to apply any learnings and meet the needs of patients and practices.
Change also happens when your practice increases membership-plan pricing. The changes will compound across all the locations in your group, and remember, the bigger you are, the more of a ripple effect. Ensure that your membership plan has the necessary features required to build and manage changes, including version control.
Version control ensures that patients who already purchased your membership plan will stay with that plan until their renewal date. While patients purchasing your plan for the first time will sign up for the new plan.
6. Prepare for patients to change their minds
Your patients live in a digital world and expect you to meet them there. They learn, buy, and book online yet prefer not to fill out written forms. They also could change their minds at any second. After purchasing your membership plan, they may want to move from a monthly payment plan to an annual one. Or they may want to change the credit or debit card they have on file.
When you leverage a membership platform, the purchase experience is similar to consumer subscriptions and can be completed in under two minutes. Patients will gain visibility to review benefits, manage payments, and make changes without taking valuable time away from your team.
7. Standardize and track metrics at the group level
Establish consistent goals across locations before putting a system in place. Then you can track and compare membership enrollments, revenue, cancellation rates, and renewal rates across practices in real time.
In these moments, the right platform brings everything into focus. Local teams can move quickly, while leaders get a clear view of what’s happening and can step in to guide or support when needed.
8. Empower office teams to manage membership plans at the local level
A great dental membership platform is built around patients, but it also makes life easier for office teams. It should give them the tools to confidently run their own plans without leaning on group resources.
Ensure each region and office has a plan champion. This person becomes the go-to expert and point of contact, helping to build a culture where everyone is invested and accountable. Clear, realistic goals, backed by leaders and champions, keep the team focused and enrollment growing.
9. Automate repetitive time consuming tasks
When implemented across multiple practices or the entire organization automated membership plans can power your organization in two key ways:
Consistently meet business objectives
Payment posting, member enrollment, marketing, and renewals — these are all critical pieces of functionality for a high-performing plan. However, they are also time-consuming tasks that could lead to errors, inefficiencies, or deviate from the core focus of providing excellent patient care. Through the power of automation the strongest membership platforms have the ability to help dental organizations free up staff and resources to focus on higher-value work.
Leverage data to make decisions
The value of utilizing an automated solution grows when its core elements not only enhance a practice's ability to decide how patients can access and afford care but also tie those decisions to outcomes. Enhanced automations, integrations, and data collection, coupled with robust reporting helps paint a clear picture of how well your membership is performing compared to other areas of your business. This level of insight gives leaders what they need to make fast and informed decisions.
Become a future-fit dental organization
Becoming future-fit requires a thoughtful and comprehensive approach. A plan for operating, managing, and adjusting your membership plan as the needs of your practice and patients evolve over time.
And we get it. Shifting how your organization delivers care, aligning responsibilities, and coordinating teams — and teams of teams — is a big undertaking.
With a robust infrastructure and proper support, your membership plan can become an annuity for your organization, adding lasting value year after year.
