If you work with dental insurance every day, not much surprises you. You are well-versed in dental insurance terminology, codes, how claims are submitted and paid, and what to do if one gets rejected. Patients assume you will handle everything related to their dental insurance. Unfortunately, there is one thing that patients don’t know about their insurance, but you’ve seen it time and time again, and now it’s time that you start telling your patients the truth! So, what is that one thing that you should tell your patients about their insurance?
Here it is…..their insurance company doesn’t care about them!
Wow! We said it. It might seem hard to tell your patients (or remind them) of this fact, but they need to know the truth. While every patient perceives information differently, you may not state it the same way in every case, but you should let patients know that you (your practice) are who really cares about them, not the insurance company. However you word it, the fact remains that dental insurance companies do everything they can to get out of paying for services. They hope patients don’t go to the dentist!
Here is an interesting yet disturbing fact about how insurance companies operate. In 2020, Cigna’s CEO, David Cordani, made nearly $79 million, which includes his salary, bonuses, stock options, and changes in pension values, according to one source. That’s just for ONE year, and that was in the middle of a pandemic when many people were skipping routine care and non-life-threatening procedures. Cordani’s salary the year before was only a fraction of that at about $13.4 million.
This is where rapport with your patients comes in. If your patients trust you (and your practice), they will disregard letters from the insurance company that state that your office has now become out-of-network. They may be more likely to commit to treatment that their insurance company doesn’t cover because you and your team built a rapport with them, whereas their insurance company leaves them on hold for 45 minutes when they call. Reflect back to one of our latest blogs about 8 Ways to support your hygienists to learn why relationships with patients matter and how you can ensure your hygienists have what they need to make those conversations happen.
It’s great if your patients have insurance, but maybe you are ready to cut ties with these companies and become a fee-for-service practice. It may seem challenging, and you may feel unsure about it at first, but you may discover that you and your patients significantly benefit from cutting ties with insurance companies. If this sounds like something you might be interested in, check out our previous blog about the benefits of an in-house membership plan that you can implement for your patients. You don’t necessarily have to drop all insurance plans at once. Instead, you could drop the ones that pay the least or the ones with the fewest patients. Before you make any drastic changes, though, be sure to have the appropriate conversations with your patients that will be affected. It’s always about building rapport, and you (not insurance companies) are in the right seat to do just that with patients.
Bryant Consultants is a family-owned consulting firm that can help dental practices reach their full potential and more! If you would like to learn more or schedule a complimentary one-hour consultation, please get in touch with Bryant Consultants by calling (877) 768-4799. We provide consultation, training, and coaching virtually or in person. To ensure that you receive the latest updates, please follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
