We’re Pleased to Announce the Marriage of July & August Marketing Tips
By now, you’ve probably noticed (we just did) that July has come and gone, and August is upon us. Here at Practice Cafe, it has been a busy summer... There have been weddings, and we have team members with babies on the way. First homes have been closed on, and much-deserved vacations have been taken. Along with this happiness and excitement have also come challenges and hard times. We’ve experienced illness and sickness of family members, and we understand the continuing strain of the economy. We feel it in our personal lives, and we see it in the lives and businesses of those we love.
So, what’s our point? Our point is something we all know: life happens as time marches on, with the good, the hard, and everything in between. Abraham Lincoln said, “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” He also said, “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.” At Practice Cafe, we believe that amidst hard things in our businesses, our personal lives, our country, and in the world, there is much to be happy about and there’s a lot of success still to be achieved.
We’re Happy to Live in a Free Country!
Times are tough for many Americans, but we’d like to take a moment to look back at all of the hard work and innovation that built our nation, to be thankful for the freedoms that we enjoy, and to look forward to the amazing things we have yet to accomplish. Whether you celebrated the 4th of July with family, friends, or fireworks (or all three), we hope you had a chance to take this moment, too. The Declaration of Independence didn’t arise from the conviction of just one man, or five, or even the roughly 50 members of the Congressional Committee. It was, and continues to be, the thread that connects us to our history, to our future, and to one another. We’ll wave our sparklers for that!
How Can You Achieve More Freedom in Your Dental Practice?
Accepting insurance is an excellent way to grow a start-up dental practice. In some areas, the potential patient demographic might be such that the acceptance of dental insurance is a necessity just to keep a practice alive. This is something to evaluate on a case by case basis, and we always recommend catering to the needs and wants of the demographic in your area. However, if you’d like more freedom from your dependence on dental insurance companies, we suggest making sure that your decision to break free from the preferred provider pack is a well-studied and well-planned one.
Study your financial books and take inventory of your patient base to determine which PPOs you can (and maybe even should) drop. Apart from a few exceptions, we wouldn’t recommend that our clients stop accepting insurance altogether. Trimming your insurance list, though, could boost the fee-for-service side of your practice. In addition to increasing cash flow and decreasing the amount of paperwork and dealings with insurance companies, this could also start bringing in more of the kind of patients you want.
Plan to update your service offerings to accommodate for the decrease in your PPO participation. The truth is, people in need of a teeth cleaning and routine checkup are very likely to stick pretty closely to their insurance’s preferred provider list. The more specialized the treatment, the more likely people are to seek out your expertise and pay for the service you provide that your competitors do not. Orthodontic services, dental implants, and other complex restorative and cosmetic cases are probably your best bets – albeit more so in a better economy.
Research your options for helping patients afford your services. Just because a patient or patient’s family can afford to pay for dental treatment in its entirety doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t rather do it in installments. Monthly payments can help patients fit the costs of dental care into their budgets more comfortably. If you don’t currently offer flexible financing – either in-house or through a third party provider such as CareCredit® or ChaseHealthCareAdvance® – consider incorporating a system of payment plan options that works well for both you and your patient base. Even if people don’t choose to finance, they’ll appreciate having options at your office. Especially in such an uncertain economy.
Plan according to your area’s demographic. The patient demographic of a FFS dental practice is generally very different from that of a PPO-heavy practice. Being an in-network provider is an appealing benefit to families, young professionals, and other people looking for “bread-and-butter” dental services. When you’re planning to market a practice that will be heavily FFS, your message will resonate better with older patients who not only tend to need more extensive dental work but who are also more likely to have more money, as well as other patients in higher income brackets who tend to have more disposable income for elective procedures. If you don’t have enough of these types of patients and potential patients in your area, then you should probably plan for a different kind of practice, or plan to move to a different area.
We’re Happy to Help You Succeed
It’s back-to-school time, so we’ve been getting direct mail pieces ready for printing and mailing preparations. Drops that hit homes a few weeks after school starts have a good chance for success, and then the latter half of September is a great time for mailings. There’s still time to get a direct mailer ready for a September drop, so give us a call! We’d be happy to help you and your practice grow and succeed.
Like Abe said, your resolution to succeed is more important than you may think, so be resolute! Be resolute enough to stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone. Whether that means starting marketing when you never have, or adding a supplemental postcard to your already consistent mailing campaign, don’t fall behind... Stay up to date with your competition in as many ways as you can – in your service offerings, your patient amenities, and your dental service offerings. Speaking of freedom, staying competitive will probably give you more professional freedom than you thought possible.
September Marks One Year of Dixie’s Tips!
The month of September will mark the year anniversary of Dixie’s marketing tips, so check back next month for a special to commemorate the occasion. We’ll probably change things up a bit after that, so we’ll keep you posted. Until then, enjoy the end of your summer!