How Dental Membership Plans Create a Better Patient Experience

How Dental Membership Plans Create a Better Patient Experience

On the surface, a dentist’s most important role is to safeguard and improve the health of each patient’s teeth. But of course, there is another element to the practice: business. Although you are certainly striving to do your best dental work, you know you need to be focused on patient satisfaction. We recently discussed three keys to patient satisfaction. But today, we’re going to get more specific on the topic! Here’s how dental membership plans create a better patient experience.

Dental membership plans remove financial stress.

How often do your patients leave the checkout desk with a broad grin on their face? Probably not too frequently. Money is a major stressor for just about everyone. Even if your patient loved everything else about their visit, that gut punch to the wallet is going to sour things.

But, you also need to get paid. There’s no way around that! So, what’s the solution?

Dental membership plans. Here’s why:

They eliminate the need for insurance. This is a financial boon for your patients because insurance premiums are called that for a reason. They are designed to make you pay a premium. And in the case of dental insurance, most people end up paying more in premiums than the value of the services they received. Yes, that means that dental insurance plans cost most patients more money than they need to. Dental membership plans have the patient pay out of pocket for the full treatment. But they actually save members money altogether.

They remove the element of surprise. Instead of getting a higher-than-expected total at checkout or, perhaps worse, a surprise bill in the mail, your patients will have paid for their visit—whether annually or in small chunks month to month. The financial details are separated from treatment details. By the time they enter your office, it has long been taken care of.

And indeed, that brings us to our next point.

Dental membership plans help you to optimize the in-office process.

Since they put your patients on a payment subscription plan, dental membership plans create a world where your patient doesn’t need to worry about money during their visit.

When patients aren’t as focused on a forthcoming bill, they are more likely to remember all of the questions they wanted to ask. They’ll be zeroed in on their teeth—and that helps you and your hygienists do your best job, too.

This also means that each visit will be quicker. They’ll wait less because the member before them will have gone quicker, and they themselves will be out the door right when they’re ready to go, since they don’t have to stop at checkout and fuss over insurance details.

Broad smile, no gut punch, better patient experience.

Dental membership plans encourage better long-term oral health.

And that is certainly good for the patient experience.

When patients are subscribed to a membership plan, they are simultaneously saving money and staying proactive with cleanings. As a result, they are more likely to value the results of a restorative procedure. Not to mention, you could offer a discount for members on certain procedures.

We know we don’t have to tell you this, but oral health is important. Poor oral health has been linked to chronic diseases like Alzheimer’s, diabetes and heart conditions. It also impacts speech abilities in children, can influence employment decisions, and has other hefty implications.

So yeah, we’d say giving your patients the means to pursue better oral health is a big deal!

Here is your summarized hot take:

Dental membership plans create a better patient experience by reducing financial stress, making visits quicker and more productive, and encouraging restorative treatments.

To learn more about how DentalHQ makes the dental membership plan process even more fluid than it inherently is, get in touch with us at hq@dentalhq.com.

If you want to spend some more time reading, we’d recommend checking out another of our posts: How to Build Patient Loyalty in Just 1 Walk-In Dental Visit

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