Episode 769: Hot Tips for Making Dental Memberships Work For You and Your Patients With Paul Lowry

 

Ever wondered what makes a dental membership plan a game-changer? Paul Lowry, the CEO and Founder of Dental Menu goes into great detail on how to make membership plans work for you and your patients.

Should you charge an enrollment fee? What’s the magic number? Find out how to balance costs, retain patients, and even tackle the challenge of fee increases.

Dental Menu is a complete platform that allows dental providers to offer subscription plans directly to their patients.

Practices can now create a 'menu' of services for their patients, allowing the patients to build a plan that suits them.

What does that mean for you? A simple path to more patients on your plans!

Reach out to Kiera

Email Paul: [email protected]
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Transcript:

Kiera Dent (00:00.79)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kira and today I am so excited to welcome Paul Lowry, owner and founder of Dental Menu. If you guys don't know, one of my obsessions are membership plans. And I think it's a great time right now with, you know, it's end of year, patients are the economy, different things. You hear the, like the housing market is very, very stagnant with mortgage rates going up with inflation being in this year. I know the consumer buying is becoming a little less.

 

And I think one of the greatest things we can do is offer membership plans to help people make it easier. So Paul, welcome to the show today. How are you?

 

Paul Lowry (00:36.316)

Good, thanks for having me, Kira.

 

Kiera Dent (00:38.046)

Of course. So Paul and I, we go pretty far back and I love Dental Menu. I think Dental Menu is a very incredible membership program for practices where you make it really easy, but you've done things very differently with Dental Menu, which is why I like you guys a ton. Um, you've been on the podcast a couple of times. If you haven't listened to our other episodes, be sure, be sure to link those for you so you guys can hear other ones. But Paul kind of fill me in on where's Dental Menu, what's kind of going on with the, the

 

I would say the temperature out there with practices, things you're seeing with membership plans. I know that today we're gonna go a little high level for all of you who don't have membership plans in your practice, but then for those of you who do have membership plans in your practice, we're gonna go into some of the pain points that you have and some possible solutions. So Paul, kind of like give us the lay of the land with the membership plan.

 

Paul Lowry (01:21.532)

Yeah, for sure. Well, it's been an exciting cure. We've actually had quite a few offices that are going out of network and everybody always talks about it, but we are seeing that happen more and more, which is really exciting. So a lot of our clients, you know, you can't drop all your insurances at once, but if they are thinking about whittling those down, membership plan can definitely help, you know, with some of those patients, you don't lose them all. But yeah, it is interesting with the economy. Most of our offices have raised their prices on their membership plans this last year.

 

Kiera Dent (01:27.886)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (01:33.483)

Agreed.

 

Kiera Dent (01:42.861)

Yeah.

 

Paul Lowry (01:51.536)

with the inflation and everything that's going on. And so if you guys have a plan, you haven't increased the price, you might wanna think about, you know, increasing that a couple of dollars to keep up with everything.

 

Kiera Dent (02:02.742)

What are you seeing, I mean, obviously across the nation, like an office in Alabama compared to an office in LA are going to be very different price points. But like I was just talking to an office this week actually about the plans and what to increase it to. What are you finding is like a typical, it's like if you're doing this monthly membership plan fee, what is kind of like the range for offices to know? Cause you have hundreds of offices you work with. What are you guys seeing for that that's appropriate?

 

Paul Lowry (02:29.32)

So that's a great question, because on pricing, I like to ask a couple of things. One is, are you profitable? And most of the time, if offices are honest, they're like, I don't know. And then I like to ask, are you more profitable with your plan than you are with your dental insurances that you're in network with? What I see too often, Kira, is I get that question, and they basically want us to say, here's what you should price your plan at. And they throw darts at pricing. Like, if you ask an office, why are you priced at?

 

Kiera Dent (02:37.735)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (02:50.894)

Mm-hmm.

 

Paul Lowry (02:55.944)

25 or 30 or 35, they don't really know. They just kind of picked a price. The office is down the street, or a consultant told us, or we looked something up. What we like to do is a little bit different approach. If you were gonna go in network with an insurance, you'd wanna know what you're gonna be paid, right? So what we like to do is actually look at your fees. So we've got a spreadsheet we can share, but what we recommend is look at your included benefits, your exams, cleanings, x-rays, fluoride.

 

Kiera Dent (03:00.652)

Right.

 

Kiera Dent (03:13.662)

Mm-hmm.

 

Paul Lowry (03:23.76)

Then in another column, you put the UCR fees. And then if you are in network, put your average insurance reimbursements. And then what we, we've got just some formulas built in, but basically you build a reimbursement table for your included benefits. What do you want to be paid for a cleaning? What do you want to be paid for x-rays? Want to be paid for your exams? If your hygienist is $70 an hour, cause you live in Washington state or California, or it's $40 an hour, cause you live in Utah or wherever.

 

you're going to have to build that kind of in. And so if your average reimbursement from insurance is $80, it's nice to kind of have that as a comparison. So as you build the reimbursement table, let's say you want $100 for the cleaning and $30 for x-rays and $30 for an exam. And you times that by them coming in right on time to get those. It's going to kick out a recommended monthly price. And again, we're happy to share a free spreadsheet, even if you don't have to even talk to us. But.

 

Kiera Dent (04:14.578)

Mm-hmm.

 

Paul Lowry (04:19.708)

That's the best way to price your plan is to look at your profitability. Because if you have two offices in Alabama, you could have one that's at capacity and they don't have a lot of room. And they're probably going to price their plan a little bit higher. Maybe they're out of network with insurances anyways. Their pricing could look completely different than the scratch start in Alabama who's just trying to get patients in at all costs. They're taking any patients that they can. They're taking every single insurance. They're in network with every single insurance. So.

 

Kiera Dent (04:31.886)

Good night.

 

Paul Lowry (04:47.932)

To try to compare those two for pricing, that's the wrong approach. What we wanna look at is where are you at with your practice? Where do we need to be profitability? Are you in growth mode? Are you in trying to trim your patients down so that you're maximizing the amount per patient? You're trying to fill more operatories? There's a lot of questions to ask based, that's smarter than just saying, well, you should be at $28 a month.

 

Kiera Dent (05:07.359)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (05:12.75)

No, I agree. And honestly, Paul, this is one reason I recommend you guys so much for membership plans, because you think the numbers first, Paul. Ever since day one that I talked to you, you think about the pain points of the profitability and making sure that it's there. Instead of just putting something into place, I mean, I ask you for the span. I'm still going to come back and ask you for the span. But I love that you have the background of figure out the price point first. And that's something I'm obsessed with.

 

Paul Lowry (05:34.588)

Yeah

 

Kiera Dent (05:40.522)

with numbers, the more I've consulted, the more I talk to practices, the more I realize that people just don't look at the numbers. They do a based on my gut feeling. Like I think 25 feels good, but there's nothing to back that feeling. And then when you're like, I don't even know. To me, I feel like as practice owners, we need to be CEOs of our businesses and know the profitability, know the margins. And then it's also just so you know, from a team member's perspective, that's going to give confidence to your team to confidently ask for this dollar amount.

 

Paul Lowry (05:48.257)

Yeah.

 

Kiera Dent (06:09.258)

Because we know it's backed by being profitable in the practice. So I think that it just, just so you know, like taking the time to do the spreadsheet, which you've already done 90% of the work, all we gotta do is just go enter it and then decide if that feels good to your gut or not. Um, but what is the span? Is it like $15 to $90? Like, what are you seeing as a good, like I have my theory, so I'm just curious of my theories, right? Oh, that's all I want to do. This is my selfish question now.

 

Paul Lowry (06:12.153)

Yeah.

 

Paul Lowry (06:21.465)

Yeah.

 

Paul Lowry (06:30.12)

Sure.

 

Paul Lowry (06:33.58)

Yeah, so I'm going to answer. I'll give you some numbers, but before I do, you already hit on the number one thing that makes a membership plan successful or not is that you, doctor and team understand it and support it, get behind it. We haven't seen any difference in sales from 25 to 27 to 29 to 31. What the problem is, is if you're like real worried about it, you're not sure and your team's not sure and all those things, that affects it a lot more than 31 versus 29.

 

It really does. And so we see anywhere from about 20, 25 to about 32 kind of seems to be the range for a plan where you get the cleaning once every six months. As you remember, Kira too, when we design our plans, there's nothing magical about a six month frequency for cleanings. So a lot of our offices have actually been going to small businesses and proposing like a wellness plan where they do the cleaning once a year. And they're able to get that price point down in that 10 to $12 a head.

 

Kiera Dent (07:03.047)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (07:13.716)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (07:27.778)

Mm-hmm.

 

Paul Lowry (07:32.028)

They're not filling their capacity up because they're not seeing them twice or seeing them once in hygiene because the hygienists are kind of expensive right now. But you're able to offer a wellness plan at 10 bucks a head. You're getting them in there once for the exam cleaning x-rays. You're getting the treatment. And that competes with insurance a lot more because they don't have a plan that's a once a year cleaning. They're really stuck on that six months.

 

Kiera Dent (07:35.155)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (07:54.006)

That's a, that's a fair point. Um, Oh, my on, on the pricing, my theory on the pricing. So, and this is me just asking real questions. Um, dental menu, do you guys have a startup part that they have? So like a $50 registration fee, or is it just a flat monthly fee? Cause I know it's different amongst all of them. Where's Daniel menu at? Cause this is, that will be part one of my theory. So just to clarify for it, cause everyone wants to know.

 

Paul Lowry (07:55.918)

What's your theory? I want to hear your theory on pricing.

 

Paul Lowry (08:20.616)

Yeah.

 

Kiera Dent (08:24.205)

Do you guys recommend charging that registration fee or just doing the flat monthly fee?

 

Paul Lowry (08:28.444)

So you're probably gonna hate on my answers today. So you can charge whatever enrollment fee you want, you can charge with dental menu. We recommend, most our offices are between 25 for the enrollment fee, the one-time fee to $99. And you can waive that enrollment fee as well. So if you have really good long-term patients, you probably don't wanna charge them the enrollment fee because, you know, so you can waive that. But if it's new patients you don't have a history with,

 

Kiera Dent (08:32.075)

This is a real podcast. I like Paul.

 

Kiera Dent (08:45.155)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (08:53.375)

Mm-hmm.

 

Paul Lowry (08:57.66)

then yeah, we usually recommend somewhere in the 25 to $50 range because your hygienist is going to be 50, you know, 60 bucks an hour, 40 bucks an hour. And so it's really nice to collect enough on that first initial visit to pay for your hygienist and pay for that first set of services, as well as you want a little skin in the game for them. We're only seeing Kira. We recommend doing a six month agreement. If you remember our previous conversations, we really like doing a continuity membership plan.

 

Kiera Dent (09:04.716)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (09:14.827)

Sure.

 

Kiera Dent (09:19.574)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (09:24.865)

Right.

 

Paul Lowry (09:24.892)

So you don't sell two cleanings, two exams, a set of x-rays for a year, you sell access to care like a gym membership. They get access to a cleaning every six months, but you don't ever ask them to renew. So we usually recommend doing a six month agreement and then having it go month to month. We're only seeing about a 3% default rate before that six months is due. So three out of 100 patients, they're gonna bounce month three, it is what it is. We all have to deal with that, just build it into your model.

 

Kiera Dent (09:31.054)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (09:40.491)

Mm-hmm.

 

Totally.

 

Kiera Dent (09:52.226)

Sure. Okay. This helps my theory because my theory was, um, like offices that might be on the higher end. Uh, so 39, 45, they were concerned to increase their fee because I do believe that your membership fee should go up a couple of dollars, just like you're going to do a fee increase every single year. But some of these offices are kind of higher, Paul, where they're already at that like tipping point where people will notice it on their credit cards. See, do I really want to keep paying this $40?

 

I'm getting the value of it. And again, I do think a fee for service practice versus a PPO practice could be a little bit different clientele as well. So if you're going out of network and you've been used to PPO, I might recommend maybe a little bit lower price point to convert them over. If you're already fee for service and wanting to enter this in, it could definitely be a higher one. But that was why I was asking because that 35, 45 range is starting to get to be a little bit higher, even with inflation. And so that's where I was wondering about.

 

like for the offices that we were talking to this week, in that higher price point, it was a more, let's add that enrollment fee, because that's gonna offset, it's gonna bump the cost of it without them getting their monthly payment hit. And so it's a one-time enrollment fee, and I think that can help offset too, if you feel like I'm a little higher than I'd like to be, because at the end of the day, what you really want are these patients to continue paying, have them continue coming in, the revenue continues to come, and really it's the retention of the patient is what we're looking for with this.

 

Um, and so that's where I was just curious of what the range was, but noticing that 39, cause we were talking in this office was at 39 and it's like, well, if we tip, we hit the 40, which is close to 50, 39 still feels closer to 30, but we don't really want to go up to 42. Um, so let's just throw that enrollment fee on there. It's going to offset that additional cost. Um, if you look at it over a 12 month period, but then the next piece is going to be, well, what happens when they've gone through their one here and they don't re-enroll cause you don't want them to re-enroll.

 

Paul Lowry (11:25.96)

Thank you.

 

Paul Lowry (11:30.033)

Yeah.

 

Paul Lowry (11:48.464)

Yeah.

 

Kiera Dent (11:48.47)

At that point, you might have to increase fees, but it will at least buy a little bit more time to not need to bump that fee on them. So.

 

Paul Lowry (11:54.624)

You'd have to see like sometimes we have especially the fee for service practices when we go through the pricing exercise and when you end it's like, okay, look, your membership plan is no better deal than them being able to come in and pay whenever they want. So why would you buy the membership plan if your UCR exam cleaning x-rays is, you know, $480 to get it twice a year and your plan's $40 a month. So it's the same price.

 

Kiera Dent (12:07.542)

Totally.

 

Kiera Dent (12:18.7)

Mm-hmm.

 

Paul Lowry (12:20.816)

why would I do that? And so you're not gonna get the retention and stuff on that. So you do have to look at that. The other thing I know we talk a lot about at Curib is to set up those add-on benefits and some of those tiers so that you're not forcing everybody to go to the 45 a month. You know, you could have a cleaning that's once every nine months if you want to and at 30, 35, that's really profitable. But those premier packages, adding some of those ancillary services, patients that are spending 50, 60 bucks a month.

 

Kiera Dent (12:23.65)

correct.

 

Kiera Dent (12:31.622)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (12:42.182)

Mm-hmm.

 

Paul Lowry (12:48.976)

like we've talked about on previous ones, they're getting the rewards, they're getting nitrous and fluoride and Pano and 3D and some of those types of things. And so instead of bumping everybody up, you could introduce that Premier add-on and then focus on bumping as many of them as you can that aren't price sensitive up to that 50 or 60 range, but they're getting additional services.

 

Kiera Dent (12:55.063)

Right.

 

Kiera Dent (13:01.186)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (13:08.982)

Totally. And that's something I honestly love about Dental Menu is that there are those additional pieces to add on. That, I mean, you just think about it. How many people will like, Amazon asks you all the time on the furniture that you know is just junk, like do you want a two year warranty on it? They at least offer, and you know that there are several people like, that desk is not even gonna last you for like two weeks, but they're like, let's get the protection on it. Like it's so cheap, but they're like, let's add it on. And so it's just interesting, like why, why?

 

Paul Lowry (13:23.536)

Yeah.

 

Kiera Dent (13:38.294)

limit patients if they want to add those things on. And I just think that that's a brilliant model that you guys do at your company. And so for those of you who maybe haven't heard about dental menu, like he was saying, you have the bases, but then if they wanna add whitening on and come in at any time they can, if they wanna add on certain things to it, fluoride, nitrous, things that are more like patient comfort, I don't necessarily think fluoride's patient comfort. I think that should just be part of it, but that's my opinion.

 

Paul Lowry (14:05.873)

Yeah.

 

Kiera Dent (14:07.07)

But like the whitening, some elective things like that, definitely add that on. Because I know I.

 

Paul Lowry (14:11.876)

We're seeing a lot of people get into the med spa stuff, the Botox and things like that. You can add those. Cause think how funny like, you know, you're in the chair, it's like, Kira, you look like, you know, maybe you need some Botox. I mean, it's sometimes they don't wanna bring it up. Yeah, I don't know. I need some. So they, when they have it on their plan, you know, on their menu.

 

Kiera Dent (14:14.858)

Yes.

 

Kiera Dent (14:23.806)

I do, I do, Paul. It's called Bro-Tox for boys. Have you heard this yet, Paul? I'm totally interrupting you. Have you heard that Botox for men is called Bro-Tox? Cause it makes me giggle. Exactly like it's part of the Bro-Tox, but agreed with you. It's super awkward to try and tell a patient that. And I love this cause I did see it in a dental office where they literally have a Botox membership plan because Botox you have to hit every three months unless you do that long one.

 

Paul Lowry (14:35.456)

No, I haven't. That's better. That's better marketing. I could use some for sure.

 

Kiera Dent (14:53.494)

The long one's kind of creepy right now, because if you accidentally mess up those eyebrows, you got six months of accidental versus just hopefully three months, so it's a little more dicey. Maybe put it in the TMJ before you guys try the eyebrows, but agreed with you.

 

Paul Lowry (15:03.624)

It's kind of funny.

 

When you can, like some of the guys too, if you're in network with insurances or out of network for that matter, you can create a membership plan that doesn't include the exam cleaning x-rays because you're already billing insurance, but you can have some other membership style plans that maybe it's a nice toothbrush, they get the heads when they come in, they get some mouthwash and they get some rewards and they get some, you know, whatever it is, but you might as well increase that subscription price.

 

Kiera Dent (15:18.19)

Mm-hmm. Totally.

 

Kiera Dent (15:30.902)

Paul, you're so smart. I had not thought about that because we often, this is why I like podcasting with you. Paul is one of the people that I feel thinks completely outside the box. Like they always talk about how can you increase production in your practice? And there's a couple of different ways. One, you increase your fees or you increase the number, like the amount of production. You can lower your overhead to become more profitable or you find a way to increase the transaction per patient that comes through. And again, it's not doing things that are necessary, but like you just made an insurance patient

 

legally become a membership patient. Because we're not doing anything that's for treatment, but for adjunct services that aren't like ADA codes, the Botox, the Med Spa, and now they're coming in for things that aren't even tied to the insurance, which is a way you could make an insurance practice, a fee for service practice, just by promoting some of these additional services. And Botox really is not something that I usually see profitable in practices. It's more, we get Botox for the staff and the team.

 

Like let's be real ladies. We all know if our doctor's doing Botox, that's what it is. And now the latest thing, which I don't know, Paul, if you've heard this, it's the newest one I've heard that hygienists in Arizona can start doing Botox. So if I just realize this is coming. So if there's a way for your team to do this, it's on a membership plan. It's very easy to do Botox takes very few minutes. Great ways to help your patients and just increase even on patients who don't need a membership. Paul, you're so smart. I think that's my like.

 

Paul Lowry (16:40.038)

Yeah, I have heard.

 

Paul Lowry (16:56.04)

Thank you.

 

Kiera Dent (16:56.502)

That's a chicken nugget. We talk chicken nuggets all the time in our company. Um, cause I think about Wendy's and you know how they used to have the five piece chicken nugget, like, and then they switched it down to a four piece chicken nugget, which isn't enough. So then you upgrade to the 10 piece. And I'm like, not only did they save money on reducing it, but they increase the transactions for every person. That's a chicken nugget right there, guys. Get a membership plan for insurance patients legally. You cannot double dip. Don't like, let's not, let's not confuse. Interesting. Okay.

 

Paul Lowry (16:59.068)

Yeah.

 

Paul Lowry (17:09.578)

Yes.

 

Paul Lowry (17:16.764)

Yeah, I like it.

 

Paul Lowry (17:23.153)

Yes.

 

Kiera Dent (17:25.962)

Well, that's top level. Let's go deeper about billing, Paul, because Dental Menu does it very differently than other membership companies. Um, and this is a huge pain point for offices. So let's get into it. Let's talk, uh, billing and how you guys fix that. Cause it's a pain.

 

Paul Lowry (17:33.435)

Yeah.

 

Paul Lowry (17:40.568)

Yeah, sure. Cause that, I mean, that's kind of what happens as doctor, the dental menu concept is, hey, we're going to create this menu of services. Patients are going to be able to consume those. Then you've got your front office, you know, who has to deal with everything. It's like, what did you do to me, doctor? I hate the doctor and I hate Paul.

 

Kiera Dent (17:53.899)

Right.

 

Kiera Dent (17:58.65)

And I will say, I'm just going to speak as a team member real quick. You should learn to love membership plans. And the reason why is because it saves you so much time and you're not having to battle insurance. So for me, a membership plan as a team member, I feel like doctors, like if you even need to go play this to your team, I'm literally an office manager. That's what I was prior to becoming a consultant and I loved membership plans. I don't have to do insurance verification. I want to do all these things and we get paid more for it. And I get to help patients be happier.

 

And they're retained to me, not to the dental insurance. So just realize like become a strong believer of it and whatever we need to do. I just think that they're way better than dental insurance and it benefits your practice and the patients equally. And I love win-wins like that, that are truly win-wins.

 

Paul Lowry (18:41.588)

Sure, yeah definitely. So we have one of the things that we see a lot when people are running a plan and whoever's listening that's running a plan, if you're doing it on your own, what happens with the included benefits exam cleaning x-rays is when a patient comes in, they receive those included benefits. There's a few different variations that we see, but essentially you walk that patient out in your practice management software, they get the exam cleaning x-rays, you're adjusting the collections and sometimes we see collections production.

 

but those show up as zeros on the ledger because there's no revenue to be matched up with that because you've got the revenue coming in, that has to get put somewhere. But again, that exam cleaning x-rays, if your fee for service patient would pay you, if I got an exam cleaning x-ray, it was $300, I'd slide my credit card, that $300 would come in as collections, then you'd put that to offset production. A lot of times with hygienists that are paid on collections production or associate doctors,

 

Kiera Dent (19:09.747)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (19:24.253)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (19:32.949)

Mm-hmm.

 

Paul Lowry (19:37.832)

They're getting a big fat zero recorded for their collections production on those membership plans that screws up a lot of things. The other problem that we see, Kira, is if you're looking to do a transition or a practice valuation, let's say you have 300 membership patients. You're adjusting off 600 cleanings a year, 600 exams, 300 sets of x-rays. It looks like you have a receivable problem because you produced this and then you're only collecting that. Well, what do you think the valuation is going to be based off?

 

Kiera Dent (19:41.07)

Thank you.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (20:02.91)

Right. Yep. It's definitely on collections. Right. Remember production feeds your ego. Collections feeds the family. I'm not going to go for that.

 

Paul Lowry (20:07.568)

I got collections, they don't care what you produced. They don't really care, you know?

 

Paul Lowry (20:14.504)

That's right. So, and then your KPIs or key performance indicators, like let's say you're using dental intelligence or practice by numbers or something like that. You're trying to compare your insurance plans to your membership plans. Well, you're recording a bunch of zeros. You can't even compare those. So when, how much more profitable are you with your membership plan versus your insurance plans? You don't even have the right data to be able to tell. So the analogy I like to use a lot is,

 

Kiera Dent (20:39.463)

Mm-hmm.

 

Paul Lowry (20:42.764)

If you and I decided we want to start an insurance company and we only decided to keep track of premiums, the revenue coming in, and we ignored the expenses, which are usage of benefits, because we're just like, I don't know, it's all fine, we just write everything off to zero. How would you know how profitable you are? Anyone running a business, hey, I'm gonna keep track of revenue, I'm gonna ignore expenses. I'll just write it off and hope that everything's okay.

 

Kiera Dent (21:04.466)

Yeah, Paul, listen. Listen, this is real life. Ask dentists how much they write off of their production all the time. Doctors, I'm talking to you. We all know it. It's fine. And when I have you start tracking that, you're like, what? I wrote off 30 grand? Yes, you wrote that off. Stop it. Pay attention to these things. There's a lot that you're just letting go. And people always ask, Kira, how do you help practices turn around? And I'm like, because I just do these simple things like Paul's talking. And you're like, wow.

 

Paul Lowry (21:17.157)

Yes.

 

Kiera Dent (21:31.298)

We have so much fun. You were already doing it. You just didn't realize you were.

 

Paul Lowry (21:34.616)

Yes. I mean, what do you define as a write-off, Kira?

 

Kiera Dent (21:38.596)

Um, there's lots of different things I define as a write-off, but it could be

 

Paul Lowry (21:41.736)

But I mean, at the core level, a write-off means you didn't collect money for production you did. When you're writing off your included benefits for production you did do, it looks like you didn't do it, and it screws everything up. So there's a couple different ways to run the finances. One is those adjustments off. That's kind of what we call our standard reconciliation. We have a bunch of free education on our website. There's a nine-minute accounting module.

 

Kiera Dent (21:44.534)

Correct. Correct, it's a zero.

 

Kiera Dent (21:52.814)

You didn't do it.

 

Paul Lowry (22:08.964)

It's under dentalmenu.com slash education. You'll see our six modules there. They're all free.

 

Kiera Dent (22:13.274)

Don't worry, Paul Lowry knows how to lure someone in an accounting module that I'm sure everybody's gonna rush to go watch. Let me tell you guys nine minutes to learn how to do this. Go grab the popcorn. I know you hate accounting and we don't want to look at the numbers and we just feel like we're people people. But Paul, I think we should make it like how to make accounting sexy. Like I don't know. Go watch it guys. It's amazing. If you don't know this, go watch it nine minutes you'll be able to learn it. So Paul, I just

 

Paul Lowry (22:32.224)

Yeah, it's not sexy, but...

 

Paul Lowry (22:40.101)

You don't even have to put in your email address or anything. It's completely, we won't know you watched it.

 

Kiera Dent (22:46.702)

But it's so important. Like I know we're kind of making a joke about it because honestly, it's like an accounting module and I'm like, mmm, definitely no Paul. But really, I feel like if you can get educated on this stuff, it makes the membership, like we all understand a membership program makes sense. I think nine out of 10 doctors would agree a membership plan like I want it in my practice. It's the accounting portion that's always been a struggle. And so what do we do? We just ignore it. We put this into place. We don't know if we're profitable. And to me, I just feel like

 

Let's go, let's go be office managers and doctors. You need to know how to run a business. Go watch his nine minute video guys. We're recommending it. Oh, we're gonna increase your Netflix subscriptions over there, accounting module.

 

Paul Lowry (23:22.127)

Yeah. And that's what your team...

 

Paul Lowry (23:26.92)

Totally good. So that's the problem with the team members though, and we really get into it with the office managers, when it makes their ledger a mess, and they hate a good office manager doesn't like adjustments, because she knows like, this doesn't feel right. And so

 

Kiera Dent (23:42.294)

Well, the office shouldn't have a lot of adjustments, Paul. I'll just put that out there. Adjustments, I'm just going to throw it out there, doctors. Adjustments are where you can be in hot water because if you have too many adjustments on your accounts, that's where money can get hidden and it's very, I'm not going to tell you the words on the podcast because I got in trouble one time for doing that on a podcast, but if you can read between the lines of what I'm trying to say here, definitely stop having adjustments on your ledgers if you want to protect your business. Well, legal disclaimer here, Paul.

 

Paul Lowry (24:06.421)

Yes, that's good. The other thing we've seen a few times too, we saw one that we were talking to about their membership plan. They weren't using us, but the doctor was a really nice older doctor. And so he told all his team members like, hey, you know, friends and family, they can have the membership plan and get the free cleanings exams because that's kind of a benefit, right? Well, he had a front desk that was an older grandma that when we

 

Kiera Dent (24:27.544)

Mm-hmm.

 

Paul Lowry (24:34.108)

data, she had all of her grandkids, all of her kids, there's 22 people, I believe, that were on the membership plan that were quote unquote, immediate family, that he was doing for exam. And when you're just adjusting everything off, it's like, how do you know? When do you catch that? It's just an adjustment. It's pretty funny. We, we can have them watch the accounting module, basically what we do, we've got an integration carrier with a lot of the practice management softwares. It's set up similar to

 

Kiera Dent (24:39.681)

Thank you.

 

Kiera Dent (24:45.3)

Oh, great.

 

Kiera Dent (24:50.43)

Right. That is hilarious. My guess is that.

 

Paul Lowry (25:03.228)

where they would have a, we set up an account for them. Those payments go into that account. When you walk a patient out in the Praxmanagement software, the integration sees that, it updates the patient record, and it actually sends a payment from your kind of your holding escrow account to your operating bank account so that you get a deposit and you can match those collections productions up. And so.

 

Kiera Dent (25:25.269)

I love you.

 

Paul Lowry (25:26.716)

It's pretty slick that way. And then the integration also looks at the roster on that insurance plan in your products management software and the roster on dental menu. So that if there's discrepancies, if you forgot to add or remove a patient, we're gonna see that and annoy the heck out of you until you fix it. Well, that's nice as well.

 

Kiera Dent (25:43.05)

Which I think, and like again, we make like this lighthearted because I don't think accounting is fun for anyone. But really truly, I feel like a business and a dental office is a business. Like we're doing services and we are collecting money. Therefore we qualify as a business. The accounting portion and the billing is normally the doctor's number one nightmare, the office manager's number one nightmare. And so it's just learning this and it can make it very easy. Like the devil is in the details of your numbers.

 

Paul Lowry (25:55.28)

Yeah.

 

Kiera Dent (26:10.762)

And so the more we can get educated on this, the better it will be, I think, for everything involved. So yes, I did make a joke of like, you know, I'm going to run, but you really should, you really should go watch that if nothing else and educate yourself because agreed this is where the discrepancies are. And so what do we do? We just zero it out. But then the patient doesn't see the value in it. I want them to see that they just got a $500 cleaning for their $29 a month or a $400 cleaning. Like wherever you're located, you want to show the value of it. And then you want to show that like, yeah, I'm getting a great deal because that is your

 

retention piece, which is ultimately what we're looking for with a membership plan.

 

Paul Lowry (26:44.464)

And again, we talked about this last podcast, but when you move away from selling a discount plan, two exams, two cleanings, a set of x-rays once a year, you move it to where you're more of a Netflix gym membership model. They're paying you every month to have access to whatever, Botox every three months, a cleaning every six months. You're not renewing them. When you run it that way, you want a different accounting piece as well because you're keeping track of the benefit usage. I'll throw this out to you when you run a plan that way. We're seeing on average, Kira,

 

are being late for cleanings by about a month every 13 months, because they come in at six and a half or seven months. So if you have 100 patients, they're paying you $30 a month, that's three grand a month. If you're running it as a continuity program and they come in at every 13 months, they miss that cleaning by a month, you just added three grand to your bottom line, really doing nothing, just by running it a different way. When you sell the two cleanings a year, which a lot of people do,

 

Kiera Dent (27:26.204)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (27:37.288)

Mm-hmm.

 

Paul Lowry (27:41.476)

A lot of people we talk to, they run it that way because they want the singular payment, they want $350 a year, because they want to be able to put it in on the ledger one time and do the adjustment one time. And front desk really likes that because it's easier, but you're leaving money on the table and you also don't have your patients being retained. And I know we talked about that last time, you were saying, oh, I do that same thing. I don't renew at day 366, I renew when I want to go back in. I like that plan.

 

Kiera Dent (27:58.39)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (28:05.934)

Correct. No, it really does. It really is real on that. And as you said that, I just thought, also, why do I want to, as a front desk team member, why do I wanna constantly have to redo the cell? Like, I don't enjoy having to do this cell. And so the easiest thing, I mean, look at the companies who are successful, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu. They're not asking you every like 12 months, hey, it's been a year, would you like to renew with us? They're not doing that.

 

They literally want you to set it and forget it. And so knowing that this is an uncomfortable part of team members, why don't we set it as this continuity plan? Why don't we assume that these patients will be for us for longer than a year? What I think has happened is dental benefits run typically on a 12 month plan. And so I think we have just, you know, as dental team members and dental society have kind of programmed ourselves with like these 12 month plans. Our benefits renew 12 months, we renew 12 months.

 

And this is a different model. It's not following traditional insurance. It's we don't want it to be traditional insurance. We don't, we want to get away from insurance. That's why we're doing this. We're not trying to just replace it. So I really do love Paul, the mindset shift that you bring to the table. Um, I love how you guys think, honestly, you think outside the box all the time. I was like, shoot Botox for your PPO patients. If nothing else do that. It's so smart. Um, but I just think it's a different way to think about it than it is to.

 

you're doing the same thing, but you're not, you're actually getting them to be patients for life instead of transactional ones every single year.

 

Paul Lowry (29:37.084)

Yeah, for sure.

 

Kiera Dent (29:38.918)

Awesome, Paul. So if people want to come work with dental menu, which I recommend you guys all the time, how can they get in touch with you? Because right now, the reason I wanted Paul to get on the podcast is it's end of year. It's time where people have open enrollment. So great time to implement a membership plan in your practice. Cause you can convince your patients to dump that and you have a process in play. Also with just like we said, the, the climate out there of patients of them seeing these pieces and offices really trying to trans transition right now.

 

We know insurance is not paying you a lot. And so we're transitioning to fee for service models. You've got to have a good membership plan in place. And I think Paul, you guys do it so well. You're able to take those patients who don't want to leave their PPO and get them to be membership patients. You're able to get your patients who are wanting to dump it into membership patients. I just think there's so much beauty. So how can they connect with you? Learn more, go watch the accounting video of nothing else, but how can they connect those who want to work with you?

 

Paul Lowry (30:33.68)

Yeah, so anybody on the podcast can just email me directly if they want to. It's just paul at dentalmenu.com. And then again, if you go to dentalmenu.com slash education, there's those modules on the different pieces, the pricing module, there's one on a discount plan versus a membership plan, the accounting, some different things there so you can watch those on the website. You can just schedule a demo and we'll. Meet up with you. I do want to stress too, Kira, that our software is totally white labeled.

 

It's still the practice's plan. You just are gonna have some tools to run it more efficiently, but patients are still charged from your practice. You're not handing us over your fee for service patients. We're totally invisible to the patient. We just wanna help you facilitate a better plan than what you're currently doing.

 

Kiera Dent (31:15.982)

Yeah, which honestly I think is brilliant because sometimes people just think they can do it in house I did and I thought I don't actually need to pay for a membership company But like you just said how much money are you leaving on the table? potentially because we're relying on humans to update and to Redo the cell and if we could just get this automatic and do it one time I think it's just that to me pays for the cost of it. So like Paul said I also think if you are considering this membership plan email Paul

 

and get that spreadsheet he talked about at the beginning to figure out what price point should it be. If you already have a membership plan, use that to make sure it's the right pricing. I think that's a really great resource you guys can do. So I think it's brilliant. And team members, like I said, fall in love with membership plans. Doctors, I get that as a business owner, this makes sense, but truly, Kira Dent coming to you as a dental assistant, as an office manager, as a treatment coordinator, this is how I closed huge cases. People ask me all the time, Kira, how did you get that?

 

huge case swiped like, and we're talking 50, 60, $70,000. I kid you not on those big cases, membership plans went right in with me and it was how I was able to close a ton of cases as a treatment coordinator. So Paul, I appreciate you. I appreciate the, just the inventive way of thinking about dentistry. I feel like you're bringing new life into a profession that hasn't innovated as quickly as I think it could. So I just appreciate how you think outside the box and really make it easy for practices to implement and be successful.

 

Paul Lowry (32:42.94)

Yeah, well thanks so much. You're too kind. That's too many compliments.

 

Kiera Dent (32:46.807)

No, they're all real. So for all of you implement the membership plan. If you haven't done it, if you've been thinking about it, I would say 2024 end of 2023, get that membership plan in place because you better believe I will bet money that the world of dentistry is headed fee for service and different routes. And so if you're behind the times, I would hate for you to get left behind. So put that as your to do your action item, just get it in place. Let's learn to use it rather than it using us. And I think Paul is a great resource. So

 

for all of you listening. Thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental 18 Podcast.