The list is long and unfortunately distinguished. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time we don’t like dealing with dental insurance plans and their reps either. But we are the only major consulting company that teaches dentists and their teams to keep them, because we know and teach how to be profitable with them.
Please allow me to tell each of you who these teachers of “dump dental plans” really are:
1. They are individuals who have likely never read a PPO contract, cover to cover, in their entire lives. That would require a lot of effort and investigative work. They remind me of news journalists who would rather emphasize misinformation. These consultants “teach” off the ideas of others who don’t know a darn thing about PPO contracts, instead of doing their own research and teaching on facts.
Well, my friends, here’s a simple fact: I take 28 PPO plans and I’m very profitable with all of them. In fact, I’ve been profitable with them since 1991, when the regional manager of BCBS taught me how. I’m almost as profitable on them as I am my FFS patients. When I run practice analysis reports on other practices, prior to them taking our training, I often find I’m more profitable on many procedures with my PPO patients than they are with their FFS patients. Are you starting to see this picture more clearly? I’ve been teaching dental teams, since 2006, how to be profitable on their PPO plans. I’ve taught them about the content of their PPO contracts and have shown them where they can be profitable with them – ethically, legally, and morally, just like any prudent business owner would and should be.
2. They are individuals who have likely never read the ADA CDT Code Book cover to cover, and comprehended it. Instead, they have relied on interpretation of the ADA’s CDT Code Book from “other” people. What could possibly go wrong with that? I promise you’ve been writing-off charges that you didn’t have to. Many of these “other” people never took a PPO plan in their entire practicing career. Other “others” have just been following the insurance reps dictates for interpretation of the CDT Codes. That’s just plain stupid right there. These “so-called” consultants are giving advice on coding with PPO Plans when they themselves are not “masters” of the codes. Yet a large percentage of dentists and their teams fall prey to these people every year.
3. They are individuals who have more than likely never read state laws governing dental insurance contracts, and how those laws apply to billing PPO contracted patients. Let me take it one more step: they never even knew there were state laws that govern the actions of PPO contracts, and how they could bill their patients more fairly for the services they provide with those laws. This is very troubling to me as your colleague. What’s worse is when consultants interpret state laws incorrectly. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dealt with that problem.
4. They are individuals who have more than likely never acquired a business degree. They tend to be people who love dramatic tag-lines instead, like “dump your dental insurance.” I have seen so many good dentists follow advice from consultants who say, “dump all your dental plans,” only to lose everything. I’ve seen the tag line of “dump your dental plans” change to “dump your worst dental plans” and then to “slowly remove dental plans until you’ve become a complete fee-for-service dentist.” Although this ideology has worked in some areas of the nation, it hardly works for dentists in states inundated with PPO plans.
All four of the characteristics I’ve just talked about are NOT found here with My Practice My Business (MPMB).
We here at MPMB read, study, digest, and dream about the PPO contracts we, and our clients, take every day. This is precisely why we were able to battle the major dental insurance players and win with our new Utah dental law, “The Dental Leasing, Down-coding, and Bundling Protections Law.” This is the most powerful dental law that I’ve seen to date. I’m absolutely dumbfounded why it is taking other state dental associations so long to copy it and get it passed in their own states. Or one better, seeing other states improve on our law with their own. How awesome would that be?
We also study the CDT Code Book from our beloved ADA here at MPMB. You might like to know that we are currently battling the ADA to change certain verbiage in the CDT Code Book. The ADA considers “bundling of procedures” to be potentially fraudulent. Yet, they are promoting “bundling” in certain segments of their CDT Code Book. Unbelievable. Many of the books providing so-called interpretations of the CDT Code Book are often written by a ghost writer, or contain some lay-person’s interpretation of what the codes mean. Too often they are flat out wrong. Docs, trust your own interpretations and instincts. Stick with the ADA’s CDT Companion Book. It’s way more accurate. (Yes, I did just promote something from the ADA…don’t pass out on me.)
I have rarely found a Doc who even knew they had state laws that governed, or limited, dental plans from allowing us to be paid fairly for the services we provide. How does this happen? Why are these laws not being taught at every dental convention? I believe the dental association leaders don’t want to “rock the boat” out of fear of the insurance players. And, from simple observation, they don’t know the practical application of the laws they see passed in their own states. That’s not the case with us here at MPMB. We help pass state laws and teach our clients, and non-clients, how to apply the law.
If you keep allowing people to teach you the same antiquated, status-quo, non-business nonsense, you will continue to get the same results you’ve always gotten. You will continue to complain about PPO Plans, their lack of reimbursement, the lack of wage increases for you and your team, schedule cramming, costs of supplies, costs of labs, back aches, neck aches, butt aches, and everything else. Dental teams who train with us have only one complaint, and it’s the same complaint we have heard from our clients for years, and it goes like this: “why didn’t I train with MPMB sooner?” It’s ok. We love earning the trust of our clients. The old saying, “when the student is ready, the teacher appears,” has real meaning to us here at MPMB.
I want to finish with my thoughts on an article I read in one of dentistry’s leading publications (a publication that I’m losing respect for as time goes on.) The article is titled, “Freedom! 4 steps to reduce insurance dependence.” It’s very similar to so many articles we have seen over the years.
Step one was to evaluate your practice. It went into a long list of things to look at. It was suggested to eliminate plans that reimburse poorly. Honestly, they all reimburse poorly. Right? That’s why consultants and thought leaders answer with “drop the plans.” But when you have MPMB training on the points we’ve already talked about, it becomes a non-issue. We teach our clients to keep PPO plans. Why? Because you can be profitable on most procedures with nearly all dental plans. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s just factual truth. Again, it’s a business thing, not an emotional, dental consultant talking point, “drop the plans” thing. The name of our company, “My Practice, My Business’ and the name of our training, “The Clinical Business of Dentistry,” come from our business focus. Our instructors have real business and dental degrees, as well as real-world dental experience with PPO plans, dental coding, and state law.
Step two was to decide which plans to drop. It mentions you will lose patients and to drop dental plans gradually. Once again, there are very few PPO plans that have absolutely terrible reimbursements. Don’t sign up for those few PPO plans to begin with. It’s that simple. Keep your plans and train with us. For those of you who trained with us years ago, take the refresher training to sharpen your skills. You’d be surprised by what’s new and how many other ideas you will pick up on to increase net revenues. At MPMB, we are constantly learning and improving on what we do. The status-quo does not exist in our company, and neither should it in any dental office.
Step three was to “drop them.” The article went into patient attrition and how to mitigate it. Delta Dental is notorious for immediately sending out letters to their clients, who used to see you as their dental provider until you dropped them. They immediately give their clients all the Delta Dental Providers that are near your office. The article suggests you get ahead of this by telling your patients why you are dropping their dental insurance, but they can still come to you even though you are out-of-network. News alert: you will lose the large majority of those insured patients to other providers, and I do mean the large majority. Why? Because they will not come to you when they can see your neighbor dentist who takes their plan and it’s 40 percent less than you are going to charge them. It’s just simple economics, no matter how wonderful you are.
And now for my favorite, step four in the article, which was: “Mitigate the damage.” Well, I have to hand it to the author, at least he’s being honest. If you are in a moderate to heavily engaged PPO area of the country, you will experience damage to your practice in the form of lost gross revenue. Most dental practices who drop their PPO plans find themselves quickly signing back up due to major reductions in production. They beg their dental insurance reps to reinstate them as a provider, while trying to stay afloat.
We here at MPMB know dental insurance contracts, we know state laws, we know CDT codes, and our team is made up of individuals who have real business and dental degrees from accredited institutions. In addition, we have real-world experience with insurance companies, and help pass state laws that protect dentists and the patients they serve.
Offices who train with us do not dump their dental plans and lose their patients. They don’t hire people to negotiate new, or ongoing, PPO contract reimbursements, because we teach them how to do it in-office. It’s easy to do, and it’s better to retain control. They learn these skills, and so much more, in our MPMB Clinical Business of Dentistry Office Manager/Front Office Training. What’s more, they become more profitable with our training than any other dental consulting/training they have tried. Those are their words, not ours.
Is there a better way to increase net revenue with the need-based dentistry you do every day that doesn’t dropping dental insurance plans? Absolutely! At my practice, we’ve had the answer since 1991. And MPMB has been training practices with these same business skills since 2006. Why didn’t we start training offices sooner? I first thought that everyone knew what I knew. Then, when I tried teaching what I knew, I got shot down by nearly everyone. Then two bad economic downturns brought people out of the “cracks” and they began asking me to teach them what I tried to teach them back in the 90’s. Like I said, “when the student is ready, the teacher appears.” Many of you are feeling the pain of seeing your personal incomes, and the incomes of your team, steadily drop over the years. Please, let us help you, like we have so many others. Stop listening to people who tell you the DSO world is so much better, because it is not. You owe it to yourself to call, and stop losing money each and every month that could be going to new equipment, office upgrades, your wages, bonusing your team, your retirement plan, and so many other things we need as small business owners.
Contact us here at MPMB and learn to work with PPO Insurances, learn to be profitable with them, and learn business skills, with your entire team, that will reclaim forgotten profitability in your dental practice. Best of all, our trainings are guaranteed! Meaning, if you don’t increase in net revenue off of very specific codes you currently had no idea you could charge for, that we teach you about, we don’t make a thing. You pay us $199 per month for My Dental Docs, which is our amazing patent-pending case presentation application which we teach you on, which our clients absolutely love. Then 20% of a very specific trackable increase up to our total tuition amount, and that’s it! We do not make our total tuition unless you make well over $150,000. In other words, we don’t get paid unless you produce it. We call it dental consulting the way it should be. In addition, we teach you and your dental team how to simplify your jobs so that you can enjoy life.
Great leaders don’t resist or fear change, they embrace it, or even initiate it. Be that dental leader, and make that call to us here at MPMB. I promise you it will be the best business decision you make in your dental career. We look forward to serving you and your team in the wonderful world of dentistry.