How to Boost Patient Loyalty, Case Acceptance, and Cash Flow with Membership Plans
Facing the challenge of providing treatment to uninsured or cash-conscious patients (i.e., everyone), Dr. Emily Smith experienced the gap in dental care accessibility. This gap not only threatened the oral health outcomes of her patients but also affected the financial growth of her practice. Many patients were delaying essential dental work due to cost concerns, leading to a decrease in preventative care visits and an increase in long-term dental health issues.
Luckily, Dr. Hart started creating in-house membership plans for her patients using ThriveCloud. By implementing plans tailored to her practice’s needs, she was able to provide an affordable way for patients to access comprehensive dental care while effectively growing her practice’s revenue.
To understand the transformative impact that membership plans can have on your dental practice, let’s dive into the prevalent challenges within the dental industry and how membership plans present a compelling solution:
Create Better Oral Health Outcomes
Unfortunately, dental care is the number 1 health service that even financially-stable adults skip due to cost, according to the Oral Health Campaign at Families USA. 92% of Americans consider holding off on general dental care and 83% consider holding off on emergency care due to cost, per a Synchrony study. This statistic is staggering when you consider the host of devastating complications a lack of dental care can bring. Such as cancer, diabetes, dementia, cardiovascular disease, and so much more.
Luckily, nearly 90% of uninsured adults have stated that they would be open to an affordable payment option that offered predictable and transparent coverage. This is where creating an in-house membership plan can help create a sense of ease in those who are worried about cost. With ThriveCloud’s user-friendly interface, creating a Membership Plan is as easy as clicking a few buttons.
Drive Patient Loyalty to Your Practice
Patient loyalty is one of the many challenges a dental office faces, with most offices acquiring a patient attrition rate of up to 40%. Patients constantly switch from dentist to dentist based on the best special available to them at the time. When cost is at the forefront of their mind, who can blame them considering most offices only offer affordable introductory specials to attract new patients?
But what if your office stood out from the rest and offered an incentive for those patients to stay? Much like a gym membership, a dental membership plan allows you to create convenient and consistent benefits for the subscriber, leading to the phenomenon known as the Membership Club Effect. Not only does this phenomenon foster a greater sense of loyalty amongst existing patients, but it also attracts new patients due to its affordability and transparency. It is also shown that patients who are subscribed to a membership plan visit 2 to 3 times more often and produce twice as much production.
ThriveCloud allows you to fully customize a membership plan to fit the needs of your office and patients with ease.
Boost Your Case Acceptance Rate
Getting a patient to agree to treatment can be an overwhelming task. The unpredictability of insurance and treatment costs can lead to patient concerns about affordability, resulting in hesitance to agree. It is reported that on average, merely 34% of all treatment plans are accepted, with cost being the primary factor. This means that the average dental office stands the chance of doubling and possibly even tripling their revenue by improving their treatment plan acceptance rate.
A patient with a membership plan is 2.3x more likely to accept treatment. This increase in case acceptance is shown across the board in offices who have introduced membership plans. Why would a patient go to another office for treatment if they’re already paying for the discounted services and benefits that come with a membership plan. Consider this; you wouldn’t shop around for expensive gym equipment if you’re already paying for a gym membership. You would simply go to the gym and use their equipment. With ThriveCloud’s Membership Plan feature, you can create a plan that will incentivize patients to consistently choose your practice for all their treatment.
Reduce Reliance on Insurance Carriers
A frustrating statistic shows that although dental industry revenues have increased by 70% over the last two decades, dentist earnings have remained nearly unchanged. Dental insurance companies have led to inflated treatment costs and stagnating reimbursement rates, creating less profit margins for dental practices.
Creating a membership plan can not only eliminate the reliance on insurance carriers, but it also allows you to offer affordable treatment to your patients without relying on insufficient reimbursement rates. With ThriveCloud’s Membership Plan feature, you can create treatment costs that are more appropriate to the needs of your practice and patients.
Introduce Another Stream of Steady Cash Flow
Dental practices are always looking for ways to add additional streams of cash flow by introducing new specialties, products, and services. That is hard work. However, an easy way to add cash flow is by offering membership plans. The steady stream of subscription fees (whether that’s $25 a month, $200 a year, or something else) can quickly add up and boost your bottom line.
For example, if you charge $200 per year for your membership plan, for a practice that has 2,500 active patients, even if you were to get 10% of your patients on your plan, that would result in $50,000 in subscription fees! That figure doesn’t even include the huge amount of collections from the actual treatment that those patients will readily accept from you.
If You Are Looking To:
- Introduce steady cash flow
- Reduce reliance on insurance carriers
- Boost your acceptance rate
- Create healthier, more loyal patients
A membership plan can be the transformative solution that unlocks these advantages.
Contact us to book a free ThriveCloud demo to just how easy it can be to create a membership plan for your practice!