by Have you shied away from using the word “affordable” in your practice? You’re not alone. Often, dentists worry that by being affordable or offering affordable dentistry, they’re giving off the perception of being cheap. And as you know, cheap sounds, well, cheap. The word alone sends a signal of low quality.
You offer top notch dental care, but that doesn’t mean you can’t appeal to people who might need a little extra help paying for a healthy smile.
Where’s the middle ground? And more importantly, how do you offer affordable dentistry without diminishing your brand?
Here are a few solutions you’re probably already using in your office that can help you position your practice as offering affordable pricing.
Offer a Line of Credit
Sometimes, treatments are about as pricey as a new luxury car. In these cases, most people can’t fork over a lump sum of cash. They also don’t want to max out their own high-interest credit cards just to cover the cost of treatment.
In these cases, if you can offer your own line of credit, you can make your services feel more affordable without losing the perception of high quality.
You are probably offering Care Credit or Springstone. These are two of the most popular healthcare specific credit card options. Having this option available allows your patients to pay for your services in low monthly commitments rather than large up front fees.
Instead of saying, “your treatment cost is $2,000,” you can instead say, “your treatment can be completed in low monthly fees of $40 per month, how does that sound?” The price is the same but the way it’s presented feels more affordable.
Offer Financing Options
Another option is to set up payment plans. One company that makes it easy for dentists to offer this is Compassionate Finance. They run the credit checks, and then set up the payments to what the patients can afford. These financial companys manage collections for your office and help patients stay on track with their payments.
This option is often ideal for patients with less than ideal credit scores. For those people, credit cards aren’t an option. Even though they have regular employment, they get declined for a line of credit to pay for your dental services. With financing options available, they can still get the treatment they need without the financial worry.
Start a Membership Plan
One of the best ways to eliminate the insurance headaches for your practice and patients, and still offer affordable dental care is to create your own in-office membership plan. This option might seem daunting up front but there are several programs that help you manage an in-office benefits plan with ease.
Illumitrac is a software that enables you to offer a membership plan in your office. It makes it easy to sign patients up and you can automate the billing to take some of the administrative work out of your hands. Set up is easy and fast. Their software allows for easy management of your memebrship club and includes technical support. It’s a nice way to attract patients or retain patients if you’re not billing or you are dropping a specific insurance company.
Quality Dental Plan (QDP)
This is another popular membership program that you’ll have to opt into as a dentist. As a dentist, you offer this program in your office and then patients can choose to sign up for it and get their dental work done through you. The website advertises dentists in your area who offer QDP so you can attract local patients to your practice by offering this affordable solution.
Your Own
Yes, you can run your own membership plan to offer affordable pricing. This gives you more flexibility for what you charge and how you charge it. We recommend only offering this to patients without insurance. But be careful! Never refer to this as insurance and you’ll want to be sure patients understand the memerbship benefits are for services only done in your office.
Affordable is Exciting
Talking about your affordable care is exciting; not brand threatening. By taking one of these approaches, you’re able to position your affordability in a compassionate, intriguing way instead of making your brand look or sound like a discount practice. Remember, every patient deserves beautiful, healthy teeth.
The goal is to get them to say YES to your treatment recommendations as often as possible. With affordable care options, you make your practice more inviting and open the door to increasing your treatment conversion numbers.
