Here’s a crazy thought. What if every one of your patients with unused insurance dollars recalled that fact, scheduled their own appointment, and then kept their appointment to receive needed care before the end of 2020? Too good to be true? Never gonna happen? Impossible?
Using Data to Schedule Those Unused Insurance Dollars
Back before there was such a thing as real-time Online Scheduling for dental practices, this type of awesome would have indeed been impossible. But now, in a time of powerful data-driven software technology, it is actually possible (and amazingly easy and effective) to find exactly the patients you want to find and send them customized invitations with links to schedule an appointment with their dentist.
The 4th quarter is a time many dental practices are doing everything possible to contact these patients with unused insurance dollars and get them scheduled before the end of the year. Lots of time and money are spent in marketing, social media, phone calls, and other outreach efforts. These patients, the low-hanging fruit, and are an important part of finishing the year strong. The usual methods for connecting with them can be effective and shouldn’t be automatically disregarded. There is now a much more powerful way to engage with these patients at a much lower cost in time and resources: the Dental Intelligence Patient Finder and Online Scheduling platform.
How can Patient Finder help you fill your Q4 schedule?
Using Dental Intelligence’s Patient Finder, it’s possible to quickly filter the exact patients to contact using search parameters such as “Primary Insurance Remaining,” Hygiene Due,” “Broken Hygiene Visits,” and many more. Built the list to schedule, then easily choose “Online Scheduling” as an option for contacting them. This is when it gets really fun.
Online Scheduling (LocalMed) is the #1 platform for real-time online scheduling of a dental appointment. Here’s how it works: Place a scheduling link on a website, on social media posts, in Google searches, and anywhere else someone might look for a dental practice online. Even include a link on the insurance provider’s website. Once a patient clicks on the link, they are taken to a page to schedule their appointment in just a few clicks. Control every aspect of this process, so there aren’t awkward moments where a patient is scheduled over someone else’s appointment or with a provider they don’t normally see. The magic in this process is they’re actually scheduling their own appointment! This isn’t a “request to schedule,” they are reserving and receiving confirmation for an appointment they scheduled without needing to email or call your practice.
It’s possible for 16 to 40 patients to schedule within an hour using an exclusive Dental Intelligence Bulk Scheduling feature.
One of the features exclusive to Online Scheduling is the Bulk Scheduling feature. With this, send out customized text and email messages to patients with a link for them to schedule. One practice recently sent out a message like this to several hundred of their patients. Within a few hours of doing so, 16 of them had scheduled an appointment. Another practice did the same and had over 40 patients schedule within one hour using the link they were sent. When asked how many hours it would have normally taken to get that many patients scheduled, the answer was “too many to count!”
Combining these two powerful platforms, Patient Finder + Online Scheduling, in one software solution and have the ability to identify, engage with, and get the selected patients on the schedule. Avoid multiple phone calls, texts or emails to capture some of those unused insurance dollars. Imagine being able to connect in just minutes with hundreds of patients, all using a form of communication (texting) that has a 97% or better open rate.
What if you don’t have Dental Intelligence Patient Finder and Online Scheduling?
Discover how thousands of other dental practices are using Dental Intelligence to grow. Visit here to learn more and to schedule a no-cost practice analysis. If not, it’s still important to connect with those patients that have remaining insurance dollars and get them on the schedule. To begin, follow the current dental practice management system’s process for determining remaining insurance. Links to get started:
Open Dental
Dentrix
Eaglesoft
Generate a report, connect with each patient and attempt to schedule them.
Suggestions for messaging patients
- “As one of our most important patients, we wanted to make sure we connect and schedule a time for you and/or your family member to come in before the end of this year. We recently did a review of our patient’s remaining insurance dollars and noticed you still had $700 in unused benefits, which could be applied to your (type of treatment needed.) Here are three dates/times available in the next month. Which works best for you?”
- “We were running some insurance reports and discovered you still have $500 available to use before the end of the year. As you probably know, those dollars don’t carry over into the new year. We’d love to get you in soon and noticed Dr. Jones discussed a crown with you last time you were here in July. That $500 will cover about 90% of the cost of that. Here are some days and times in November. Which one sounds better for your schedule?”
- “Right now is a great opportunity to take advantage of your unused insurance benefits. As you may know, those dollars disappear on January 1st if you don’t use them. The last time you were in Dr. Harris discovered some decay and she asked us to follow up and see when a good time would be for you to come in and get that taken care of. The good news is that we show you have around $650 insurance still remaining for the year, which will cover at least 80% of the cost of the treatment Dr. Harris discussed with you. We just had an opening next Wednesday afternoon. Can I schedule you for that time?”
Obviously, there are many other ways you could communicate to these patients the importance of coming in before the year is over. The key is to identify them and then have a solid plan for encouraging each one to schedule an appointment. 2020 has had a huge impact on your practice profitability. Doing all you can to get as many patients on your schedule with unused insurance dollars will go a long way toward helping you end the year strong. Good luck!
Dental Intelligence helps thousands of dental practices grow in ways that are important to them. To schedule a free practice analysis and discover new opportunities, visit dentalintel.com
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Scott Livingston is the Director of Communications for Dental Intelligence. His focus is on helping the company tell the story of how actionable data can measurably improve patient care, team collaboration and dental practice profitability. Outside of work, Scott enjoys spending time with his family, hiking the many trails in Utah, and serving others in his church and local community.
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