Is Dropping Insurance Right for Me?

Can my practice survive if I drop insurance? Where should I begin? What if all my patients leave? – These are just a few of the questions that practice leaders ask when considering whether or not to drop an insurance plan or two. Dr. Kuba and Bethany discuss various points of view with this topic and specifically dig into the important topic of the practice surviving and even thriving after an insurance drop.  

 Insurance MAD World Part One  

 Insurance MAD World Part Two

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Transcript

are you looking for a podcast where you can hear from real people regarding their real dental drama if so then
0:09
you've come to the right place join hosts Bethany Penny and Dr reena Kuba as
0:15
we dive into the solutions we've created and the mistakes we've made while
0:20
managing dental drama let's get started lady what it is
0:26
here we've been talking about this for so long do you know what's here do you know what I'm talking about i am so
0:31
pumped that's all I've been able to think about yes aapd aapd in Denver um
0:37
later this week yes that's crazy to me cuz in my mind it's like oh that's always Memorial Day weekend we've got Oh
0:43
gosh we're here i know it's Yeah it's here it's here it felt like forever coming and now it's here okay so why are
0:50
we so excited about this now cuz I know I'm going to AAPD yes but I am You are
0:55
too what are you doing at AAPD i am going to be in the exhibit hall talking
1:01
about this amazing podcast managing dental drama and of course the
1:06
subscription and the hub and all of that so I'm going to be there can I toot my own horn for a minute cuz you know I
1:12
never toot my u so I'm going to toot toot away here
1:18
but I think like the booth is going to be so much fun and so cute and uh I
1:23
think some of those ideas were mine oh a lot of those ideas were yours yes which is where it stopped just the ideas and
1:30
the bantering and the babbling and like with anything 30 things come out of my mouth and there might be three useful
1:35
things in there and you picked up on those and then you've done all the rest of the work you and your crew yes yes so
1:42
hopefully we've got a lot of our listeners that'll be at the AAPD conference you need to come and find us
1:47
because it's going to be a very fun and interactive booth it's it's going to be
1:53
the loudest and proudest I think well and just unique fun like it's for all the exhibit halls I've been to I I think
1:59
this is going to be unique and different um and uh things that even you know like your teams are going to want to stop by
2:05
you're going to want to come by with your team um you know I think all of us can relate to being on that exhibit
2:11
floor and going "Okay who do I make eye contact with and who do I not and what's going to lure me over to a booth i don't
2:17
need another pen i don't need another piece of candy that lip balm looks interesting but I don't want to hear
2:22
about your sterilization product like never mind right but like this is going
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to be fun so I think that's the angle we took it as like what would make me stop by a booth and um and I told you and now
2:34
you're making it happen now it's reality it's going to be reality in just a few days so I think our booth is 112 so if
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you're there come find us you don't even need to know the number cuz we're going to be the only cool booth there so
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you'll know us when you see us yeah so when you're done looking at proy paste and fluoride varnish come hang out at
2:53
our booth with us we're going to have some fun stuff go do what you really want to do which is have fun
3:00
um okay yes so then what what are we talking about today um so I would like
3:06
to talk about something that I'm sure in your world is quite pervasive but I have been personally um asked about this in
3:14
two different contexts and so I thought maybe it was time to revisit and it is about insurance and dropping or the the
3:21
verbiage you like is divorcing ourselves from insurance and um so I think uh you
3:28
know I'll let you kind of figure out where we're going to take this podcast but I'll just give you the the two
3:34
um incidents or whatever that made me uh want to talk about this or realize that
3:39
it is something that people are talking about so one was um a colleague that
3:45
messaged me about a weekish ago i'm pretty sure he listens to most podcasts
3:50
um I won't say his name but Rockstar if you're listening I'm talking about you
3:56
man um so Rockstar he he knows it's our nickname from for each other from school
4:01
um and so he messaged me and his verbiage was or his text message was um
4:08
"Hey are you still uh happy with your decision to drop out of out of network?"
4:13
And so funny enough we just talked I want to say two or three months ago about um the Delta drop and getting out
4:20
of networks and stuff like that and he's a super smart guy both with dental and
4:26
running a business and just like investing in stocks like he's just a super shrewd guy and so I thought it was
4:34
funny that he was coming to me for advice on cuz that's usually not the way it went in residency or in general um so
4:40
I was like "Oh what can I help you with sir?" Um and so uh you know his question
4:47
was "Are you still happy with with your drop?" And and I feel like he's kind of checked in with me every like 3 months
4:53
or 4 months um now that I'm thinking about it just kind of like seeing what I think and so again to me just right off
5:00
the bat there that's somebody who is super super like um shrewd with business
5:06
stuff um I'm like this must be weighing heavy on you cuz you probably know that there
5:14
you could be working smarter not harder but it's that point where we all are like but can I afford to do this and
5:21
lose a bunch of patients and um so I I find it interesting that he
5:26
he's right there he just needs that confidence to push over and for me I'm like I don't I can't guide you through
5:33
all of that because I know there's so many things to consider in whether or not you're going to drop the insurance
5:39
um and I think back on all the ways you helped guide us and gosh what a tough what a tough six months that was and
5:46
thank God we had you guiding us um so I see his point completely but what he's
5:52
asking is was it worth it on the tail end yeah and my response to him was a thousand% dude and so part of that is
6:00
how do I feel about it but a lot of he he didn't he's not asking what I feel about it he's asking from a business
6:07
perspective from a numbers perspective did it make sense or not is your business surviving or is your business
6:14
thriving like that you know like for me I don't care if your business is surviving i want to know if you're actually doing better on the tail end or
6:19
not and I think that was his true question yeah so that was one incident that came up um do you want me to talk
6:26
about the other one right now or Okay I think mention it yeah so uh as you know the last um podcast we did last week was
6:34
the um satellite location mhm and um
6:39
words I never thought would come out of my mouth and you're looking at me and you knew too i've always kind of sorry
6:44
guys I've kind of mocked people who have more than one location and while you're trying to be the dentist too like if
6:50
you're going into a full admin role that's different but if you are if you were one of the ones I was talking about
6:55
in the podcast last week that's like "Oh everybody else is doing it let me do it." Um so I've always been kind of like
7:01
"What are you doing?" And that may be coming from like a defense mechanism going "Oh gosh I'm too dumb to do
7:07
another location." So right you know but then I'm like "No I I really do think
7:12
like people can fool themselves very quickly trying to keep up with the seeming Jones of the dental world." So
7:19
um but here we go y'all i am starting a second satellite location and I fell
7:25
into that category of the this opportunity has presented itself and you and I had many conversations about like
7:32
okay just cuz this opportunity is there is it the right fit for me at this point in my life with my life circumstances
7:39
and what all is going on with the second location can I do both does it make sense to do both even listening back on
7:45
the podcast I was like "Oh maybe I shouldn't be doing this you know." Um
7:52
and yet here I am forging forward so y'all know like get ready for the drama unfolding as this little side project
7:59
takes off like guaranteed is that why you told me to proceed so that I'd have more fodder for this a whole new
8:05
category of content beth is like "Yes move forward with this i can see all the
8:14
Uh Lord so anyway no that is not lie just so you know i know just for the record but I did I think I asked you and
8:21
said "Look like all of these things are lining up it's like almost a no-brainer
8:26
that I should do this." And and I said to you too like what is my why why am I
8:32
doing this like do I need the money i mean we could all always use money right but I think at at this point in our
8:37
lives for those of us that have practiced for 20 years we're kind of going quality of life matters a lot more and is this going to enhance my quality
8:44
or is this going to be like a major burden here um and I think for me that's
8:49
where I was like have I forgotten all the little nitty-gritty things that it takes to get a business off the the
8:55
ground and have I just like not thought about all of that and now I'm jumping in and is this going to come back and bite
9:01
me when the the realities of the situation kick in and you were you talked me off the ledge and you talked
9:06
me through why that made sense for me so we don't need to talk about all of that there point being like it it just I
9:14
think my why on it is it's actually I think I've felt very stale in my practice the last couple of years um for
9:22
a variety of reasons and like this has brought new energy to me and I hope the
9:27
energy stays um anyway that could be a whole another podcast but the point is
9:32
um there's a colleague that I was talking to about this with and he was like well if you're not going in network
9:41
he's like you will be going in network right because we're thinking about the typical startup startup that you you I
9:48
mean you really kind of have to there there are what 10% 20% that maybe dodge
9:53
it but the majority need to take insurance sign up in network and I was like "No cuz I want it just like my
9:59
office now we have worked for 15 years to get out of network we're there we're
10:05
not just surviving we're thriving we're doing really well so rockstar we're doing really well." Um and do I I don't
10:13
want to go backwards in this other practice and but so this colleague kept coming back with me like back at me and
10:20
was going well but you know I think you would dominate that town if you were in network cuz you already have a really
10:26
good reputation but I think your challenge is going to be that people are going to want to come to you but won't
10:32
come to you because you're not in network and so that did worry me and I was like Bethany like am I being dumb
10:37
about this am I do I need to be taking networks to build up and you were like a
10:44
resounding no ma'am i'm gonna be honest with you i still am kind of going maybe
10:49
maybe maybe I should like I don't know what's gonna happen if I don't um so I'm kind
10:56
of just going on faith and my trust in you yeah and um and I know we can always pivot if for some reason you and I are
11:03
grossly wrong and we do need to add a plan at some point i mean that's always an option
11:10
but it is different than starting a brand new practice from scratch like for people wanting to go fee for service
11:17
even though I think I don't know you you know better like the the smartness of that or not the point though being
11:23
insurance is what I wanted to talk about today and all of these conversations that all of us are having in our offices I know we are those of us that have kind
11:31
of made it to fee for service are probably sitting here and going "Oh recession tariffs economy job loss
11:36
whatever maybe we are fee for service maybe we need to get back in some networks." And then for other people that are like "I am done playing this
11:44
stupid insurance game i've got to get out." Rockstar yes so that is um what I
11:51
wanted to talk about today i will add one last thing and then I will turn it over to you we were at the Texas Dental
11:57
Association conference um last week and man I forgot what a great conference
12:03
that is like every class I went to was just phenomenal um and I hadn't been in a couple of years and now I'm like dude
12:08
I need to go back like it it was so much fun like me and five team members drove down together like it was it hit all the
12:15
check boxes that I wanted it was great CE it was great exhibitors it was um
12:22
team building like we just had a blast and but I put two people in an insurance
12:28
class and both of them were texting me in their class going "Oh my god the
12:34
shadiness of insurance." Like the shadiness and the things they're like "Thank God we are out of insurance."
12:41
And I think what most of us we we just bury our heads in the sand and it's like
12:47
it is what it is like whatever weirdo thinks insurance is doing or requiring of us hopefully I never get caught in
12:53
that I'm not doing XYZ um but all the things if you read the fine print of your insurance contract like if we all
13:01
were just looking at that all day long we would never sign the damn contract thought we you know convince ourselves
13:07
cuz we're like well we need the patience and so yes I'll sign that and what are the chances that insurance is going to
13:13
actually come to my office and tell me I'm doing this wrong or that I should have been doing it this way or yeah I'll
13:18
take my chances and you know what you can get away with it for years but uh so I'm not I'm not saying don't do that my
13:25
point in saying that was even my staff was like thank God we are not in insurance and to me that was another win
13:31
because a lot of times it's the team in fact the colleague that's coming at me going "Hey why are you not going to be a
13:36
network?" I'm pretty sure it's his team that's like "Wait Kuba's doing what she's starting another satellite well
13:42
she better take insurance." Because from the team I think as a teammate she is only going to go to providers that take
13:48
insurance so I'm sure she was thinking "Oh I'm so excited kuba's coming i can go over there and use my husband's
13:54
insurance." And now it's like "No we're not taking it." And she's like "Damn it." Yeah um but that's a staff
14:00
mentality which I know you've said people push back a lot like staff pushes back a lot like we're not you know we're
14:07
not meeting the needs of our patients because we don't take insurance and I think that to me was the other win was that my team was the one that was like
14:13
"Kuba thank God please don't ever get back in network this is crazy." Yeah so
14:19
insurance uh after everything I've just verbaled at you tell me what uh what
14:24
takeaways you have for insurance well I'm glad you're bringing it back up because I do feel
14:30
like it's a resounding drum that we need to keep coming back to and you mentioned
14:36
the concept that I refer to it as divorcing insurance so one thing about
14:41
divorce I've never heard of a good clean easy dramafree divorce that's a good
14:48
point they're always messy they're always long and hard and difficult you
14:56
know it's just not an easy process and for this this marriage of insurance to
15:02
dentistry that has been in existence for you know I would say 15 20 years pretty
15:08
pretty tight that's going to be a messy relationship to break up um and
15:13
especially when one has gone off the rails and is absolutely insane with what
15:22
they're doing which is insurance by the way then it's going to make it an e even messier process so I'm glad you bring
15:28
this back up because it's going to be something that I think we need to keep coming back to and reminding
15:35
ourselves why would I think of getting back together with that crazy partner
15:40
why would I think of putting up with their shenanigans when they've done this and they've done that and they've you
15:46
know just like we wouldn't consider that in our own personal lives from a relationship standpoint if we've got a
15:53
psychotic husband or wife we would never go back to them and put ourselves
15:58
through that again and I think as the dental community we've got to stand solid on this the I have been so proud
16:06
of the stand that so many dental practices have taken by dismantling
16:13
their relationship redefining their relationship so when we say something
16:18
like we're out of network it doesn't mean that we don't still co-parent that
16:23
that kid that patient that we have we still share responsibility for that for that patient and so we're still in most
16:31
cases when a practice cuts off that network or that contract they're still
16:37
sending claims on behalf of the patient they're still trying to fight with insurance to get benefits for that
16:43
patient so there still is a coordination that happens but we're not going to play by insurance's rules we're going to play
16:49
by our rules on what is best for that patient and so it can still work because
16:58
we're still working with insurance we're still trying to help the patient in that way now there are plenty of practices
17:03
that have when you say have done away with insurance they have done away with it they are not filing claims they are
17:10
not checking benefits they are I'll provide you the service you pay me I
17:15
will give you a claim to submit to your insurance company that is technically called a fee for service practice so
17:22
there's an out of network practice and then there's a fee for service practice so sometimes we'll confuse those two
17:27
terms we'll say "Oh I'm fee for service." And I'm like "Well do you file claims?" Well yeah you're not fee for service you're actually considered an
17:33
out of network okay so that's us i think I get them confused too everybody does
17:38
um fee for service is I provide the service you pay me and done contract is
17:43
done at that point with That's like the golden that's like you've reached the top of Mount Everest so we're still
17:49
climbing we're not there yeah no but we're not at the bottom of that peak either we have we've we've traversed a
17:55
lot of that journey and we are still going up um so and I'm sure you're getting to this but I'm just going to
18:00
interrupt here as I do um so I think the using your analogy then it's like but
18:07
for some people that want to get divorced but then they're like well but if I got divorced that means I've got to
18:12
pay my own rent and my own home and I've got to get my own car like right now we share the burden of the cost of the
18:20
house we're living in and the cost of the kids and you know we're kind of just so intertwined and so to separate and go
18:28
on my own is that worth it or do I just hang out in this house that it's not
18:34
awful i'm not getting abused it's just not what I wanted for my life but it it
18:39
it's an end to the mean that I can function every day and so I think about that as insurance and that's kind of what my my buddy Rockstar is asking and
18:46
going "Yeah I mean I would love to get away but am I going to survive on my
18:51
own?" So just like a married couple going "Can I survive on my own cuz right now it's all we can do to pay the bills
18:58
with a joint um joint yeah joint income and now I'm going to go on my own and am
19:04
I not going to survive?" And that's pretty much what he's asking is if I drop insuranceances and lose all my patients would I rather not maintain an
19:11
office and get some money and some semblance of being a business versus is everybody going to leave me i'm on my
19:17
own and now I can't pay the bills on my own and maybe that's not worth it to do so can you And I think that's the fear
19:24
with everybody is can I survive on the other side of this divorce i would say that's the number one they're they're
19:32
assuming massive patient loss and I will be in a situation where I can't survive
19:39
and I have not found that to be true with one singular practice which is astounding results to
19:47
me so let's let's talk about that for a little bit though because I think we need to set realistic expectations when
19:53
we talk about dropping insurance now when I say dropping insurance I and you've witnessed this i like strategy
20:02
and I like a very clear plan and I like for that process to be drawn out over a
20:08
period of time i have never in all my years of consulting said drop every
20:15
single contract with every single insurance company by June 1st that's not to me that is too much
20:22
risk for the practice and I am actually a very riskaverse person especially because I'm advising clients and this is
20:28
their this is their baby this is what they've built like I feel extreme
20:33
responsibility with somebody's decisions that they're making in the practice because I know there's financial implications on either side of it and so
20:40
to me I'm always going to go with a very riskadverse strategy which is one insurance company at a time and to start
20:49
with an insurance plan that's pretty predictable from an out of network standpoint so it it would take a lot for
20:56
me to advise dropping Delta for example as the first one because that's a very unknown one and you need a very skilled
21:03
staff to be able to handle that transition so they need to have waited in the waters of dropping insurance with
21:10
somebody else before getting to Delta so that their confidence is higher so how would like I know that you know which
21:18
ones would be the easier ones to drop but for somebody that doesn't have you there how do you figure out who's the
21:24
easiest one to drop like from a for example I guess what I'm trying to ask here is like let's say Guardian and I
21:29
don't know this for sure i'm just throwing that out there but like if it was Guardian and it's like oh yeah Guardian still sends us the check
21:36
guardians still like they're very transparent with going "Okay this was what you would pay in network this is
21:42
what you would pay out of network and we're still gonna pay you versus a Delta that's like well now we're going to pay
21:47
you less than if you were in network but we're also sending you the check but we're not sending you the check but we're like Delta has all those nuances
21:54
versus like a guardian or a Sigma or whoever." Like I don't know but that's my question too is how would I know
21:59
who's easier you don't you don't know unfortunately
22:05
now you're cuz they're always changing i guess they're always changing but I I will give you guys a few tips here on
22:12
things I've seen um what makes a company difficult delta
22:17
is the most difficult because of all those rules but also what makes a company difficult to drop is when
22:23
they're interangled with other umbrella companies so I think of like an Etna for
22:32
example etna you might think oh it's going to be real easy to you know to cancel that one but Etna's in with so
22:40
many different umbrella companies that you may drop the direct contract with Etna but then it's picked up under these
22:49
umbrella companies so technically you're still in network with Etna you're just not directly in network with them and so
22:56
that can be a little bit messy for your team to navigate are we in network well it depends on what fee schedule it
23:03
depends on the so it it becomes messy waters for your team to kind of try to figure that out there is only one
23:09
company and I hesitate to even mention them that because they are to me the only insurance company that is doing
23:17
things right right now one and only out of all of them MetLife is the one that
23:23
is actually doing things correctly boo i'm going to disagree no they're not paying the doctor that is not correct
23:30
they are not paying the doctor the way they should i mean they cut a check right i'm not saying that i'm just saying like are you when you're paying
23:36
me 25 bucks for a sealant correct boo that is not It's still a low fee schedule but they are the only insurance
23:44
company that doesn't penalize the patient for going out of network so they
23:49
pay outside of a small percentage depending upon what the HR company set up i have seen overwhelmingly about 90%
23:57
of MetLife claims when my client drops MetLife they're getting paid full fee
24:05
right out of the gate because the true definition of PO
24:11
is that you should be able to choose your provider without penalty and MetLife is the only one that's doing
24:17
that so they're also the only company that is not intertangled with all of
24:24
these other third party are you sure i thought they were with Carrington this is Carrington yes Carrington but
24:31
Carrington's a separate category this is going to get super complex but yes so they will come under Carrington's
24:38
umbrella but you have to be directly contracted with Carrington to So if you're not directly contracted you're
24:45
still out of network then with Metife so correct so it's a clean sweep you can drop Metife you can get your patients
24:52
are getting full benefit out of Metife the patient is none the wiser honestly
24:58
that you're whether you're in network or out of network it makes very little difference to the patients it's one of
25:03
the easiest ones to drop they still communicate well with the providers that
25:08
have dropped them they really are while their fee scheduled when
25:14
you're in network are exceedingly low just like all other insurance companies they actually tend to be one of the
25:20
better paying in network providers which may surprise people but so if you want
25:27
to start with the easiest one to drop MetLife hands down there is no argument
25:32
it's one of the easiest ones to drop the two most difficult ones would be Delta for all of the reasons that we've
25:39
talked about uh it's just messy um they're paying the patient they're
25:44
significantly penalizing patients for coming to to out of network providers which is such a shame and so so wrong on
25:53
their part but whatever the other one that is exceedingly complex is Blue Cross Blue
25:59
Shield um and I can't even tell you why it's complex it just is every client
26:07
that I've had that has dropped Blue Cross Blue Shield it it defaults to this
26:12
different fee schedule that they didn't even know they were in they have to send a separate drop letter to get out of
26:17
that specific fee schedule it has become a nightmare for for a lot of offices
26:23
trying they get it done but it takes much longer to be fully out of network
26:28
with Blue Cross Blue Shield so I would imagine like now especially listeners hearing this but before that like I I
26:36
guess I was never in network with Blue Cross Blue Shield like I I think I've only been in it because of Carrington
26:41
right um so I don't have any experience with this but for me like if you were advising them you would have told them
26:48
you got to do this and you got to do that but if they were on their own it would probably been months and then they're finally going what the hell is
26:53
this i thought we dropped it now what is this now oh we're supposed to drop that too so it's like this long drag dragged
27:00
out patients are irritated you're irritated yes and and all of that so it's a long process and even once I feel
27:06
like I figured it out the game changes on me so I even have trouble keeping up with wait now they told you what well
27:14
that wasn't the same for my last client that just went through it so I even I myself am like it is so difficult to
27:20
walk through that and figure out what they're going to say now because I feel like they're constantly changing the
27:25
rules of engagement so those two are the most complex then you've got Metife that's the easiest everybody else falls
27:32
into that middle category where it's relatively easy to drop them but if you're in with other umbrella companies
27:39
like Carrington DNA DNOA connection that when you drop that direct contract
27:45
you're defaulted to those other fee schedules which may be may be good because Carrington is a is a relatively
27:52
good reimburing umbrella company you may may be like "That's great i'm going to drop Sigma and I know I'm going to get
27:59
picked up under Carrington that's fantastic." Which a lot of these companies like Five Lakes and some of the other ones they're the ones I
28:06
remember who guided me through a lot of that which was like you know what you're only getting paid $30 for an exam under
28:12
Etna because you were in directly in network with them but you would get paid 35 if you were with or 40 if you see
28:20
Etna under Carrington now what that means is they would have me drop my Etna
28:25
uh direct so if you had patients that had that specific type of Etna so when
28:32
when patients would call and say you know do you take Etna you know you network with Etna our answer was I was like maybe and then of course patients
28:38
are like what the hell are you talking about is it yes or no well we don't have a direct contract with Etna we don't
28:45
know what kind of Etna you've got because there's a billion different Etna like mini plans so if one of yours is
28:52
the one that we are because we're in network with or we have a contract with Carrington then we might you know what
28:58
why don't we just do the complimentary benefits check for you and let's see where we are with that um but if you
29:04
flat out just said we are no longer in network with Etna you're shooting yourself in the foot and patients are going to leave because you actually
29:10
might be in network with Etna right not with Etna directly but with Etna under this umbrella and how do you know
29:15
because it's always changing all those umbrella agreements are always changing um but use that to your advantage not
29:21
your disadvantage yep exactly and for me it was like okay when Edna was only
29:26
paying me 30 bucks like that is not worth it my assistant is asking for 30 bucks an hour like I'm making nothing right but if Carrington's going to pay
29:33
me 55 then yeah then I don't mind then that way I don't have to lose all the Etna patients just the subset of the
29:39
hundred that had the Etna Direct then you know 30 patients I lost but 70
29:45
I retained it i'm actually getting paid better if I was completely out of network maybe I'd be paid getting paid
29:50
70 but you know what i'll take 50 because I'm used to 30 i'd prefer 70 but 50 is still better if that means I'm
29:56
going to retain 70 of those 100 patients um so part of that is yeah just just
30:01
kind of considering all of those and considering all of that knowing the
30:07
complexities that you want to get into or not get into but and I think this goes back to your question
30:13
financially the numbers almost always make sense i say almost always for me it
30:20
has been always with all of my clients now again strategies come into play i'm
30:25
not saying take it all with one fell swoop but it never fails that I'll look at a practice of mine and the only thing
30:32
that would cause me to hesitate in recommending a drop would be if they are
30:38
struggling to fill the schedule like if we're like man most days I'm sitting around waiting on a patient to call okay
30:45
I'm probably not at this time going to say make this big sweeping change and cut an insurance plan i would say let's
30:53
do what we can for this next six months to build the schedule let's get out and market let's make sure we've got good
30:59
retention let's get your schedule more robust and then we'll drop um but most
31:05
situations the clients that I'm talking with there is it makes perfect sense to
31:10
drop a plan so back to Rock Rockstar's um predicament which again I'm I'm kind
31:16
of making this up like it's it's what I think um so there there might be more to it than what I think but from what I
31:23
think I'm betting his concern is that there are I want to say five
31:30
boardcertified pediatric dentists all within 3 miles of each other where he
31:35
practices and so I know his concern probably is my guess is probably all
31:42
five of them are in network with everybody so is he going to be the first one to go on a limb and be like I'm
31:47
dropping this insurance and the competition alone it's like people are going to fly to one of those offices and
31:53
I I'm betting that's his concern so what do you say to that so you need to
31:58
prepare yourself to lose patience when you drop an insurance plan now I think with enough preparation of your team
32:06
making sure we're explaining things well making sure we're being honest in that explanation with
32:12
patients and making sure you've got a fantastic patient experience when you've made sure of all
32:18
of those things you can drop a plan and still retain the bulk of your patient so
32:24
what I normally see is the lowest that I've seen is an 80% retention which is
32:31
phenomenal that means we're retaining eight out of 10 patients but that does mean that we've lost two out of 10 so
32:36
you need to prepare yourself to lose so the thought of because I'm sure what he's thinking because it's what I thought am I is it going to be the other
32:41
way am I going to retain two and lose i've never seen that i've never seen it not in in all regardless of which
32:48
insurance we're talking about regardless of which insurance even with Delta I have not seen that now the math of it is
32:56
uh you take a person like a company like Delta the math of it is that you can lose half of your Delta patients or a
33:05
little bit more depending upon how bad the fee schedule was you can lose half of your Delta patients and still come
33:11
out exactly the same financially so your goal going into any kind of drop
33:17
insurance drop is we just have to retain half and I have found that that is
33:23
exceedingly easy to do like I said I don't see much below 80% 80% is kind of
33:28
like the bottom amount i often see even with Delta yours the last time I checked
33:33
you had retained like 95% which I was preparing you for like the 50% case
33:39
scenario based on and I was thinking 100% are going to leave yeah so I was
33:44
mentally prepared for you to have a very low retention rate and you've had one of the higher retention rates
33:51
so I think it can be absolutely very successfully done where you retain those patients um but mathematically that's
33:58
why a drop works because I just haven't seen it be a 50% drop and even if it
34:03
wasn't 50% financially the practice is producing and putting out the same exact numbers so for that reason I definitely
34:10
think it's worth So I know the next question Rockstar I can bet your next question is going to be okay you just
34:16
mentioned like verbiage for the staff and preparing the staff i wouldn't know how to do that
34:23
like that's a lot of work and I don't honestly I don't know that my staff can do it um so if if you're finding
34:29
yourself in that boat which most of us will be in um I know there's some exciting news that you've got um can I
34:37
share that now or do you want to say this is perfect yeah so cuz my my question was going to be then who's helping with that or what are we doing
34:43
luckily I have you but Rockstar is not one of your clients so like what what could he do so I guess before I give the
34:49
tea I gave the teaser before I say that what would you say somebody should do
34:55
i think that's hard for me because it's hard for me to say what to do because
35:00
I'm thinking about my clients and I'm with them and I'm guiding them through the process so when I think about
35:06
somebody that doesn't have a guide that's hard for me i don't know what I
35:11
would tell them to do okay which is what when when he's asked me I'm like I don't know Bethany did it bethany s my team
35:18
bethany all the questions that came through that were like what do we do about this or what do we do about that i'm like I I don't I don't know go ask
35:24
Bethany so I didn't know what to tell him to do but now what I'm going to tell you to do is um on the hub you are later
35:33
this week yes this week we're dropping our drop insurance bundle on the hub
35:39
which is a step-by-step process of what to do it includes like the letter to
35:44
send to the insurance company it includes verbiage it includes like when
35:49
to train your team how to train your team yeah it's I'm so excited about it okay so now finally we have a resource
35:57
for you i think I think you correct me if I'm wrong this is one of those topics
36:02
like how do you reply to negative reviews um where I read something even the other day and it was in I don't
36:09
remember what resource it was in uh but it was a dental magazine of some sort so possibly Jada or possibly I can't
36:15
remember what it was but it was um how you shouldn't uh reply to negative
36:21
reviews you got to protect HIPPA and you should leave it like whatever and that's you and I say the exact opposite um and
36:27
so I think that's one of these things with dropping insurance where a lot of people will say "Oh you need to advise
36:33
your patient send a letter do this do that." And your advice is completely the opposite in fact one of your newer
36:41
clients is somebody I sent you and I think I talked about it on here but I think she did exactly that where she
36:47
dropped insuranceances and she has suffered for a year because her staff
36:52
was not equipped to talk about it she was not at all prepared to deal with it um and and so you have now stepped in
36:59
and you're trying to help her recover i did talk to her a week or so ago she's like "I'm in a much better place than I
37:05
was in in December and January but we still have work to do." Yeah um so I
37:12
guess my point is you know there there's a lot of resources you could find that are going to tell you to do it a certain way i don't know enough of those because
37:20
I didn't look into those because I've got you and there you go 95% and I
37:25
didn't even realize that was our retention rate i thought it was like 60 70 um so that's amazing to hear um but
37:32
I'm going to toot your horn for you i would say even if you are reading other
37:37
resources just to make sure that you're got a balanced view of looking at it go
37:44
get this document on the hub so you can kind of see you know I can't speak to
37:50
anybody else's because I didn't use anybody else's but I can speak to if you're telling me we had 95% the numbers
37:56
are showing it you're not making that up you're looking at pulling reports and looking at data um so at least I know
38:02
that it works yeah and and it means you can successfully drop and still retain
38:07
your patients you just have to be strategic about it for So Rockstar if you're not going to invest in the hub
38:12
because I don't know what Bethony's charging but um if you're not going to invest in the hub then dude you're on your own to try to figure out how to
38:19
talk to your staff and how to lay out your plan uh you're a smart guy i know
38:24
you can do it um but I think the point here being back to where I started do I
38:31
recommend the drop a,000% and I hope you feel better about that now and I hope
38:37
you're going to call me at your next three months whenever you tag me again and you're going to tell me uh you know
38:42
finally I was a smart one in the room and that I guided you well because you've always guided me well so let it
38:49
be my turn a I love that that's good guidance for me without a doubt
38:54
i see your middle finger up at me rockstar i see it man love you too thanks for joining the conversation
39:01
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