“Do You Take My Dental Insurance?” What Dental Patients Really Want To Know

What is the biggest dental-related question potential patients have for you? Is it, “Do you take my insurance?” If it’s not, this question has to rank in at least your top three issues you hear from people, whether it’s in person or over the phone.

If you were to ask your team why new patients don’t schedule appointments with you, what will their #1 answer be? Will they say it’s because you don’t participate with their insurance. It’s entirely possible because this is the most common reason why dental offices lose new patients. If you watch this video, Xaña Winans, the CEO of Golden Proportions Marketing (the most experienced dental marketing company in the country), will show you why there’s no reason to fear the dreaded insurance question. She’ll walk you through a step-by-step scenario of what you and your team members can do to fix this issue the next time it happens to you.

Make sure to take a couple of minutes to press play and find out. We don’t want insurance to be a barrier between you and potential new patients. This video will show how to stop losing new business because of insurance confusion and complications!

(P.S. If you want to learn even more about what to track and how to track it when it comes to dental marketing and growing your business, download our FREE guide, “Transform Your Dental Practice by Tracking These 8 KPI’s.” Don’t forget to subscribe to the Golden Proportions Marketing YouTube channel. We’ve packed it full of helpful videos, created specifically for dental marketing to help you be a smarter marketer. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest where there are even more ways to learn about growing your practice presence in your community and online.)

TRANSCRIPTION

Ask your team why new patients don’t schedule, and I’ll bet my life that they’ll tell you “we didn’t participate with their insurance.” Sound familiar? It should, because it’s the most common reason dental offices lose new patients, and I’m going to teach you how to fix it.

Hi, I’m Xaña Winans, the CEO of Golden Proportions Marketing, the most experienced dental marketing company in the country. Today, I want to teach you not to fear the dreaded insurance question. 

(The phone rings.)

Patient: “Hi, I’d like to make an appointment. Do you take Aetna insurance?” 

Front Office: “No, we are not in network with Aetna, so please listen as I confuse you with a complicated explanation of how dental insurance works.” 

Patient: “Okay, thanks. Bye!”

Sound familiar? It’s the number one question that dental offices deal with, every single day. It’s also the number one reason we find that patients don’t schedule an appointment. 

Insurance is frustrating for all of us, whether car, medical or homeowners insurance. Dental insurance is worse. Most patients have little to no knowledge of how their dental plans actually work, much less that it’s essentially a pre-paid discount plan. So, rather than spending hours trying to figure it out, patients go right to the source – you. And unfortunately, most offices unintentionally bomb the answer. 

What Are Your Patients Really Asking?

When a patient asks, “Do you take my Dental Insurance?” that’s rarely the real question. Patients want to know:

• How much am I going to pay out of pocket?
• How do you make my care affordable?
• Can I still come to you if you don’t take my insurance?

We asked Dental Practice Management Consultant Genevieve Poppe, known as “The New Patient Whisperer”, how she handles this very common question. Let’s try a call her way.

(The Welcome)

Patient: “Hi, I need an appointment. Do you take my insurance?”

Front Office: “I’d be happy to check on that for you! Can I get your name?” 

Patient: “My name is Marybeth Williams.”

(Creating Connection)

Front Office: “I’m SO GLAD you called our office Marybeth! Now, while I check on your plan, can you tell me what we need to get you in for?”

Patient: “I broke a tooth and it’s very sensitive.”

Front Office: OH NO! Tell me what happened!

(Ask open ended questions and employ active listening with appropriate responses. The more the patient talks, the more you win!)

(Offering a Solution)

Front Office: “You wanted to know if we take Aeta insurance. We have SO many patients who work at The Miller Center who come here and they love Dr. Jones!” 

Patient: “That’s good to know, my husband loves it there!”

(The Close)

Front Office: “Let’s do this. Let’s get you scheduled with Dr. Jones. I want him to take a look at you and get you out of pain.  Insurance is going to play a really minor role in your treatment. But don’t you worry about that, because I know how to get every last penny out of the insurance company and we offer this amazing no-interest financing to make your care affordable. NOW, before I let you go, let me get a little information from you?”

Don’t let insurance be a barrier to new patients. Challenge your team to adapt their answer to “Do you take my dental insurance” and watch your new patient count increase almost immediately. 

If you want to know more about tackling call conversion, handling cancellations and tracking other key metrics in your practice, download “Transform your dental practice by tracking these 8 KPI’s.” You’ll be growing in no time. Thanks for watching!