Insurance Lists Are Not Marketing (E.331)

“Patients do not leave practices because of the dentistry. They leave because they feel unseen.”- Sara Hansen

Brief Overview of the Episode

Dentists are carrying a lot right now.

Team shortages. Rising overhead. Patient objections. Insurance write-offs. Pressure to grow. Pressure to protect the next 5 to 10 years of the practice.

Sara Hansen joins Regan Robertson after speaking at Dentist Advisors’ Dentist Money Summit in Midway, Utah, where many doctors were asking the same hard question:

How do we grow in a way that is actually profitable?

This episode challenges the idea that being on an insurance list is a real marketing strategy. Sara explains why patients who come to you only because your name appeared on a list are often easy come, easy go.

The better path is building value through communication, trust, team confidence, and authentic patient relationships.

Because growth is not just about getting more patients.

It is about building the kind of practice patients choose on purpose.

What This Episode Reveals

Insurance dependency can quietly cap a practice’s future.

A practice may look busy on the schedule while money is leaking through write-offs, weak communication, and patients who were never truly connected to the practice in the first place.

Sara breaks down why a $1.2 million practice writing off 35% may be giving away roughly $420,000 a year.

That is not a small marketing expense.

That is a business model problem.

The episode also reveals why the team’s words matter. When patients hear phrases like “we’ll see what insurance covers” or “let’s wait on a pre-authorization,” the practice may unintentionally hand control of the treatment conversation to the insurance company.

Better communication helps the patient understand what they need, why it matters, and how the practice can help them move forward.

What You’ll Learn

• How to build patient demand without depending on dental insurance marketing
• Why insurance lists are not the same as patient loyalty
• How write-offs affect profitability and long-term practice value
• Why patient communication matters before, during, and between appointments
• How team members can either strengthen trust or weaken it
• Why financial conversations need confidence, not apology
• How to shift language from “insurance covers” to “insurance contributes”
• Why the first step is knowing your metrics before making emotional decisions
• How to identify which insurance relationships may be creating the biggest money leaks

If This Sounds Familiar

• You are booked, but profit still feels tight.
• You have patients coming in, but they are not always the right-fit patients.
• Your team is uncomfortable talking about money, treatment, or insurance.
• You know insurance write-offs are hurting the practice, but you are unsure where to start.
• You want more control over the next 5 to 10 years, but the path feels risky.

This episode gives you a starting point.

Look at the data. Find the leaks. Train the team. Own the language. Build demand around the value of the practice, not the limitations of an insurance list.

Next Steps

Start by reviewing your insurance write-offs.

Look at where money is leaving the practice, which plans are connected to the largest losses, and how many patients are tied to each plan.

Then look at the language your team uses with patients.

The goal is not to scare patients away from care. The goal is to help them understand that insurance contributes to treatment, but it should not dictate the care they deserve.

For more on this topic, watch Sara’s webinar:
How to Build Patient Demand Without Dental Insurance Marketing

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TRANSCRIPT

0:01:47.800 –> 00:01:58.950
Regan Robertson: Doctor, if you want to know how to build patient demand without using dental insurance marketing, this is the episode for you. And bonus, our wonderful co-host.

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Regan Robertson: Sarah today has just returned from Dentist Advisor’s event at Dentist Money Summit in Midway, Utah, and she is going to be our eyes and ears, and let us know what’s the scoop on the road, and what are you guys talking about the most?

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Regan Robertson: And, we’re gonna hear about her presentation, about the modern dental Growth Model. Sarah!

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Regan Robertson: Hi!

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Hi, Regan, how are you?

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Regan Robertson: I’m… well, I’m fantastic anytime I get to talk to you, and most importantly, I mean, you know that this is a topic that I’m super passionate about, both you and I are, building patient demand without using dental insurance marketing as the crutch, and it really opens up a lot of doors for practices these days, and really just gets back to what you and I are so passionate about, which is patient communication and getting them the dental care, you know, that they really deserve.

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Regan Robertson: Sarah, I am… I’m stoked to talk to you today, and how are you doing is the bigger question. You just… you just got back from this event!

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yeah, I mean, it is so great being, you know, out in the industry, meeting people, talking to doctors, meeting their spouses, I love it, and, you know.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: I didn’t have to hop on a plane to go to the event, so that was even so much better. I like when those events are in my home state.

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Regan Robertson: That is always a really big bonus. Was the weather beautiful, too?

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yes, it was beautiful. In fact, people were like, I can’t believe you live here, this is so beautiful. So, it was in, you know, this beautiful, quaint little mountain town, Midway, which is just outside of Park City, and yeah, I’m lucky. The mountains here are gorgeous, so we were able to have things outside, and, you know, it wasn’t too hot, so it was great.

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Regan Robertson: So, for you listening, listeners, go to DennisAdvisors.com, and you can certainly learn about Dennis Advisors. We’re not paid to promote them in any way, shape, or form. They have been good industry friends of ours, though, for a long time, and the original founder, Reece Harper, I remember hearing him years ago, talk about stocks in relation to cattle, and it just blew my mind, and he gave us an exercise about calculating our own net worth, and it was on paper. I remember

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Regan Robertson: It was just a really fun exercise that we did, and I realized that dentist advisors, they’re very servant-led individuals, and so I… I have not been to a Dentist Money Summit before. I believe it’s for their clients, and and can you give us a little, you know, yeah, what was your impression of the event? And I think this is not your first one. I believe you’ve been before, so… Yeah. Tell us what… what it is and the type of doctors that attend.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yeah, you know, the Dentist Advisors Group, they really work with doctors in a strategic way. Obviously, they’re financial strategists for these doctors, but what’s great is they also help them with business strategy. And so, you know, these doctors coming to this event are really looking for guidance, inspiration, you know, support, because doctors, we know.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Running a dental practice is not just a clinical talent that you have, but really is a business.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: one. And, you know, because you are a business owner, financially, you know, we’ve got to make sure that things make sense. And so what’s cool is Dennis Advisors also has a lot of partners and friends in the industry, and so I was able to go and present at one of the Lunch and Learns while I was there, and kind of help answer questions that the doctors have, especially around

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: What does business growth look like, or practice growth look like right now, opposed to even 3, 4, 5 years ago?

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Regan Robertson: So, knowing all of that, what, as you, you know, entered into the space, what was the word on the floor? What were dentists coming to you and talking about, or what were you hearing as far as the challenges and what people are focused on right now?

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yeah, I would say the biggest challenges that doctors are facing, one is going to be the team. There was not an office that we talked to that wasn’t having some type of

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: team gap. So, meaning there was a doctor who was a pediatric doctor that I met.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: And he was struggling with… I live in this really small town, and I cannot find a hygienist to come work for me. You know, they… it’s a commute from the bigger towns outside, and so he’s having to perform a lot of his own prophes and that sort of thing, which doctors, as you know, then takes time away from a lot of production.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: And so, you know, we were talking to him about different possible solutions that, you know, that we could help support, but I would say team is the big one. But the other piece is

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: I have to start figuring out my runway, meaning runway within the next 5 years, 10 years, whatever that looks like. Doctors are now really starting to understand that

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: I’ve got to start thinking about how do I grow my practice in a really profitable way? And so, from a marketing perspective, I talk to them a lot about what’s the difference between a vol… or, yeah, a volume-based

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: practice versus a value-based practice, because they kind of were like, yes, I’m seeing the patients, yes, you know, I’m on a lot of insurance plans, but I also know I have a lot of write-offs, and I also know that, you know, I need to start thinking about what does the next 10 years look like for me. Some of the doctors were having concerns about, you know, the aches.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: of their body and the toll that it takes, and so really trying to figure out what those next steps look like for the doctors. Some are 1 to 2 years into owning a practice, others are 10 to 15, and so it was really, interesting learning from the doctors what they’re seeing, what they’re feeling, but really, they’re not alone with how they’re feeling. So doctors, I’m sure.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: you can relate to some of their concerns with team, with, hey, what does this look like for me moving forward for the next 10 years, no matter where you’re at?

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: On your business journey.

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Regan Robertson: This feels like a paradox. If I have a team problem, or I’m understaffed, for example, and then… yeah, and then at the same time, I’m looking to transition over, you know, the next few years, so I’ve got to increase my value, and I also am suffering from a new patient issue, like, I want more new patients.

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Regan Robertson: That’s a lot to carry. Where do you recommend, or where did you recommend that people focus first if they’re coming with, you know, three, what I would say is, you know, kind of five alarm fires?

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yeah, you know, every practice is so different, and this is where, you know, Regan, I get really excited because

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Marketing is not just a… you know, we’ve talked about this so many times, it’s not just Google Ads, or not just one solution, but these solutions for these doctors are really multifaceted. It comes down to their team training, their capacity in their building, you know, what does their market look like, how does their practice run with internal systems? There are so many things that goes into it, and so what I would say for

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: the doctor who was saying, like, I’ve got to figure out what the next 10 years look like for me.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: really, it was breaking down, you know, what… where do you want to be in 10 years first? What does that goal look like? Do you see yourself cutting back days? Do you see yourself opening a second location? Do you see yourself, you know, bringing in multiple associates, and you just focusing on one really specific service that you really wanted to do for a very long time, but they get pulled in so many different directions.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: And so, what’s really cool about that is, as I talk with them to identify, really what

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: what their goal is, then it helps us really craft a strategy that makes sense for their practice. You know, one thing that I… I guess I don’t realize until I’m out in the marketplace more often is when we talk about marketing, for example.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: you know, I tell doctors, hey, we’re different than a lot of marketing companies because we really look at the business as a whole. How is your practice profitable? What does that mean for you? And, you know, we met these really great, other vendors that were there where they actually work with practices to negotiate fees and stuff like that with insurance companies, and so I was able to have a really good conversation with them.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: about, you know, hey, I don’t think it has to be an all-or-nothing with insurance companies, right? If it makes sense for your practice, if the reimbursement rates are there, then it’s okay to still accept certain insurances. But where that pain point comes in is if you’re losing money from a profitability standpoint with your practice, and you’re no longer even breaking even with maybe the team overhead.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: and all those other expenses that are going out, then that’s where you have to take a step back and really assess how do we get you to be more profitable from a marketing perspective, but also from internal systems. What does that look like for the practice? I had the best conversation with a doctor in California. He just bought a brand new practice.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: what, 8 months ago, and his wife was there with him. They are fantastic, and…

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: what his problem really was, was he bought this existing practice, and now he’s trying to put his brand into it, put his, you know, voice into it, kind of transition it from the previous doctor. And Reagan, I got so excited when we were talking about the next steps, and they said, well, we’re just starting, and the first thing we did was create a brand script. And I was like.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: What!

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Regan Robertson: No way!

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yes, yes, he had an entire brand guideline!

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Regan Robertson: The brand’s great!

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: and, like, you know, all those things, and I gave him huge kudos, because I said, that’s where you start. Once you know that, that’s your core of everything. So, that was a really exciting conversation about how to support him in different ways as well.

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Regan Robertson: You know, shout out to… shout out to Dentist Advisors for, you know, keeping us informed on what their particular audience is focused on. Shout out to you, especially, and Phoenix Dental Agency, for really knowing the topic that would be, powerful at it. So, I’m wondering, can you walk us through… I know you did a Lunch and Learn, and it was.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yeah.

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Regan Robertson: the modern dental growth model, Profit Through Communication, and that part

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Regan Robertson: Let’s just hang on that. Profit through communication, because we always want to automate things, and there’s certain things that we can’t AI our way out of, and one of those is human connection and how we talk together. We can automate how we talk together so that that part is done, but the soul in what’s, you know, communicated underneath the surface is so great, so…

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Regan Robertson: So how did your luncheon, like, what were your objectives with that, and what did you walk people through?

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yeah, you know, I started out my Lunch and Learn kind of asking the doctors, hey, is there a business that you trust? You know? And we talked a little bit about that, and then I also asked them the question.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Have any of you lost a patient that you thought was actually really loyal to your practice, that you’ve been seeing for a long time? And that was one of those sticking points that they were like, yeah, and I didn’t quite know why.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: And so, as we started un… you know, doing some of this on why do patients

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: actually leave our practice, and how do we grow through communication? What does that actually mean? Is that…

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Patients don’t leave practices because of the dentistry, most of the time, right? They leave because they feel unseen, or they haven’t established that trust or that relationship with the practice yet. They’re not being seen. And so, it was really, a cool opportunity to really deep dive. We really broke it down, you know, the doctors, because it was a lunch and learn, I love the… I love presenting

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: in those types of events, because there was a lot of question-answer. We paused and kind of broke down different situations within the practice.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: And so, you know, when we talk about loyalty is created not just at appointments, but in between appointments, we walked through all the touchpoints in the practice, we walked through the communication. And Reagan, when we got to the communication part about the team communicating to the patients, the dentists, I mean, they were talking to each other and giving each other feedback and advice on what they have seen

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Work in their practice, and how to hire great teams.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: And, you know, what it comes down to is, oftentimes, our teams think that they’re doing a really great job, and a lot of times they are. But that really is such a crucial part. What the teams say matters.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: And with this doctor that is new to opening a practice or purchasing that practice, what he’s realizing is he has a team member sitting in an admin seat, so she’s that first,

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: you know, interaction on the phone, she’s the first interaction into the practice, and while she’s been there a very long time and has a lot of rapport with the patients in the community, she’s missing that piece of…

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: you know, warm and fuzzies that other patients are really looking for that haven’t been to the practice before, right? If they don’t know who she is, she can come across very gruff, and so he was asking, you know, other dentists, like, what do I do in this situation? And it just brought to the surface

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Through these other dentists as well, and kind of a mastermind support system of

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: your team members are so critical with communication, and how do we make sure that they are given the tools they need to succeed? And so we really were able to deep dive that part of it, about giving your team the communication tools. Do they know how to talk about insurance plans, or the fact that you are an unrestricted provider? Do they know, you know, what topics you are currently

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: marketing? Do they know even your core values and key characteristics? I mean, Reagan, these are things that you and I have talked a lot about over the last several episodes, but they are the basics, and when they broke it down.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: some of the team members had no idea. And so we’re asking our teams to do specific things, and sometimes they don’t have the tools, and so this was a real awakening for some of these doctors, thinking.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: you’re right, like, I don’t have the right person in the right seats within my practice, or I do need to invest more in my team within communication pieces.

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Regan Robertson: Can we talk about some of the tools? So.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yes.

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Regan Robertson: Yeah, listeners, I want you to be able to write things down, and even though you didn’t attend, be able to grab some of this goodness. What are some of the tools that are really helpful? Because even if you do have a staff shortage, you still have a team, you still do have… yeah, I’m sure there’s more than just one in the office, so so helping them be the best and most effective that they can be still is very important.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yeah, yeah. So, one of the pieces that we talked about is your patients don’t want perfection. They want authenticity.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: And, you know, within authenticity comes so many things that our patients are looking for. They’re looking for confidence, and so one of the situations that we brought up, was, you know, can your team talk about financial…

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Situations, treatment plans, financial solutions, you know, things like that.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: And the doctors were commenting that, you know, that’s a really hard piece.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Some of us, right, we all view money differently, and so what’s really hard about those financial conversations is if you have a team member that maybe, you know, themselves really struggles with finances, or they’re having a hard time making ends meet, they’re going to approach that situation talking to a patient about finances in a very different way than another team member who may

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: has a different type of relationship with money, right? They have a lot in savings, they’re living more comfortably, things like that. And so, one of the big pieces that came to light is

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: When it comes to dentistry and our team talking about that, is we need to train our teams to be confident, and also train our teams to

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: take on the core value of we’re doing what’s best for our patients. Yes, it is expensive.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Sometimes. But it’s also… that is the price of what we do, right? This is… like, you can’t put a price on your health. You can’t put a price on the treatments that are needed to sustain you having a healthy lifestyle. And so, giving the team the confidence, the tools, the financial solutions.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: So that they can then say to the patient, hey, we understand what it feels like to need to work within budgets. And so we have this financial solution to help our patients

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: who want to maybe budget out their dental work, right? Instead of the conversation sounding like, I know it’s so expensive, right? But more of, hey, we get it. And so this is what we do to help our patients be able to afford the dentistry that they deserve and that they really need to have.

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Regan Robertson: I love how this takes the scary out of it. It takes the awkward, and it takes the scary out, because it’s such a weird, you know, point in the conversation where you do have to discuss it, and there’s just all these emotions, and like you said, relationship with money, relationship with health, relationship on what we place value on that’s different for each individual person, and it can really become an awkward situation unless we know how to navigate it.

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Regan Robertson: Absolutely. So, I’ve previewed the webinar that you have, for everyone listening right now.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yeah, you guys?

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Regan Robertson: Yeah, you can go and get access to this webinar right now.

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Regan Robertson: I’m loving everything that you say, and thank you for sharing your event about the Dentist Money Summit, because the webinar that you have created, How to Build That Patient Demand Without Dental Insurance Marketing, so much of it is geared towards the words that we use when we are entering into a relationship with a patient, whether it’s an existing patient or

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Regan Robertson: a new patient, and the words that we say, how it really matters. It shapes

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Regan Robertson: the decisions that we’re going to make. And I know insurance, you know, there are terms that they have coined, they have drilled into all of us, and we have… it is our job, you know, as independent business leaders to craft the narrative and own that.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yes.

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Regan Robertson: Wow, okay, walk us through, you know, some of the, some of the languaging

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Regan Robertson: Specifically around finance, since you are on the finance kick with this.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yeah, yeah.

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Regan Robertson: Shifts that people can make.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yeah, so doctors, one of the things that is really important when we talk about communication with our team is, you know, if you stop and think about your practice right now, and think about the language that is used around your practice.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Is your team, or even yourself, using the term, we’ll see what your insurance covers.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Oh, maybe we’ll pause and send in a pre-authorization.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: oh, we are in network or out of network with that insurance. Those phrases, just by themselves, have such a negative, you know, connotation to them, and so I think really what to remember is insurance isn’t covering anything, but it’s actually contributing to their dental care. So those are a few of the language shifts.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: that is really important to help the team on, and I talk about a lot in this webinar, is, you know, our insurance is contributing to our dental treatment. It’s not dictating the parameters around what you, as the educated, diagnosing doctor, is suggesting, and actually in the mouth, right? It’s not covering anything. It is contributing to that treatment.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: And really, that is between the doctor and the patient, what treatment is necessary, depending on the needs and the situation. You bring your expertise in, you bring in what the patient is feeling and thinking and needing at that time, and together you create the perfect treatment plan.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: But when we talk about finances, Reagan, this is a metric that I talk about a lot in the webinar as well, which is

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Doctors… I hear doctors say all the time, I am scared to go out of network, or to reduce my dependence

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: on insurance companies, because now that’s going to stop those patients coming to me. But doctors, there’s two things I want you to remember. One is those patients are only coming to you because you’re on a list.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Those patients, easy come, easy go. And so, taking the time to invest in really great patients who come to you because of you is so much more important than just having an insurance list.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: The second piece to this is, doctors, when we talk about writing 30-35% off with some of these insurance companies that, you know, are some of your low-reimbursement insurance companies, not all of them are this way, but the ones that are.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: I want to give you some numbers that will kind of blow your mind. So, let’s say that you are, on average, $1.2 million practice.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: If you’re writing off 35%, doctors, that’s an average of $420,000 a year. $420,000.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: So, if your average day or your average production is around, you know, $2,000, doctors, that’s like 60 days that you’re working for free, or that you are not even collecting any money on.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: And when you put it into that type of perspective, that is what the insurance

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: is asking of you to simply have your name on a list. And doctors, I can tell you, I have never in all of my time of marketing asked a client to spend $420,000 a year on marketing. Like, Reagan, we’re talking about we could buy prime-time TV commercials every night of the week for $420,000. And so, doctors’ insurance lists are

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: not a marketing tactic, right? It is… it is you simply putting butts in your seats, and so when we start to break down the metrics like that, doctors’ minds are really blown, because they’re like, I had no idea. Yes, I… I know I can fill it, but they didn’t have the words to put in to really what they’re filling like that.

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Regan Robertson: Being a guide to something like this is incredible, because there’s so much training that goes into shaping how an industry, you know, operates.

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Regan Robertson: Yeah, and I love that you said, you know, one of the problems from the doctors that were attending the summit that you noticed that was a theme was the, you know, getting ready, like, wanting to transition in the next five.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: 5 to 10 years.

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Regan Robertson: actually being… I love that you said that they are thinking about transitioning that far out, because what breaks my heart is when you’re… you haven’t done that work, and you’re at the, you know, two-year window, or 1-year window, and… and you haven’t.

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Regan Robertson: put in those steps, that really bothers me, because it’s, you know, your opportunity is significantly less.

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Regan Robertson: And I’m… so I’m curious.

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Regan Robertson: What are the first… like, what’s the first step you would have somebody do if… if they know it, they see it, they… they’re annoyed that…

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Regan Robertson: you know, it’s taking that much, you know, of their… it’s… let’s just say it’s capping. It’s capping their potential out, and forcing them, you know, and if we’re, you know, having staffing issues, too. Like, it’s just the volume game isn’t where it’s at, and it’s in the value game. What is step number one? What should they look at first?

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yeah, step number one is know the metrics of the practice. So, doctors, insurance is not an all-or-nothing type of strategy. It might make sense for you to participate with certain companies. It may not, but we have to understand the metrics. We cannot make any emotions or…

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: any strategic decisions based on emotions, we really need the data and the metrics behind it. So, step one is identifying

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Where your write-offs are going.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: And what’s the production attached to that?

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: So, you know, making those lists, a lot of your, practice software will be able to pull that information, but just knowing first, where are those money leaks? And that’s one of those money leaks, is understanding what the write-offs are and how that’s actually affecting your business, and then what are the patients that are tied to that. That’s your first step. Once you understand that, it will give you a little better diagnosis on

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: oh, well, hey, this insurance company, I’m writing 40% off, but I only have 25 patients attached to it. That one will be an easier transition for you to start with, because it’s the least amount of risk for you. It will allow the team to start those conversations, it will allow the team to practice, you know, what that sounds like before you keep moving into maybe bigger transition.

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: But again, understanding really first the data behind it will then help you understand what will make sense for you.

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Regan Robertson: Thank you, Sarah. You know, if you guys are listening right now, and you want to know more specifically which practice metrics to look for so that you can turn yourself into a value-driven practice that doesn’t have to rely so heavily on insurance, and more of which specific phrases and words to have your team use.

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Regan Robertson: So that your patients will not only stay with you, but they will, you know, become loyal even when you go out of network. And then thirdly.

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Regan Robertson: you know, all around authentic marketing, which is our wheelhouse, how to be in control of the narrative before insurance companies take the lead and, you know, send your patients perhaps down a road that you don’t want them to do. I think you go to Phoenix, it’s phoenixDentalagency.com, so just head over there, right? And you guys can download… is it on-demand, instant?

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Yes, yes. There should be either a link or a QR code or something that will take them to the webinar.

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Regan Robertson: Awesome! Sarah, is there anything else that you would like to share, either from your time at the summit, or as, you know, an added bonus, after they watch the webinar, that we can leave our listeners with today?

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: You know, doctors, I… I love talking to doctors and to teams. That’s where I come from. You are my people. And, you know, I just… I get really…

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: passionate about. Doctors, we want to support you in the best way possible. And, you know, we want to remove stress. And so, again, there are so many resources, there’s so much support. You know, I am always here as a support, you know, if you’re ever like, I’m not quite sure, you know, what makes sense, again, there… just reach out and get the help, the mentoring, the support, whatever that looks

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: like from either colleagues in the, industry or, you know, any industry experts. They’re really here to help guide you through this. You don’t have to be alone.

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Regan Robertson: Well, thank you, Sarah! It’s been a great episode. Listeners, if you have feedback for us, you can always email Sarah directly, SARA, at phoenixdentalagency.com. We would love to know the value that you’re getting from these episodes, and if you want us to focus on any specific topic. Thank you so much!

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Sara Hansen- Phoenix Dental Agency: Bye, everyone!