Episode 113 – Requested Replay: Financing: Getting Patients to “Yes!”

“It doesn’t matter if they get the work done over four months or four years. What matters is they’re in control, and you have a plan.”  ~ Dr. Victoria Peterson

In the previous episode, we learned that the most important metric in your practice is if your patients are saying “yes” to treatment, and at what level. How do we move patients from the “I’m scared,” “You might hurt me,” “I’m embarrassed,” “I can’t afford this” mindset to the mindset of “I trust you,” “I believe what you’re telling me about my mouth,” “I’m confident you’re my provider,” and “I’m confident I can work this into my budget”?

One of the ways we can do this is through financing. Technology has finally caught up with this important part of the dental visit, as what used to be a tricky negotiation where forms are being filled out, and you’re waiting to see who’s approved by what vendor, can now be presented to the patient in a way they can understand and accept.

As you listen to this episode, we want you to think about:

• How has third-party financing affected your practice?
• What are the various ways you offer financing to your patients?
• How do you present these financing options?

Regan Robertson 00:00
Hi, Doctor. Regan Robertson, CCO of Productive Dentist Academy here, and I have a question for you. Are you finding it hard to get your team aligned to your vision, but you know you deserve growth, just like everybody else? That’s why we’ve created the PDA Productivity Workshop. For nearly 20 years, PDA workshops have helped dentists just like you align their teams, get control of scheduling, and create productive practices that they love walking into every day. Just imagine how you will feel when you know your schedule is productive, your systems are humming, and your team is aligned to your vision. It’s simple, but it’s not necessarily easy. We can help, visit productivedentist.com/workshop. That’s productivedentist.com/workshop to secure your seats now.

Victoria Peterson 00:46
It gets into this embarrassing piece of negotiation, right? Because you’ve asked a question that you don’t know the answer to. So the question is, “Can my patient get approved for financing?” You don’t know, yes or no and whenever you put yourself in a place where you’re not controlling the process, and unknown variables come in,you’re more often than not going to end up on the no side of the equation.

Narrator 1:18
Welcome to Investment Grade Practices Podcast, where we believe private practice dentists deserve to get the lifestyle today while building an asset for tomorrow.Join your host, Victoria Peterson, to design the practiceof your dreams and secure your financial independence. Let’s get started.

Victoria Peterson 1:41
Welcome to Investment Grade Practices. I’m your host, Victoria Peterson and on the last episode, we started talking about metrics that lead to success in an Investment Grade Practice and we ended with case acceptance and having the courage to tell patients everything that you see. If you want to double your practice, just start doubling what you share. It’s not making up treatment. It’s just being willing to share all that you see and that is scary, particularly in these economic times. So I want to walk through revenue cycle management a little bit in turn from a patient’s point of view. Remember, the most important metric in your practice is, are patients saying yes and at what level? So if they’re saying yes to a third of their treatment or one out of 10 things on their treatment plan, how can you impact them saying yes to more? Or having a plan where this year we’ll handle Quadrant 1, Quadrant 2, Quadrant 3, Quadrant 4. It doesn’t matter if they get the work done in four months or four years. What matters is that they’re in control and you have a plan. So I want to dive in a little bit about how we offer financial options to patients, because I think consultants have really messed us up on this one. Long time ago, we said, “Doctor, don’t worry, don’t be the bank. Let us handle that.” So third-party finance came in and said, “We have the technology to run credit scores. We can tell you if they’re worthy or not,” and I remember those days because I was an office manager and I used to run TransUnion and Equifax credit scores on our patients in order to extend credit because we didn’t have banks lining up to do that.

Victoria Peterson 03:30
It really, in the day, put the practice at a lot of risk. It depended on the office manager’s skill level in doing this. If you had team turnover, then suddenly you couldn’t offer financial options. If the patient didn’t pay, then you had collections and it was a tedious process. So I see how banking came into dentistry and I’m grateful that they did but the waterfall of how we present financial options really hasn’t shifted in decades. It’s shifted now and there are companies that are doing this and I’m not going to go into brands or endorse any particular companies. You can find those companies or private message me. We’ll talk about who we use at Productive Dentist Academy but I want you to think about the mindset of the patient. “I’m scared. I’m nervous. You might hurt me. This might be expensive. I’m probably embarrassed because it’s my own neglect that got me here.” So how do we raise the emotional insights for this patient into “I trust you. I’m confident that what you say I need, I really need. I’m confident that you are the provider for me and I’m confident that I can reasonably work this in my budget.” So that’s the scenario. That’s where we, in the patient journey, we need to get to in order for patients to say yes and in today’s environment, it goes something like this. “Victoria, your treatment plan is $5,000 and we work with XYZ company and we can see if they will approve you or if you’d like, you can pay up front and get a 10% courtesy. So it’ll be $4,500 and you need to pay today.” So in the strictest, those are the options. So let’s say the patient doesn’t have $4,500 or they want to hold on to their money and you go and you apply and get approval or denial from company XYZ and based on their credit score, they get partial approval for $2,000. So now you’re in this place of, “Do I do half the treatment? Do I try to get them to come up with the other $3,000, a third, a third, a third and we take the $2,000 as a down payment.” It gets into this embarrassing piece of negotiation, right, because you’ve asked a question that you don’t know the answer to.

Victoria Peterson 6:04
So the question is, “Can my patient get approved for financing?”You don’t know, yes or no and whenever you put yourself in a place where you’re not controlling the process and unknown variables come in, you’re more often than not going to end up on the no side of the equation. So there are companies now that have platforms that can simultaneously approve patients in multiple ways. So with one intake process,  you can see if they are approved for the traditional third-party financing, which is a one-year interest deferred or partial with interest. There is in-house financing that you, the doctor, quite honestly should be setting up because with interest, you mitigate the risk. With these types of platforms, your office manager doesn’t have to go do the credit checks. The software does that for you. So you’ve eliminated the inconsistency within your practice, and you’ve eliminated the risk by charging interest. So having multiple loans to patients with interest, you will not come out on the short end of the stick. Trust me, banks know this. That’s why they build high-rise buildings. If you finance one patient and they defaulted, then you’re at risk but you finance 10, 20, 30, 50 patients and one patient defaults, your interest covers that. So what about a platform that says, “I can approve you traditionally. I can approve you with a down payment where the hard costs are covered and the office will carry the balance. I could sign you up for a membership plan, and you could take advantage of courtesies and bookkeeping reductions that way, discounts that way. We could use your insurance as a down payment and then look at financing.” That is the wave of the future for patient finance, and I hope that you’re waking up to this. I hope that when you’re at  conferences, you’re seeing the companies that do this.

Victoria Peterson 8:10
They are all on HIPAA-compliant text messaging and email automated platforms. So once you set up the financial option, it’s not like you have to work it out on a piece of paper anymore, then go and apply, and then outsource it and hope your money comes in. It’s all in a platform where you have visibility, the payments are automated, and the follow-up is automated. So for any reason, their bank draft is rejected or their credit card expires, they automatically get text. Imagine how much you could streamline the administrative task in your practice, and imagine how much patient acceptance goes up when they’re at that point that says, “Hey, doc, that sounds great. When can we get started?” And you say, “I’m going to let Victoria work that out with you. She’s got two jobs, one, to fit it into your busy schedule, and two, to make sure this fits in your budget and she’s got a variety of fair and flexible options for you,” and that’s it. You’ve done your job as a provider, providing comprehensive view into their needs, and now you’ve got a comprehensive plan on helping them work it into their budgets. So that’s the invitation for you in today’s episode is go and discover not only the technology innovations for patient care, but for patient finance. It is a game changer.

Narrator 9:40
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Investment Grade Practices Podcast. If you find value in this episode, help us spread the word by passing it along to a dental friend. Subscribe and give us a like on iTunes or Spotify. Learn more about building your investment grade practice at productivedentist.com today.

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