Do You Take My Insurance?

Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
00:00
The is, do you accept ex insurance? And I hear constantly, well, we do, but we’re out of network. And that but that you just threw in there just took the entire thing away. We do but now the patient’s gone. The average dental office will miss about 50 plus opportunities per month because they didn’t answer the phone or they didn’t answer the question properly. And when it comes down to is your self-confidence, your confidence and your competence.

00:30
and that you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it and that you’re being truthful and honest.

00:38
This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management and training.

00:47
Welcome to Dental All-Stars. I’m Alex Nottingham, founder and CEO of All-Star Dental Academy. And with me is Shelly Van Epps, the COO, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Coach at All-Star Dental Academy. And our topic is the insurance question. Please welcome Shelly Van Epps. Thank you for having me. So we’re talking about the insurance question. I’m sure we’ve done this before, and we’re going do it again because it’s so important. Repetition is the mother of skill.

01:15
The insurance question is a big question that comes up specifically on often on phone calls, right? It may come up in the office as well. And our VP of training, co-founder of Ulster Dental Academy, Heather Nottingham, who also is a phone instructor and did the course for our online program talks about the insurance question as one of the big questions that come up. And so, yeah, let’s, let’s unpack it a little bit and kind of tell me about

01:45
the problem a little bit about why this happens, why it’s important. Also, I note as well in your talk about how we do a lot of work of helping offices become less dependent on insurance. Regardless, whether you’re taking insurance or not, you’re going to get this question. So Shelly, executive coach, help me out here. Yeah. So the reason why I wanted to talk about this in particular, it comes up on so many coaching calls and team members are constantly challenged with how do I respond?

02:15
and they want to be transparent, but also it’s really important that we make sure not to put up blockages because honestly, our patients don’t necessarily know what else to ask. And so we want to make sure to bring the barriers down while still being honest and open with our patients because the last thing you want to do is have somebody show up, find out you in fact are potentially out of network and then them get angry with you in the office, turn around, walk out.

02:45
not keep their appointment. have lost opportunity for other patients and all of the things snowball. And those are legitimate concerns from team members. And so we work really hard on our verbiage and we make sure we don’t necessarily script a whole lot here at All-Star, but there are certain things that you want to say and things that you want to avoid. And that will help with streamlining that concept and that whole process when you’re speaking with your patients.

03:15
The great call process helps to be able to walk through that and take that initial question and say, okay, build a relationship with this person first and then answer their question. You don’t want to completely avoid it, but you definitely want to address it at some point in that call. Just maybe not the very first thing. So that’s why it comes up. And I think it always helps to identify.

03:41
why this is important and what happens when you do it wrong and what you hear when they’re doing wrong. And we could talk about how to do it right. Because I think so few dentists and offices realize the importance of phone skills or the cost of what’s happening when we’re not doing it right. So I think most dentists understand, yes, it’s important we answer the phone. Yes, we get it. I think in theory.

04:08
but they don’t know the impact that it’s really having. They don’t understand that. mean, look, those that listening to this podcast are not the ones that are like, I’ll be rude to people because you do have offices you call and they’re rude. Heather called one the other day and they’re like, dental office or hello? like, hello? Like, is this the office that I call? So I hope that’s not you that’s listening. If not, listen more. But the…

04:36
the, you have this issue where there’s a big cost when we’re not converting patients and we often pay the front office the least yet. If they don’t convert patients to appointments or potential patients or appointments, then we don’t have a practice. Right. And it’s very expensive. The average dental office will miss about 50 plus.

05:02
opportunities per month because they didn’t answer the phone or they didn’t answer the question properly. And if each you have each potential patient is 400 to 500 to $600 for the first year value, if not more, depending if you’re a specialist or cosmetic, and then there’s multiples every year and then referrals every year from that. So you miss one patient per working day per month. You’re looking at gosh,

05:31
Like, I don’t know what the, we could do some of the math here, but we’re talking 10, 20,000 dollars a month, right? And then the lifetime value of the potential referrals and patient opportunities is a hundred thousand dollars from that one month from that of what you did. And you track that over the years, it’s millions and millions of dollars that you’re, that you’re losing. And so I have a webinar. If you go to all straddle academy.com and you can click, watch the webinar, it’s free.

05:57
but I do the exact math for you for phone calls and broken appointments. But I think I wanted to really hear, reiterate that the insurance question is one of those questions. What do you charge for X? Do you take my insurance? And if you don’t answer this correctly, then you just miss out on a lot of opportunities. And I will say this, things that we don’t do, and you may talk about that, we don’t lie and we don’t manipulate, we’re gonna tell the truth.

06:27
but you have to follow a process with respect to that because very few people even realize that if you’re at a network that we can still work with you. So I think it’s very important to hear is the cost. So tell me what, so we see the expense of it. What are they saying and why is it wrong that you hear? So that’s the perfect question because that’s exactly what I’m hearing. I’ll get on and I’ll listen to certain calls or talk with the teams.

06:55
And the question is, you accept ex insurance? And I hear constantly, well, we do, but we’re out of network. And that but that you just threw in there just took the entire thing away. We do, but now the patient’s gone. And not to mention they’re jumping straight in and answering that question without finding out who are they speaking with, building any bit of rapport. It’s just an instantaneous answer.

07:21
A lot of times that comes out of approval addiction and wanting to make sure to be upfront with our patient and not tell them something that’s not true. So we encourage follow the great call process. your thank you so much for calling. My name is Shelly. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with using a transition and starting to build some rapport with that person first has to happen.

07:46
You have to take them away from that initial question to start with and then circle back to it. After you’ve had that opportunity to build some rapport. do mean by approval addiction? Ah, great. For those who don’t know what that is. Yes. So this is something that gets in our way in a lot of different, it shows up differently for every person, but it’s ultimately the fear of failure, fear of upsetting somebody else, fear of not doing something properly.

08:15
There’s a whole list of different symptoms that will show up. And when it comes down to is your self confidence, your confidence and your competence and that you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it and that you’re being truthful and honest. And so they don’t want to have that potential conflict and therefore just give the answer immediately so that they don’t end up with a patient who potentially is upset with them. Sure. And I think that can show up in

08:45
I saw this and Robin, our director of hiring who we just spoke to earlier has done a podcast on quiet quitting, right? Where there are also some employees that just don’t want to be there and are doing to the minimum to kind of get by. That’s why we have a hiring service to help with replacing those roles. But, so there’s a lot of psychological factors, but before we even get to the, to the content of how to do it, there’s a lot of psychological factors, again, approval addiction, uh,

09:14
also being taught when somebody asks you a question, you answer them right away. answering the question because you’re afraid of having to go into it. Also competency, like you said, if I don’t know how to handle things, if I just say, don’t take your insurance or we kind of do, but we’re afraid of them to start interacting with us because we may not know how to answer their question. We may not be prepared. So it’s a lot easier just to stop the question to begin with because

09:44
Again, doctors that are listening and practice owners, the team, they want to support their position. They don’t want to suffer, Get yelled at or upset. They want to feel somewhat confident with what do. They don’t want to be sad in their role. And when they’re having to have fights or arguments with patients because they’re not trained, then that’s not fun. So we just answer the question and move on. Next is robotic. I do it, I do my paycheck and I go home, done.

10:13
I don’t think we want that. think our goal as a business owner is we want an outcome. We want to take care of great people and make them very happy and so on. But it doesn’t happen naturally. You have to train. have to not only, Shelly’s going to share with you a few tricks in a moment for those who are listening, but that’s not enough. You have to be doing this over and over and over. We believe 20 minutes a week is enough even for your entire team, but can you do that week after week? Can you role play? Can you…

10:41
make stay the course with that because you’re going to hear what we’re to say. This is brilliant. And then you’ll try it. You’ll see some success and you’ll stop doing it. Yeah. It’s funny. Cause when I’m coaching and I’ll say, just say it like this and I’ll say something, they’re like, wait, can you say that again? I’m like, no, I can’t. say it a little bit differently every time because it’s genuine. And if you understand the concept and the process behind it what you’re attempting to do, build relationship.

11:11
It needs to come first. However you get there, use a transition statement that feels right for you in taking them from their initial question over to getting to know them. And then you transition into the engaged part or getting to the meat of the questions and getting their appointment scheduled. You’re talking about some really good stuff here. This, we have other videos on in our podcast. You can look it up. We did a whole call with Heather on the great call process on the transition statement.

11:39
If you search in Google or YouTube or on a website, you can find those. Also, if you’re a member or you become a member, we have that all laid out in our program. So you’re talking about the great call process, which I’ll ask you to describe in a moment. And then there’s a specific portion in the great call that we teach. So it’s not just the acronym. We spend 10 hours teach unpacking all the detail. Uh, so you get better and better at it. But one area is a transition statement where we’re the patients coming in hot. They want to know, what do you charge?

12:09
You take my insurance and what you want to do is disarm them in a nice way so that you can start to begin the great call process to get to know them. And then you will answer their question in your context, right? So that you’re not being kind of framed. And typically if you’re not prepared, if somebody asks you a question, you know, then you’re kind of stuck. And that’s where a lot of people are at, or you’re not trained well because there’s also different personality types. I don’t want to overwhelm you, but it’s not just a question. Some people like me, I’m a D, give me the answer.

12:39
And if you take too long, I’m going to start pressing hard. Others want all the details. Others want you to be your friend. And so what we do in also, have a, I’ll ask you later about our case acceptance course, but it’s also about making sure that we’re adapting personality wise to people as well to be able to do that. So I guess for those that are listening, I don’t want to overwhelm you. I just want to remind you that this is not going to happen overnight. It’s a process, but the more you do it, the better you get at it. So Shelly, tell me that they’re coming in hot.

13:08
I want to know, do you take my insurance? have Delta. then- we don’t. You don’t say There we go. End of the podcast. Thanks for joining us. Until next time. So, all right. So you don’t say that. What do you do with respect to that? And maybe even let’s do this. I don’t know. I’m in the mood for it. Let’s do a role play. I’ll be the patient. I’m going be very good patient. I’ll be very cooperative. We’re going to pause at each step and I just want you, I’m not going to do the entire call, but especially the beginning, the transition.

13:36
And I want you to identify what you did. So I call, bing. Thank you for calling Nottingham dentistry. This is Shelley. How may I help you? Oh, that has a very nice ring to it. Nottingham dentistry. Sounds very familiar. Yes. Made it up. I work there now. Oh, Shelley. That’s a very nice name. I had a friend named Shelley. Anyways, and she used her name, which was good. She introduced her name. was very good. What are you chart? I have Delta dental and do you take my insurance?

14:05
Thank you so much for calling again. My name is Shelly. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with? Oh, ask her my name. My name is Alex. Hi, Alex. I would be more than happy to help you with that. In order for me to best assist you, is it okay with you if I ask some questions? Yeah, that was great. And so now she does, that was a transition statement and you can accident ask it in many, many ways. And there she disarmed me. wanted to go right, right after the question.

14:31
And she says, can I ask you some questions to better assist you? Who doesn’t want to be better assisted? Right? so now you, that’s the transition statement. did a whole podcast on that, but that is where we’re able to shift now into the verbiage of the gray call process. So tell me about then with the gray call process, what would you then do with the patient throughout there? Build some more rapport with them, find out more about what prompted them to call today, because there are different things that people will call for. They might not.

15:00
actually only be concerned about the fact that they have insurance. They may have a broken tooth, they just moved to the area. You’ll learn referral sources. You’ll learn so many different things about this person that’s going to be able to help you to connect with this particular patient so that you can better assist them. People trust when there’s a relationship built. I like to use a scenario. If you’re walking down the street, Alex, and you see somebody on the sidewalk and they say, hey,

15:29
Sir, would you like a piece of gum? you likely to take that gum? No. Okay. So you sit down at a table with somebody, with a friend of a friend, you have just a little bit of rapport building and they say, Hey, would you like a piece of gum? Are you more likely to take it? As long as they weren’t chewing it, probably. Okay.

15:49
Fresh gum fresh gum. They’re gonna be more likely to take it likely you sit down with me and one of my friends You more likely to take it, right? I will absolutely take it because otherwise I will feel left out and do whatever exactly So you have a little bit more rapport the more strong that rapport becomes the more likely you’re able to trust them that what that gum has is not

16:13
something they haven’t stepped on it in the ground and like ground it down. That’s a nice analogy for summer. That’s a really nice analogy. I mean, you know, you’re going to be more willing to take what it is that they’re offering. That’s what we’re doing in dentistry. We have to have a relationship so that we can build trust with our patient. They trust us because they know us. We know them, they know us. And therefore when we’re sharing with them these conditions and what might be going on, they’re more likely to listen and take action. We have

16:43
inherited knowledge from us, not knowledge, inherited assumption that they’re going to trust us because it’s DDS. We’re the doctor, right? But the more that they have relationship with your team, as well as you, that is going to be stronger and stronger. So ultimately starting off with that phone call with that relationship building is really important. And then making sure that the team is passing that onto the team so that the patient isn’t repeating it is

17:11
just as crucial as actually building the relationship to begin with. And that’s where people say, give me the script and we like to give you a verbiage, but what’s more important is where are you coming from? So what you just saw, this was the, and this is, this is probably the most important step of the insurance question is transitioning them, number one, away from what they’re trying to do right off the bat. So you can get to know them and two building rapport. Once they know you like you, respect you, and you understand where they’re coming from.

17:41
then you can answer their question and put it in perspective, whether you’re at a net, you’re at a network, whether you’re in network, however the process goes. But, but essentially, and we’ll kind of conclude with a few verbish tips, but the point is, is it’s where you’re coming from, that you are, that you want it. And here’s the thing, you have to want what you’re hearing us do. You have to like really believe in your product. Not just a dentist, but the team has to believe in you. Uh, and that’s why it’s so important that we believe to pour into the team.

18:12
and make those investments that they feel it’s like their practice and that they want to, so want to serve that patient and take care of them. Because when you understand, when you understand that if you’re at a network, that you can still get most if not all the benefits from the patient’s insurance company, and every office is different and how they do it and so on.

18:36
but in every state and different insurance companies work differently. So there has to be different verbiage. It’s not one size fits all. But if we come from that perspective, we’re gonna be educated and that patient goes, wow, what a professional. Look at how they treated me. And they’re gonna take most, if not all of my benefits. Why wouldn’t I go to that place versus the other place? Because most, I guess I would say from our experience,

19:05
the fee for service or those that are at a network tend to be a little bit more higher quality than those that are just pure insurance. And that’s also economically, it has to be that way because you can’t spend as much time with the patient because you’re strapped by the insurance company. And that’s not always the case. But my point is, is if I could get the same amount of the same experience where the person takes my insurance without any conditions, I’ll just go there.

19:33
but if I call Shelly’s office and I’m treated so warmly and it’s maybe one additional step or whatever and I still get most of my benefits or even less of my benefits, I may go there. Right? And I would find that as the person answering the phones, I would have patients say, okay, well, I’m going to call around and then 15, 20 minutes later they would call back. You say, you know, I’ve been having a really hard time finding somebody that actually accepts my insurance the way that you described it.

20:01
I, and the way that you talked about your doctor and your practice, is it okay if I schedule an appointment? And obviously when we were on the phone, I offered an appointment to begin with, and this is the rarity or that particular patient who really wants to do their due diligence to attempt to get the most out of their insurance. Completely respect that. But because of building the relationship with that person, they would call back.

20:27
And even if they didn’t schedule, I kept their name, I had their phone number, that was one of the things that you have to make sure you get at the beginning of the call, you call them back and just say, hey, this is Shelly with Nottingham Dentistry. I just wanted to check in on you and make sure you were able to find an office that’s gonna be able to take care of you. And that’s that wow factor, exactly. That’s taking it one step farther for that particular person. And if they’re still on the hunt, they’re going to schedule when you call them.

20:56
I challenged an office one day. said, nope, they went somewhere else. I said, okay, well on Friday, this call, she had a call on a Wednesday with a patient. We had a coaching call on Thursday. said, tomorrow, I want you to call that person and check in on them. And she did, and they had gone somewhere else and had a horrible experience. And that patient was so excited that she had called and checked in on them. They said, you know what?

21:22
I’m sorry that I didn’t go with you to begin with. Is it too late? Can I come and see Dr. A?” And so they ended up with that patient in their practice because she took that extra step. Does it take more time? Absolutely, it does. But if you’re wanting to really set yourself apart and set yourself ahead of some of the others in that realm, you got to do it.

21:47
It makes a big, big difference in how people perceive you. And that patient is going to be a patient for life because they went and they experienced something else. And then they found out, wow, this is really true. you took it to another, I’m sorry, you took it to another level. mean, in, calling back the, uh, whether they went with the doctor or not, because I think it takes courage Shelley to do that. Because what if you call and say, Oh no, I’m happy where I’m at. You got rejected. But.

22:16
but you took that, you still took that step. I think that’s amazing with respect to that. And it’s a lot easier to do that when you genuinely care about that person. If I’ve built a relationship with this person, I talked to them for a few minutes, I’m concerned. They have a broken tooth. They have something that they’re looking for that they didn’t feel we were the right fit at that moment. I genuinely want to make sure that they were taken care of. And if you come from that place, you’re not a pushy salesperson, like, are you sure you picked the right place?

22:45
Hey, I know that that tooth is bothering you. Were you able to get in somewhere to get that taken care of? Are you feeling more comfortable? Yes, thank you so much for calling. Wonderful. If there’s ever anything we can do for you, please don’t hesitate to reach out. And that sets with them. They may not come, but this is the other thing. I’ve also had them, these patients who did not come into the practice refer other people. It’s true. They were like, I couldn’t go there because my insurance. I couldn’t go there because my insurance.

23:15
but I know you don’t have insurance. is the office you should go to. Well, what we saw earlier, we talked about the cost of not converting. There is still a limited amount of opportunities that an office will get. Okay. Um, the average office gets 87 opportunities a month. And for some of those listening, go, I don’t get that many. Maybe you don’t, but you get 20. So we better take every opportunity, um, well, as, as, as an opportunity. And what you did, what you have is you have these limited opportunity phone calls.

23:44
And in that phone call, whether it’s insurance question, whether it’s a price question, we’re going to make it a great call. We’re going to go through a process and get to know them. And then there’s a follow-up process, which is later in the great call process we talk about. And it’s not pushy. It’s just that we built a relationship and we’re going to see it through. And I’m even thinking what you’re saying is our goal is to make sure that that patient found a place where they’ll be taken care of. And if it’s even not us, it’s somebody else, that’s great.

24:15
but we are going to do whatever we can to service that patient. So again, in most cases, if you’re at a network, offices can work with you or you can work with the office just using your verbiage. If you can’t or for whatever reason they go somewhere else, we’re still happy that, you know, or to send you this way or that you’re taken care of. And they might, like you said, and you’ve had it before, what they may refer because of that. So if we just, it’s like, just do the job right, do it well.

24:43
And in the long run, it takes care of, uh, of itself. Right. And I know as COO, the leader of this company at All-Star, right. Um, you’re, you’re about that do it well every time. And I think the, just from that compound effect, the company grows and you do better and you also enjoy, everybody enjoys what they do. So I want to give the listener some action steps here or some next steps. Right. So I would say for certain good, go to all-star dental academy.

25:12
uh, dot com, uh, see the webinar it’s up there and I’ll go into more detail about the great call process. You should also look at some other podcasts and so on members as well. good to see it again. It’s a good webinar. Um, there are, uh, there’s also some, I wanted you to also talk about in terms of action steps as well in, terms of live events, uh, because live events and coaching just briefly about it because, again,

25:40
It doesn’t have to be us at All-Star. I know you’re to speak about the five steps to an All-Star practice at our next event. It’s just a philosophy that if you’re going to have a great practice and a great life, these are the ways to do it. And it doesn’t happen overnight. is learning the content, which we’re giving you some today, but then it’s practicing it and using every opportunity to deepen that process and get better at it.

26:07
It isn’t like you learn how to place a veneer one time. That’s it. You’re never going to take and continue education again. You’re never going to refine it. Never going to get better at it. It’s the same thing with this type of stuff. So with, with that, the five steps, you always obviously want to be training. You want to make sure that you have somebody holding you accountable. That’s the coaching component and making sure that you have somebody who’s checking in on you and making sure to keep pushing that envelope.

26:35
John Maxwell has the law of the rubber band and the law of the rubber band says that if you’re not stretching, you’re not growing. We’re not trying to snap a rubber band here. We’re not trying to take you and say, okay, team, we’re going to pull that rubber band as tight as we can because it’s uncomfortable and you’re going to grow and you’re going to grow tomorrow. You need to continue to use the atomic habits of stacking your different skills and building on top of one another. And all of a sudden, one of these days you’re going to say, wow,

27:05
I’m doing the great call process. Wow, I’m doing the case presentation formula. I don’t know when it happened. It just all of a sudden is all coming together. And I can say even listening to some of my own calls, am I a 40 out of 40 on the great call process every single time? I’d love to say yes, I would be a liar. There are times when you get taken out of your game and you’re off a little bit. You read graphs, you look at that, you assess it and say, okay, what did I miss?

27:33
Okay, I’m going to focus in on that next time. And then all of a sudden you’re right back in the swing of things. And so continuing to,

27:43
coach yourself even, guess, and coach, I don’t know what I want to say with that. You get so into it. do. get so enthusiastic about it. Well, you were talking about the importance of coaching, right? And that, and that, uh, and I would, I would, I would kind of give them these steps, right? So you have the content, which is a webinar for those who take whatever. Then there’s this coaching and coaching can be a coach. Like we have coaches at All-Star.

28:10
There are other companies that have coaches. You could also be coaching yourself and your team or adopt somebody like, so I look at it like with all star, you’re kind of leasing an in-house coach, but you might have a coach in your office. It’s full time. Utilize that person to be making sure that you’re role playing and practicing that because coaching works across industries. It’s content coaching. Oh, I like that CC have another C three C’s, you know, but then, and then the last step I would say for those that are listening is

28:39
Live events have a really great place because you, you get to kind of rub shoulders with other people in the same situation. Uh, you, you attract or you’re looking at different modalities of learning. Um, but it takes great shape when you know the content, when you have some level of coaching and now you’re doing the same thing with other people and that you, you create an experience for the team that they’ll remember.

29:08
Uh, it’s interesting. Like if you think about what do you remember when you look back at stuff, it’s those novelty, uh, uh, situations that occur. so you’re creating novelty and variety and significance in your practice. When you bring your team in that category, because the team is always looking used to the doctor in the framework of the office. Now you’re outside and you see different components and then that you see, I see what I’m fighting for.

29:38
And you get to the heart of it and that’s what then you come back drives the business. So there’s a mechanism. And again, I wish we can say it’s one line and all of your problems will be solved. The one script. And as you can see, script is not enough. It’s got to have the heart. It’s got to have a process and you’re going to have to do it over and over again. I wish I could get to the ideal weight that I like or lift a certain amount of weights and I’m never going to have to do it again. I can eat whatever I want and I can.

30:08
Just lay on the couch all day long and all will be well. It won’t. It doesn’t work that way. And no matter what you do, it’s an ongoing process. So our hope is you enjoy the process. You enjoy the learning. You enjoy the people. So it’s not work. Does that make sense? Very good. Very well said. Shelley Van Epps, our COO, our executive coach. Thank you for bringing this great topic to all of us.

30:34
And remember to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube. Also our website, UlsterDentalAcademy.com. Get the episodes as they are released, share with your friends. And until next time, go out there and be an all-star.

30:51
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at AllStarDentalAcademy.com