As more patients use the internet to find a dentist, paid marketing methods like Google Ads are essential for practices to grow. But with limited budgets and a highly competitive marketplace, dentists need to be certain they are producing the best possible results.

The key to unlocking more efficient paid marketing is measurement – and the most important metric of all is return on investment (ROI).

What Is ROI (Return on Investment)?

ROI indicates the net financial impact of an investment. The simplest way to calculate it is to divide your total revenue by your total costs. If, for example, you spend $100 on paid marketing and generate $200 in new patient bookings, your ROI would be 2x or +100%.

Why is ROI Important for Dental Marketing?

Marketing is only worthwhile if it helps your practice generate more profit. But it’s easy to lose sight of the bottom line impact of marketing and focus on the visible benefits, such as how many new patients you’ve acquired. As a result, you might mistakenly assume your marketing is working well – even if it’s producing a net loss.

Measuring the ROI of your marketing helps ground your decisions in the reality of your business economics. It enables you to:

• Quantify how effective your current marketing strategy is
• Find ways to make your marketing spend more efficient
• Avoid overspending on strategies or tactic that don’t produce measurable results

Three Reasons ROI is Particularly Important for Paid Marketing

1. The impact of paid marketing is exclusively about your bottom line

While brand building or developing a website could be seen as long-term investment that produce intangible value by increasing patient awareness and trust, the only reason to buy Google Ads is to produce measurable results.

You can reasonably consider your website a sunk-cost – and therefore not worry too much about its short-term ROI. But paid marketing that produces losses should be dispensed immediately.

2. The ROI of paid marketing campaigns varies wildly between practices.

Research shows that top performing paid marketing for dentists produces results more than 10x better than the industry average – so there is a big gap between marketing strategies that “work” and those that produce a major competitive advantage. Measuring your ROI helps you benchmark your existing performance and see how much you could improve things with the right strategy.

3. The common errors dentists make in paid marketing are easy to mitigate

You could be overspending on keywords that don’t produce quality leads or simply bidding on the wrong keyword altogether. But these mistakes will quickly be revealed by a solid ROI calculation and can be fixed with relative ease. That means ROI is not just a retrospective measure but something that can be used to proactively improve your marketing within days.

How to Measure the ROI of Your Paid Marketing

A simple ROI calculation does not capture the full complexity of paid marketing. Instead, a truly accurate assessment of your marketing profitability should factor in:

• The cost of your total paid marketing spend
• The number of patients you generate
• And your average patient lifetime value (PLV)

But even that misses out key factors that determine the true impact of your paid marketing.

Why? Because every marketing channel and strategy involves opportunity costs. Your marketing budget is limited, and the true “cost” of your paid marketing is not just the price of your ads – it’s missing out on other marketing methods.

Dentists should always ask themselves: could we get a higher ROI from a different service? Because while paid marketing may produce positive ROI, you may still be making a loss if the opportunity cost is too high.

3 Ways to Fix Poor Paid Marketing ROI

1. Refine your keywords

Dental searches range from extremely broad (“dental practice”) to extremely specific (“root canal surgery in Casper Wyoming”). This creates a huge scope for dentists to bid on the wrong keywords that produce unsuitable patients.

Assess which keywords have produced the highest conversion rate and turned into actual patients. This will help you refine your strategy, remove underperforming terms and zone in on ads that actually produce a return.

2. Change your bidding strategy

The cost of paid marketing varies wildly depending on the level of competition for keywords. Many dentists assume that competitive keywords are inherently more valuable, but this is often not the case. In fact, most dentists are served by highly specific keywords that have fewer bids but more accurately capture your ideal audience.

Your best strategy is to determine the ROI of specific keywords and find a balance between volume and profitability. Get rid of ads that cost too much, as well as ads that are underperforming in terms of their CRT. This process of optimizing will quickly improve your overall performance and leave with only the most effective ads.

3. Experiment with new platforms

Don’t get stuck on one form of paid marketing. While ads can yield a strong ROI, you may be better served by a patient acquisition platform like Opencare that connects you directly with dental patients.

This doesn’t have to be either/or: you can experiment with both and compare the results. If you find one produces significantly higher or more reliable ROI, then you can progressively alter your digital marketing strategy to focus on that approach.

How Opencare Delivers Best-in-class ROI

No upfront fees

Our platform doesn’t charge set-up fees or fixed fees, and you won’t have to pay if a patient doesn’t show up or is under 18. This helps keep the initial investment low.

Zero-risk model

We only charge you when our platform produces a paying patient. As a result, you will only have to pay when you start producing revenue from our service, which removes the risks associated with lead generation agencies.

Extensive marketing

Our long-term investment in SEO, social media and content marketing has helped us build a strong brand and a reputation for expertise in the dental space. We rank for the majority of organic Google searches for local dentists, and our popular referral programs brings in a large volume of new users each month.

Long-term relationships

Not only do we help the average dental practice win 5-10 new patients per month (and some as many as 40!); the patients we produce are loyal. Our average rebooking rate is 85%, producing a high life-time value for every patient.

The result? A zero-risk, highly efficient service that helps you generate and retain lots of high-quality patients – and produce an average ROI of 640% within the first year alone.

Boost Your Bottom Line with Opencare

The average paid marketing campaign produces 200% ROI, but Opencare delivers considerably higher ROI – and is considerably more reliable. If you are currently using paid marketing but want to try a different approach, book your free Opencare demo today.

The post How to Maximize ROI From Your Paid Dental Marketing appeared first on The Floss By Opencare.

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The reality is many dental practices are actively losing new patients because their website is not properly optimized for patient acquisition. And in this article, we explore…

3 Important Aspects of Digital Marketing Most Dentists Miss

1. Visibility

Why it matters

The whole point of having a digital presence is to ensure more patients discover your practice. In fact, a recent survey found that 18.4% of patients are most likely to pick the dental practice which ranks highest on search engines.

But simply having a website is not enough to make this happen: most patients will still never stumble upon your website if the site isn’t optimized to appear high in search results, especially as the number of dental practices grows and competition online increases.

Even if a patient has heard about your practice from a friend or social media, they will still likely visit your website before booking an appointment. For many patients, this is a form of due diligence. And if your website is not easily searchable or doesn’t include key information such as insurance details and a list of your services, they will take it as a negative signal – and most likely go with a different dentist.

What you can do

Dentists need to understand that there are multiple ways for patients to find your practice. Generating more search engine traffic comes from Search Engine Optimization(SEO), where dentists improve the volume and quantity of content on your website which is essential to help your site rank. But you also need to think about the various other avenues through which patients might discover your practice.

A strong presence on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok can provide a huge boost to your overall visibility and brand recognition, as can being featured on dental discovery platforms like Opencare and Zocdoc.

Cover these bases and your practice will be far more visible than most competitors.

2. Easy Booking

Why it matters

Consumers expect online transactions to be easy, and 18% say they abandon a purchase because the checkout process is too complicated. This applies to dental patients too: most will simply go elsewhere if it is not quick and easy to book an appointment online.

What you can do

First, it should be extremely clear how to book an appointment through your website. There are a few ways to achieve this:

• Make your phone number visible on every page
• Use scheduling tools like LocalMed to make it easy to book online
• Include a link to your Opencare page

Second, you should ensure there is plenty of quality information about your practice and what patients can expect throughout your website. Most patients will not make a booking online if they are unsure about the quality, cost or people involved.

Your website should therefore list:

• Your services and pricing
• The length of appointment
• When you have available appointments.
• Which insurance you accept
• Profiles of your staff

High-quality images and case studies can also help boost confidence and entice patients to book an appointment, as can…

3. Social proof

Why it matters

With a large number of practices to choose from, patients need a way to determine which dentist will provide the best value – and which they can trust. One study found that 43.3% of patients choose the dentist with the best online reviews, making reviews the single most important factor in selecting a practice.

What you can do

Your practice needs to encourage as many patients as possible to write reviews and rate your service online. The best way to do this is by making it easy to post a review and prompting patients to do so immediately after their appointment. These reviews should then be showcased across your entire digital presence, from your website to your profile on Opencare and Zocdoc.

Enhance Your Digital Presence with Opencare

Having a quality website is essential, but a patient acquisition platform helps you connect with more patients and cover all bases in your digital marketing. Our extensive investment in SEO and social media marketing has helped us become the trusted source for quality dental practices.

We help dentists:

• Increase visibility via our popular marketplace. Opencare ranks highly on nearly all “dentist near me” searches and has a strong presence on social media, meaning your practice will be seen by far more people.
• Make booking simple with our intuitive user interface. Patients can find your practice, learn about your services, see your reviews and book an appointment with just a few clicks.
• Generate more social proof. Our system enables you to automatically request reviews after every appointment, increasing the total volume of reviews you get and helping you stand out online.

As a result, we produce up to 40 new patients each month for many leading practices.

Want to learn more about our zero-risk approach to digital marketing for dentists?

The post Is Your Website Preventing You from Acquiring New Patients? appeared first on The Floss By Opencare.

As a result, many dentists rely on dental marketing agencies to find, nurture and convert new patients. In this article, we explain the value an agency brings, as well as how and when to hire the right one for your practice.

Why You Should Consider a Dental Marketing Agency

With the number of dentists expected to grow by 10% by 2040, patients will have far more choice and dentists will face a lot more competition. Excellent service and quality care is going to be more important than ever, but word of mouth will only get you so far.

Instead, you need to actively pursue new patients using digital marketing methods. From building a quality dental website and improving your search rankings to creating content and building a presence on social media, there are multiple ways patients discover practices today. The problem is most dentists are not skilled in these areas – which is why they turn to professionals.

There are many different kinds of digital marketing agencies, from generic firms to patient acquisition specialists. But all of them help you navigate complex digital marketing channels and build your practice – allowing you to focus on caring for your patients.

When is the Right Time to Work with a Dental Marketing Agency?

When You Are Establishing a New Practice

Whether you’ve recently gone into business or are starting out on your own after working at another dental office, you’re going to need marketing to establish a new practice. For patients to book an appointment, they have to be aware of your practice – and a digital marketing agency can help with that.

Patients need to know:

• Where your practice is
• What hours it’s open
• Who you are as a dentist
• What you offer that competitors don’t.

All this will be made clear through digital marketing, from the copy on your website to your listings on a platform like Opencare. So that when you open your front doors, you already have patients lining up out the door.

You Would Like to Grow Your Practice

You’ve established your practice and have been around for a few years. There’s a reliable patient list, and cash flow isn’t a problem. But your practice is at a point where you’d like it to grow, and without bringing in brand-new patients, that’s not going to happen.

You need a constant stream of new appointments in order to justify bringing on new staff members, onboarding other dentists, and purchasing more equipment. The right digital marketing agency will help you plan a long-term strategy to ensure you bring in new patients at a reasonable cost to ensure not only does your practice grow – your marketing ROI steadily increases over time.

What You Should Be Looking for in a Dental Marketing Agency

When considering hiring a dental marketing company, you should look at three key factors:

1. Experience

A good agency understands the dental industry and has a proven track record helping dental practices grow. They know how practices are run and what patients want, as well as having expertise in key patient acquisition techniques.

This will help them better target and acquire patients on your behalf, and ensure everything you do is geared specifically to the dental market.

2. Long-term goals

Acquiring new patients is one thing, but you also need to retain them. An agency that focuses on patient loyalty – building customer loyalty through improved patient experience – will deliver higher patient lifetime value, and therefore a higher ROI.

3. ROI

Whether you’re establishing a new dental practice or growing an existing practice, you want to see a return on investment. The number one concern of any agency you hire should be to help you maximize your revenue, and they should be able to provide concrete evidence that they have delivered measurable ROI for other practices.

What a Patient Acquisition Company Like Opencare Can Offer You

We’re not a marketing agency, but we do offer all the benefits of a great dental marketing agency, along with an in-depth understanding of the industry, your patients, and how to grow your practice. Our entire focus is on helping dental practices grow – whether they’ve just opened or have been around for decades.

Our processes are simple, smooth, and effective, requiring little to no effort on your behalf. We have invested heavily in SEO and social media marketing, building a strong reputation and a large network of high-quality patients that trust us to connect them with dental practices.

The best part? Unlike dental marketing agencies that require a retainer, we only receive payment once your patient has paid. There is no risk of paying for a lead that never actually comes to an appointment, and we have produced an average ROI of 7.8x!

Get Started with Opencare Today

Our platform has produced an average of 207 new patients for our dental partners, with most patients booking over 5 appointments.

Want to see similar results?

The post Looking for a Dental Marketing Agency? What You Need to Know! appeared first on The Floss By Opencare.

As a hard-working dental professional, you want to get paid what you’re worth, right? Unfortunately, many dentists are not collecting as much as they are owed on their dental claims. If you’re one of them, that means you’re missing out on thousands of dollars each month.

So how do you find out if you’re collecting what you should be? More importantly, since it’s likely that you’re not, what needs to change to make that happen? Let’s discuss.

The 99% collection rate benchmark

If you’re not already aware of this, a healthy dental practice should be collecting 99% of production. Because of the monthly fluctuations of insurance receivables and other payment cycles, you shouldn’t measure this over a short-term period. So, look at your collection percentage over a one-year period. 

If your practice is like most dental offices, you’re probably collecting about 91-92% of your production. You might think that’s pretty good. After all, that percentage will earn you the coveted ‘A’ in school. Anything over 90% is good, right? 

Well, not when you realize how much money you’re missing out on. For example, if your production is a nice even $100,000 per month, 91% means you’re missing out on $9,000 per month! It gets even worse when you look at the whole year. You’re leaving $108,000 (more than one entire month’s revenue) on the table.

Why aren’t you collecting what you’re owed?

Why is this happening? Who is dropping the ball at your practice?

It’s likely that there isn’t one specific reason. Dental billing and claims can be complicated and keeping track of all the little details is time-consuming. What’s worse, many dental office employees simply don’t have the time to be managing it all. 

You’re running a busy practice and your staff is hard at work with many tasks. The front-desk staff, who are usually responsible for billing and payments, wear a lot of hats. They are responsible for promptly answering the phone every time it rings. Plus, they must greet patients with a bright, warm smile and ensure their visit is pleasant from the moment they walk in the door. 

When there isn’t an immediate need with a patient in front of them, they have to squeeze in verifying insurance, scheduling dentist appointments, calling about outstanding insurance claims, auditing patient accounts, presenting treatment plans, preparing and sending outstanding patient statements – and the list goes on. That’s a lot for anyone to manage!

Ask yourself if any of these things have ever happened in your practice (or worse, happen often).

• The front desk person was busy with the insurance company on the phone and a patient left without paying their copay
• Your phone is often tied up with patients calling about their insurance statements or bills, making it hard for other patients to get through to schedule new appointments
• Said phone calls take far too long because the person at the front desk is trying to figure out and explain the issue with the patient’s statement
• Your front desk staff get stuck fielding calls from upset patients who didn’t appreciate how their billing was handled
• Your outstanding patient collectibles are slowly (or not-so-slowly) piling up

Last but not least, you are seeing less-than-glowing online reviews from patients upset with the financial side of things. We don’t have to tell you how crucial positive reviews are and watching your average go down for billing issues is disheartening, to say the least.

Now, before you go jumping down your employees’ throats about missing this money or unintentionally upsetting patients, remember, they are juggling a lot. There are tools you could be giving them to succeed that they don’t have. 

How to ensure you’re collecting what you’re owed

So, it’s time to get more organized about your financials and up your collection rate for dental claims. How do you do it? The first thing is to set clear payment goals. From there, you need to figure out how to meet them. 

Meet the 99% collection rate

The 99% collection percentage that we already mentioned should be your first goal. But how do you improve your collection rate? Your staff is already working hard to ensure you get paid, you can’t just grouch at them to work harder. 

It might seem unrealistic to you to reach this standard, but we can tell you it’s not. It can be a little difficult when you task your front staff people with doing it, but not when you take advantage of a service like ours. 

Here at Opencare, through our revenue cycle management service, we take care of the financial side of things – particularly dealing with insurance companies and explaining patient benefits. We are proud to note that our collection rate is 99% – a standard we stick to. 

Furthermore, by reducing the burden on your front staff, they’ll be able to provide your patients with better customer service. When your patients walk in, they’ll be met with a bright smile and a greeting rather than someone politely gesturing for them to wait while they finish their phone conversation. 

Ensure no more than 20% of your accounts receivable are 60 days or older

It’s good bookkeeping to make sure no more than 20% of your accounts receivable are over 60 days old. By sticking to this, you’re ensuring 4 out of 5 of your patient accounts are paying on time.

However, keep in mind that the aging report in your computer program will probably only track from the date of service, not the date of the last payment. The date of the last payment lets you know if the patient is keeping up with the payment plan you arranged with them.

Again, a service like Opencare makes it much easier to keep track of these accounts. Your front desk staff doesn’t necessarily have the time to be checking the aging reports, payment histories, and contacting patients who have fallen behind. 

Outsource your claims processing

We are dedicated to helping dentists succeed at providing their patients with a high standard of oral health. With Opencare, patients can find a dentist near them that we’ll select and match to their preferences. This ensures you get a quality lead when we send you a new patient. 

Plus, when you take advantage of our revenue cycle management service, you can take all the headaches out of the financial side of your business. Improve your collection rate and enjoy all the proceeds of your work the easy way.

No more will your front office staff be stressed and pulled in different directions trying to answer customer questions about insurance or talking to insurance companies all day. Instead, they can offer your patients the five-star customer service they deserve. 

Get started today and start enjoying the 99% collection rate you deserve. Now that’s something to smile about.

The post Are you collecting as much as you’re owed on claims? appeared first on The Floss By Opencare.

How do you effectively manage it all and provide excellent dental care? 

You’re not alone in feeling the sense of challenge here. Rare is the business that can do all these things well. That’s why practices will sometimes choose to outsource certain activities they don’t have the time or expertise to do. It’s costly, but it does free up your time to focus on patient care. So how do you weigh the costs and benefits to determine what and if outsourcing is a good option for you?

Take, for instance, insurance verification (IV). When it comes to IV, there’s a range of options: from having your front office staff do 100% of it to outsourcing to a partner like Opencare. And there’s quality to consider; how much more valuable is IV done right in spite of higher costs? There are real tradeoffs to this decision.

Why is insurance verification Important?

Insurance verification is an essential aspect of revenue cycle management that helps avoid claim denials, reduces patient ineligibility-based rejections, and speeds up the billing cycle. This improves office processes, optimizes patient retention strategies, and goes a long way towards optimizing profitability. In short, IV saves your practice time and money.

Don’t forget about accuracy

There are generally two parts of the equation to optimizing your practice performance: generate more revenue or decrease costs. 

Often, when we speak with dentists, they consider insurance verification a cost center – something they need to pay someone to do to run their practice. However, at Opencare, we think of it as a revenue enhancer, where high quality, even at a higher cost, can be MORE valuable.

Let’s run through an example: let’s say your office manager is completing IVs and paid $20 per hour. You have the opportunity to switch this to a service that can complete the same IVs/hr but it costs $30 per hour. Most of us would do the quick mental math and keep it in house, it’s $10 cheaper.  

But consider accuracy – what is the accuracy rate of your office manager vs. that of the service provider?  Remember, there are already fixed costs like hygienist salary, rent, etc. you’re paying, so wasting an appointment slot or not being paid by insurance on the back end because of an incorrect IV is quite expensive!  

Going back to our example, let’s say the difference in accuracy is 10% between your office manager and service provider.  And each can do 3 IVs per hour, so it costs $67 for your office manager and $100 for your service provider to do 10 IVs each.  That’s a difference of $33 – which is easily covered by having 1 more appointment or being able to collect the fee from insurance for that appointment.  So in many instances, even paying more, your practice is realizing more value from improved accuracy.

The benefits of in-house IV

First and foremost, doing IV in-house is beneficial because you have more control of the entire billing process. This allows you maximum customization of the process to your schedule, needs, and systems.  In addition, employees can address any issues right away. 

Second, an in-house IV expert can help resolve a patient’s queries before their dentist appointment. In-house experts are often intimately familiar with each patient and their individual history, needs, and circumstances.

Finally, doing so in-house is generally cheaper – especially if you have front office staff who have some free time. Going back to the example above, even the cheapest outsourced options will cost a bit more than you’re paying your staff.  

How much does in-house IV typically cost?

When Opencare has asked our dental practices how they evaluate this, dentists often will cite salary against the cost of the outsourced option. That’s a good starting point, but there are numerous hidden costs associated with in-house IV that are harder to discern. Make sure you’re factoring these in, as it may very well affect your decision.

Let’s look at these hidden costs:

Recruiting

How much time does a dental practice spend hiring a qualified front office person? Consider time spent on advertising, reviewing resumes, completing background checks, pre-employment assessment tests, and other recruiting activities. Do you want to spend the time and energy to do this not only upfront, but if your staff leaves?

Training

What training and skill development does the employee need to manage this position on an ongoing basis? On-the-job training and continuing education requirements can add significantly to cost and reduce available hours to work on IV.

Benefits

The obvious cost of taking on a new employee is their salary. However, there are numerous other employment costs to think about as well. Standard employee taxes and benefits like insurance add ~20% in salary, which doesn’t include additional perks that you may wish to provide.

The indirect costs of in-house IV

Besides the direct costs, there are also some additional factors to consider:  

Management time

Ever have to fire an employee? Or have to go through an uncomfortable compensation discussion? People management can be tricky, time consuming, and just plain stressful, which is why there are professionals who specialize in this. If this comes natural to you, great. But is it something you want to carve out the headspace for? 

Opportunity cost

Insurance verification processes take away a valuable asset from your front office staff: time. Your front office staff could be doing more efficient and valuable tasks, like talking about treatment plans or spending time helping patients understand their treatment plans. This is known as opportunity cost.

You always want to take into consideration the potential value you are losing when you have missed opportunities in your office.

What can you gain from outsourcing IV?

Once you’ve adjusted for all these factors, you can begin to understand the true cost of the in-house option. Compare that to a fully outsourced managed service can provide:

• High quality insurance verifications with accuracy of, maximizing the number of patients you can see 
• Limits incremental staff time, which can reduce compensation cost and/or free staff to do other activities
• Eliminates need and time for upfront and on-going training
• Reduces management time

Furthermore, insurance verification outsourcers like Opencare have the knowledge and experience to help you collect payments more quickly and reduce claim denials. And by reducing time spent on IV, it can enable you to focus on offering exceptional patient care and building stronger relationships with your patients.

What’s the right choice: in-house or outsource?

There are times when it makes sense for you to do tasks in-house, and there are advantages to doing so with IV. It gives you more control and options to customize the process and can be cheaper. 

However, there are real costs as well which we often see dentists ignore. Some things may not be so obvious at first like accuracy, management overhead, and additional costs – to the detriment of their practice.

Ultimately, every dental practice has unique needs, and you need to decide what’s best for you. To get the most benefits of IV for your dental practice, conduct a thorough cost analysis and weigh the factors we’ve discussed here.

If you have questions, reach out to us. We’d be happy to help you evaluate your options.

The post Hidden costs of in-house insurance verification appeared first on The Floss By Opencare.

But now that the first waves of the pandemic are behind us as vaccinations roll out across Canada and the United States, how are people feeling about coming back? What can you do to make your patients feel more comfortable?

At Opencare, we conducted a patient survey about COVID-19 of over 650+ dental patients in North America. We want to share these results with you and you can learn how to make patients feel more comfortable at the dentist as lockdowns begin to lift. Opencare supports thousands of dentists every day with resources to grow and run their practice. 

Who we surveyed 

We selected a cohort of 666, of which roughly ⅔ were from Canada and the rest from the United States (mostly California). The majority of respondents (82%) were between 25 and 44 years old and 55% were women. Roughly 43% of respondents earn between $50,000 and $100,000 per year. 

Health habits

The patients we surveyed, as you will see below, are health-conscious patients who excited to get back to the dentist. Opencare patients are highly educated on preventative healthcare and understand the importance of frequent dentist visits.

Most participants were in good health and understood the importance of healthy habits. On a scale of 1 to 5, 80% rated their health a 4 or higher.

A whopping 95% of respondents brushed their teeth daily (woo-hoo, somebody’s doing their job!), 60.8% floss on the daily, and 45% visit the dentist every six months. Nearly 80% said they drank plenty of fluids and water, 64% did not smoke, 62% ate nutritiously, and 52% got daily exercise. All in all, generally healthy people.

These are the type of patients you probably usually see in your dental practice and especially who you want to target going forward. These patients understand the importance of going to the dentist, even in the midst of a pandemic. Along with having dental insurance, they are willing to invest in their long-term dental health and understand that regular dental visits are an essential piece of the puzzle. 

Attitudes toward dentistry during the pandemic

So, what has been going through patient’s minds during the pandemic? To find out, we first asked how many participants had seen a dentist in the past year. An exciting 75% said yes! That’s a good thing that only 25% of people surveyed chose not to visit the dentist this year and a testament to positive patient education.

We also asked if anybody had a canceled dentist appointment and 38% said yes. Of those, 60% were canceled because of a COVID-19 lockdown and 19% were canceled because of scheduling issues. Additionally, 10% of patients canceled themselves because they were uncomfortable about going to the dentist.  

What can you do as a dentist to make them more comfortable?

The good news is that it appears most people feel rather confident about going to the dentist even during these crazy times. A solid 44% of respondents plan to visit the dentist within the next three months and another 34% will go within the next year.

Only 4.7% said they would go only if they were in pain or it was an emergency. The top reason offered (55%) was that they were waiting for life to go back to normal and 26% were scared of getting COVID-19. 

However, you don’t want to leave anybody behind. We understand you take the oral health of every patient in your practice very seriously. So we’ve put together these tips to help you make them feel more about visiting you and give them a more enjoyable experience while they are there. 

How to reduce pandemic anxiety for your patients

Without a doubt, the dentistry industry has been affected just like everything else. However, unlike other industries, such as the restaurant or entertainment industries, people can’t just stop going to the dentist. If they stop going for preventive care, they will ultimately end up in your office for emergency care. 

This is creating a backlog of patients who’ll need dental care in the near future. Many people plan to wait for a bit after their dental office opens up to avoid the flood of patients. Others are waiting for life to “get back to normal” before they go. Unfortunately, this just means that more people will be flooding the offices later. This is not ideal when you want to limit the number of people in your office at the same time as well as need extra time between patients for increased sanitation measures. 

So, how do you get those patients in your office now? Here are a few tips.

Communicate with your patients

People don’t know what’s going on in your office unless you tell them. They may be sitting at home imagining crowded waiting rooms and long waits to get in to see the dentist. They might even decide it isn’t worth the effort or the risk when there is no extra effort or risk involved. 

So, shout it from the rooftops! Or, as we tend to do in this day and age, launch an electronic campaign. Email your patients, go live on social media and post lots of visual content. People need to see sparkling clean exam rooms, empty waiting rooms, staff decked out in full PPE, and air purifiers being installed. 

For help on drafting “welcome back” emails, check out this free toolkit provided by the ADA. Other emails you can send to reassure patients and keep you fresh in their minds include:

• A reassurance email on sanitization
• Tips and advice for at-home oral wellness
• A self-diagnosis tool for common problems
• Dental emergency guidelines
• Resources and content you find useful from dental thought-leaders

Survey your own patients

The information from this survey and others you might be gathering is gold and will help direct your efforts. However, it doesn’t hurt to do your own survey among your own patients. There is no guarantee that the typical patient in your dental practice feels the same as what is reflected in these results. 

Furthermore, a patient survey about COVID-19 communicates an important fact to your patients: you care about what they think and you want to incorporate their ideas into your plan. It also shows patients who might feel nervous that you’re doing everything you can to address their concerns. 

Transparency

Be open about everything, not just the extra measures you are putting in place, but also the risks you face. If you have a COVID exposure, it can feel tempting to cover it up. You might be afraid that people will see it as a reason to feel less confident in your practice. 

But think about it from this angle as well. People will see you putting your patients first. Instead of protecting your profits (staying open and continuing to see patients), you’re more concerned about patient and staff health. You’ll take a financial hit in the short run, but remember what we already mentioned, people will still need to see the dentist. And they’re going to want to see one that has proven their dedication to putting their patients first. 

How to make your patients feel safe before, during, and after their dental appointment in 2021

Once you’ve gotten your patients’ attention and they’ve booked an appointment, you need to ensure they feel safe and confident during their entire experience. 

1. Visible sanitization

The best thing you can do to ease your patients’ minds is to strictly follow sanitation measures. Provide masks, hand sanitizer, and perform visible sanitization measures in front of your patients to show that they’re safe. Install air purifiers in visible places to further put your patients at ease.

When asked about what would make them feel safe, one survey respondent said, “Reassurance of how all tools are cleaned and sterilized. Make me feel like what you’re putting in my mouth is super clean.” Even though dentists have always been vigilant about sanitation, it’s important to talk about it and let your patients know the steps you’re taking to keep them safe.

As you open a new pack of tools, say, “These tools have been sanitized using our sanitization process which includes…”. That little bit of information goes a long way when it comes to patient reassurance. 

2. Increased PPE

It might feel a little impersonal to greet your patients ensconced in PPE from head to toe. Full PPE covers pretty much every inch of the body, meaning new patients won’t even know what you look like. What’s worse, your smile, every dentist’s favorite feature, is hidden away behind a mask. 

However, no matter how impersonal it feels, your patients will appreciate the extra effort to protect them. Learn to communicate your smile with your eyes and reassure your patients with your voice. It’s a little different way of doing things, but we’re all adapting to new challenges these days.  

3. Less contact with staff and other patients

Social distancing is one of the main ways we can all do our part to stop the spread of the virus. Your patients want to avoid unnecessary contact with people. A few of the ways you can do that is by allowing for contactless check-in, plexiglass between your reception and your patients, and making sure your waiting room is always empty.

Of course, waiting rooms have always been there for a reason. Where are patients supposed to wait to be seen? One great idea that many businesses are adopting is to allow patients to wait in their cars. They can check in once they arrive via text message or an app like Opencare. When it’s time for their turn, you can call or send them a text so only one patient comes in at a time.

It’s also important not to crowd too many appointments into the same day. It’s another hit for your bottom line, but you need extra time to sanitize between patients and ensure there aren’t too many people in your office at once. 

Need more time back in your day? Opencare can help you and your office team save 20 hours per week with our insurance verification services. Find out more.

4. Temperature checks and testing

Another suggestion survey respondents offered was to incorporate temperature checks and COVID testing. Consider requiring negative tests from patients or proof of vaccinations,  and provide weekly COVID testing for your staff or insure they are vaccinated. The practicality of this might be a little challenging, but you can decide how far you want to take it.

A more practical approach is to take everyone’s temperature upon entering the office. This won’t cost you anything extra and is another layer of protection that your patients will appreciate. Also, be sure your reception staff is fully aware of the symptoms of COVID and is empowered to turn away anyone who is showing signs of being positive. 

5. Proof of infection control

Finally, remember that not everyone feels comfortable trusting that you’re doing what you say you’re doing in following RCDSO or  CDC sanitation guidelines . Most people are confident and trust you’re doing everything you can, but some people may still feel nervous about it. 

We also asked patients how they felt about dentists having proof of infection control and following proper sanitization guidelines. Almost 45% said they felt confident and another 37% felt very confident and fully trusted their dentist to follow the protocol. However, 12% felt worried and 6% felt worried enough to want to see some kind of certification or proof. 

iThe best thing you can do is be fully transparent about what you’re doing and make sure that you’re taking visible precautions to put your patients at ease. 

Safely serving your patients 

We hope these dental patient and COVID-19 stats have given you more confidence in serving your patients. Patients are willing and excited to go back to the dentist. Preventative care can’t be put on hold forever or your patients’ dental health will begin to suffer greatly. 

Check out more about how Opencare can help you better serve your patient through the pandemic and beyond.

The post How do patients feel about returning to the dentist during and after COVID-19? An infographic for dentists appeared first on The Floss By Opencare.

Opencare’s ultimate tips and tricks for billing, claims, insurance verification, and more

Your bottom line matters more than ever. 2020 proved that the economy is volatile and cash flow isn’t always stable. There are many ways that you can maintain consistent cash flow for your dental practice, no matter what circumstances hit your dental practice. 

At Opencare, we reached out to our talented network of dentists, billing supervisors, and our Chief Financial Officer to compile some best practices for earning more for your dental practice.

We want to provide you with the best tips and resources to earn more for your practice during a time when cash flow is more important than ever.

What’s inside:

Chapter 1 | 8 reports your practice needs to help keep a pulse on your accounts receivable with insights from Una Hawthorne, Dental Claims Supervisor and Crystal King, Dental Claims Supervisor

Chapter 2 | Revenue cycle management for dentists with insights by Erin Godard, Director of Revenue Cycle Management at Opencare

Chapter 3 | How to optimize your office manager’s time, co-authored by the office team at Waterview Dental

Chapter 4 | Hidden costs of in-house insurance verification by Jian Yang, CFO/COO of Opencare

Chapter 5 | How much do patients really know about their insurance? Educating your patients to save your practice time and money

Fill in the form below to download your ultimate guide for free.

The post Secrets to earning more for your dental practice appeared first on The Floss By Opencare.

In essence, a business plan allows you to track, monitor, and evaluate the progress of your practice over a period of time. It allows you to gauge how your practice is progressing against your original projections for your business. This, in turn, will make it easier to make an objective evaluation of your practice’s progress. 

And it functions as an essential marketing document. It helps show stakeholders in your business that your practice is sustainable and worth investing in, whether that investment is monetary or time-based. 

Your business plan should be a living document. As you gain experience and achieve goals, the plan should be modified to reflect changing goals and knowledge you have gained during the time the practice has been in operation. 

Business plans provide you with a detailed guideline on what steps you need to follow in order to ensure your practice is a success and that it achieves both your short-term and long-term goals. They are an invaluable strategic tool that every dental plan should carefully consider and craft before opening their business. 

Each individual business plan will be unique to you and your business. However, here are some guidelines you can follow to make the process of creating your business plan easier. Some basic elements any business plan should incorporate include:

Executive summary

The executive summary is perhaps one of the most essential parts of the plan. It’s a short section at the start of the plan that summarizes the plan as a whole. Typically, this section is one to two pages in length.

Some elements that should be summarized as part of the executive summary are:

• Legal structure: Key to establishing your practice, determine what type of business it will be. If you’re setting up a partnership, this section should also include percentage ownership of each partner. Other elements that you should mention include resources like attorneys and accountants who will be part of your support team.
• Services provided: Explain which dental services you will be providing in your practice. This section will also clarify what your practice’s unique value proposition will be — what sets it apart from those of your competitors and other dentists near you.
• Goals: List the overall goals of your practice by priority. You should start with the mission statement and then list out the specific goals.
• Market analysis: An analysis of the dental landscape in your area and your practice’s ability to meet your identified needs.
• Marketing strategy: A quick summary of which strategies you will be employing. This section should be a response to the market analysis, and you should go into more detail in the marketing plan part of the business plan.
• Break-even point: This will also be part of the financial plan and analyses how viable your practice is at the current time.
• Operations plan summary: Summarize what systems you have in place in order to increase the growth of your practice. You will need to go into more detail in the operations plan section.
• Organizational / staffing structure: A summary of how many staff you have, their responsibilities and roles, and a forecast of personnel needs.

This section is key when you approach lenders for loans. It should be enticing to potential lenders and explain how you plan to make your practice a success. Therefore, it should be persuasive and compelling.

While this section goes at the start of your plan, you should write it last. This is because it is a summary of the rest of the plan, and you will need to have a detailed plan completed before you can write it.

Description of products and services

In this section, you should elaborate on the types of services your practice will provide patients. Explain whether specialty services will be performed in-house or will be referred to outside practices and doctors.

If you’re acquiring an existing practice as opposed to opening a new one, clarify any changes you’ll be implementing to the products and services the practice is already offering. 

Operations plan 

This is where you detail the operational systems that will help you run your practice, meet your goals, and measure how effective you are at achieving your aims.

It will describe how you will procure the products needed to keep the business running, what personnel will be part of your business, and how you will manage your inventory. You’ll also detail factors like hours of operation, any licenses and permits you’ll require before opening, dental insurances that your practice will and will not accept, schedule for equipment maintenance, and so on.

One of the most important parts of your operations plan is detailing a one-year action plan. This will serve as a template for you to follow and help you detail what steps you need to take to ensure your plan is a success.

This section is the ‘nuts-and-bolts’ part of your plan and is likely to be the longest section of your business plan. Managing operations efficiently helps increase profitability and decrease stress. Without an efficient operations plan, you will find meeting objectives and goals a challenging task. 

Market analysis and marketing plan

This is where you’ll document data on how your competitors operate. Some parts of your competitors’ practices you may want to look at include their online presence, SEO rankings, how they manage their digital content, and any other marketing efforts you think is relevant.

Once you have conducted a market analysis of your competitors, you’ll also need to document your own marketing plan. Elements you should include as part of your plan include an overview of your intended market and the type of patients you plan to target, their income level, age, and lifestyle.

You should also clearly set out how you plan to set your business apart from competitors and maintain your own customer base. For example, if you operate in close proximity to another dental practice, how will you ensure patients looking to find a dentist visit your practice over that of your competitor?

Make sure to conduct a SWOT analysis. This is an analysis of your practice’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the market opportunities you can take advantage of and the threats that your practice faces. This will help you better personalize your marketing plan to your goals while also considering outside factors that could hinder those goals and detailing how you will overcome those issues. 

Your marketing strategy should focus on developing awareness of your practice amongst prospective patients. This will include the use of internal marketing (brochures, posters, newsletters, etc.), external marketing (direct mail, email, advertising, online marketing through websites and social media, etc.), and customer service to ensure your patients have a good experience and keep on returning to your practice.

One key element of the marketing plan for modern dental practices is to map out their website design. Having a well-designed website can help you stand out from competitors and can be hugely beneficial in attracting patients. For example, suppose patients are able to make a dentist appointment online quickly. In that case, they are more likely to choose your practice over a competitor that makes it difficult to schedule an appointment. 

If your marketing strategy is going to be significantly different from that of your competitors, you should also explain the rationale behind your choice as part of your strategy.

Financial plan

A financial plan is a key component of the marketing plan and will be the section that’s of most interest to potential lenders. If you’re approaching banks or other individuals for a loan, this section will help them make an informed decision over whether or not to lend to you. Due to its importance, this section should be carefully planned out and meticulously written.

For new practices, the financial plan will be based on 12 and 24-month financial projections, as you won’t already have an existing performance to base it off. Some key elements that you should include in your financial plan include:

• Income projections over a 12 and 24-month period
• Your personal financial statement 
• Collateral you’ll offer in exchange for a loan
• The total amount of funds that will be required by your practice for a 24-month period
• A plan for how the funds will be allocated
• Cash flow forecast
• Historical financial analysis looking into the viability of a dental practice
• Supporting documents that may be required by the lender, including a copy of your credit report, historical financial statements, five-year financial projections, and any other relevant document

Your financial plan should lay out a plan that accounts for the impact of outside financial influences that will affect your finances. These influences include competition, the economy, seasonal variations, and business cycles, as well as any other factors that will impact your practice’s financials. 

Business plan checklist

If you’re just getting started on creating your business plan, there are a variety of templates and checklists that are easily available online. One free downloadable and printable checklist that you can use is this one.

Before you get started on making your business plan, the American Dental Association (ADA) you make sure to ask yourself some important questions, including: 

• Can you describe your potential dental practice in detail?
• Do you have an actionable marketing plan?
• Who is in the market? What are they doing right — or wrong?
• What pricing and payment policies are you considering?
• What’s your growth strategy?

These will help provide you with a guideline you can refer back to when writing your detailed plan.

The ADA also provides a business plan checklist that is tailored to dental practices. You can download the checklist here.

FAQs about dental practice business plans

• How much does it cost to open a dental office?

While start-up costs will differ based on where your practice is located and the types of services you plan on offering, the estimated cost of starting a dental practice can be upwards of $450,000, with up to a third of that being equipment costs.

• How profitable is a dental practice?

On average, dental practices can have about a 25% profit margin. This profit margin can be more, depending on your specialty, location, and overhead costs. It is also possible to increase the profit margin of a dental practice in a variety of ways. For new practices, it your business plan allow you a profit margin of at least 40%.

• How much does a dental office make a year?

The amount you earn is dependent on the type of services your practice offers, including whether or not you offer specialty services. On average, general practices earn around $770,000 a year, while specialty practices can make around $1.1 million annually. 

• How do I write a business plan for a mobile dental clinic?

If you’re planning a mobile dental clinic, the process for writing a business plan is similar to that of writing a plan for a traditional practice. The steps you need to follow will be the same, and any lenders will expect you to present the same information as part of your business plan.

Remember, the executive summary and the financial plan are two key aspects of your business plan when approaching lenders. A well thought-out and well-written business plan does not only make your practice more appealing to lenders but it also provides you with a blueprint to follow in order to achieve personal and business-related goals. So when you’re writing out your business plan, regardless of whether it is for a traditional practice or a mobile clinic, make sure to include all the relevant details.

The post How to write a business plan for your dental practice appeared first on The Floss By Opencare.

Your patients are the most valuable asset your practice has. Because of this, patient loyalty is vital to the success of your practice and it’s important you optimize the lifetime value of each patient. For this, you need an effective email marketing and nurturing campaign. 

It helps you to keep your patients informed and keep them coming back for more. Email is one of the most cost effective and conversion-rich forms of digital marketing today. It can get you impressive results without spending a bunch on marketing.

Email marketing allows you, at a low cost, to re-engage patients and bring them back for more services. It can be a healthy return on investment. So, the math is quite straightforward; a well-thought-out email marketing strategy will make you money, no doubt about it. 

Let’s explore.

Why email marketing for patient retention?

Email marketing has the highest return on investment for small businesses. This means you get a lot, but you spend little. That’s the perfect equation for any marketing or nurturing strategy.

Also, roughly 80% of marketers have reported an increase in email engagement over the past 12 months. So, if email engagement is up, it means a more effective strategy.

With an effective strategy, you get more engagement, and you get more leads. In fact, mobile readers who open an email for a second time from their computer are 65% more likely to click through. Also, 64% of small businesses say that the email copy is very effective.

So, what can email marketing do for your patient retention efforts? Let’s look at some of the things you can do with an effective email campaign:

• You can remind a patient of an upcoming dentist appointment, when they might be due for a checkup, or any other appointments required or suggested in a treatment plan.
• Even things like a simple “happy birthday” email campaign can go a long way to show your patients that you care. Remember, you don’t even have to include an offer for it to be effective. The key is you’re showing the patient you care.
• When year-end comes, you can think about a year-end campaign to remind your patients to use their insurance benefits by the end of the year. They may have insurance benefits remain or funds set aside in a flexible spending account or healthcare savings account. The end of the year is a perfect time for them to schedule an appointment so any payments can be applied before the benefits are reset. 
• If your practice participates in community outreach efforts, email is the perfect platform to ask your patients for participation or to remind them to bring any items that they can drop them off at their upcoming appointment.

Keep in mind these are just a few examples of what you can do and that they are many others.

The important thing is, irrespective of what you do, you want to engage and communicate frequently with your patients to build strong relationships beyond just seeing them in your consulting rooms every six months. 

And email and SMS let you do this because you get to nurture, educate, remind, and rebook your patients.

Best practices for email marketing

Subject lines

Think about this, what’s the first thing a patient will see when your mail arrives in their inbox. Yes, that’s right, the subject line. No matter what anyone says, people judge emails by the subject line. 

So, subject lines need to be compelling enough so that your patients open the mail. Make them catchy and be specific, keep it under 40 characters for optimum readability, and you’ll be well on your way to an excellent click-through rate. 

You can also consider adding personalization if possible. Here, if a patient sees the subject line with their name in it, it’s already more engaging.

Preheader text

If the subject line was the first hook to get your patients’ attention to the email, the preheader text is what convinces them finally to open it. Because of this, your preheader text should complement the subject line and help communicate any points you couldn’t in the subject line.

What should the patient see when they open the email?

Let’s be clear from the start, the email should be clean and easy to digest. If you add too many buttons, colors, or banners, you’ll lose your patients’ interest as fast as a kid loses teeth. 

So, considering this, you want patients to easily grasp what you want them to do, Keep it simple.

Call to action

When you create your email campaign, one of the most vital components is the call to action. It grabs the patient’s attention and encourages them to act. 

This means your call to action should stand out and be easily clickable, while also being clear and showing the patient exactly what is required of them. It should also give them a very good idea of what will happen if they click the call to action. Here, think of things like, “Click to make an appointment” or “Click to find out more”.

Nailing the messaging

Every email message you send to one of your patients should have a point. This means, if you want to promote a service, that should be the only point in the email message. Likewise, if you want to provide valuable content, that should be the only point in the message.

If you go too far, you lose your patient’s attention. Remember, you basically have a three second attention span to work with so keep it simple and to the point.

Frequency

Now, the question is how often should you be sending emails or messages to each patient? Depending on the circumstances, you will want to email your patients at least monthly. This could be more or less, and you’ll have to decide what the right number is. You could need some guidance, though. 

For example, if you’re trying to get patients to book an appointment for a six-month check-up, you might want to start emailing them at four months to remind them they should book an appointment. This could be once a week or maybe twice a week. If they don’t book by six months, make sure your messaging becomes more urgent to drive action.

Also, if you’re also sending SMS, try to set the frequency so patients don’t get both an email and SMS from you on the same day. Remember, you want to be consistent, but you don’t want to over communicate because then it seems like spam.

If your campaign is based more on content like articles or infographics, you can consider sending a monthly newsletter to patients. In this way, they’ll find value in you trying to provide this type of content to them in addition to recommending exams and treatment plans.

Personalization

Message personalization is the number one tactic used by email marketers to improve performance of a campaign. And it is simple to see why. When you use a first name in the subject line or the body of your email to greet the patient, you help build a one-to-one relationship in your marketing efforts. 

For the patient, it feels like you’re talking to them on a more personal level and they like knowing they’re remembered. This overall, improves your strategy significantly.

What should a follow-up email look like after their appointment is complete?

The next question is how a follow up email should look like if a patient’s appointment is complete. 

First, you’ll want to thank the patient for visiting your practice and ask them for feedback. Now, this feedback could be given as a Google review, Facebook review, Yelp review or something similar. Remember, there are many platforms like these available online. Provide a link to do so.

If they had a negative experience, make sure someone reaches out to gather more information about their experience and to help mitigate the issue. At the most you should answer briefly on the feedback, but you must be careful not to become embroiled in a dispute with the patient on a public platform. 

For example, if there is negative feedback you may answer, “Thank you for your feedback, we’ve referred the matter to our office manager”, or something similar. If there really is an issue, it can be sorted out in private and not public.

Also, if the patient didn’t book an appointment before leaving, this email is a perfect opportunity to remind them to book and you could also add a call to action to an online portal to make a booking, or to call your office to schedule an appointment.

How can you use an e-mail campaign to educate and communicate with your patients without bugging them to come back?

The most important thing you can do to educate your patients without bugging them to come back, is to move away from a mindset of selling, and moving to a mindset of helping.

In other words, in this campaign you’ll want to provide your patients with content that is relevant and valuable, while at the same time solving their problems.

Now, to accomplish this, you’ll have to consider why your patients come to you. Well, simply, it’s to ensure their teeth stay healthy. To provide relevant and valuable content you’ll thus have to focus your content on this pain point of your patients.

You can, for instance, remind them of the importance oral health has on total body health and what diseases or issues they could potentially avoid if they visit the dentist every six months.

You can expand on this and educate them on when to see a dentist outside the six-month mark. For instance, when they have toothache, swelling, red gums, or any other problem relating to their dental health, it might be a sign they need a professional opinion.

You can also provide content that shows them what to expect when they come for a routine check-up. Remember, a lot of people are afraid of the dentist, so if you provide this content, you’ll put their minds at ease.

When you provide these types of content, you, over time, become a resource your patients will use if they have any issues or problems. And when a suspected problem turns into a real problem and your patients want to find a dentist, guess who they will call first? Yes, the resource they’ve been using online to find the information they need.

The bottom line

Email marketing is a powerful tool you can use to retain patients, create loyalty to your practice, and increase the rate at which appointments are made. When you provide patients with relevant and valuable information, you’ll become a resource for them that they can use if they need any advice on dentistry.

In turn, this will create loyalty and, ultimately, more return appointments. 

If you need more information about email marketing, about our services, or our revolutionary revenue cycle management system, visit our website or contact us for more details.       

The post How to create an engaging email campaign to keep your patients coming back appeared first on The Floss By Opencare.