IMPROVING T he greatest single barrier to your patient’s abil-ity to say “Yes!” to your orthodontic diagnosis and treatment plan is their ability to afford your orthodontic fee. Basic salesmanship is the absolute requirement that in order to sell an elec-tive product you must make it easy for your customer (patient) to pay for what you want them to buy! Thirty years ago, dentists routinely granted in office payment plans to their patients, especially for recon-structive and restorative treatment plans and for orthodontic treatment. But during the most recent 10 years (and especially the past three years of our economic downturn) more and more practices have become “cash only.” These offices depend on outside (third party) finance companies, credit cards and their patient’s wealth to ensure case acceptance. The few that have continued to grant in-office credit have done so only with very large down payments and restrictive 50 July/August 2010 JAOS Orthodontic Case Acceptance By Marla Merritt, OrthoBanc, LLC, Director of Sales and Marketing monthly payment plans. Could this shift in payment policies be the reason that case acceptance rates today are as low as they have ever been and are a great deal lower than those of 30+ years ago? The only growth many practices have seen over the past 10 years has been due to fee increases – and not due to improved case acceptance! This fundamental change in how doctor’s handled their patient financial policies started some time ago as a shift seemed to occur in the basic integrity of some patients. Thirty years ago, it was relatively uncommon to have a patient’s account go unpaid and granting in-office credit to a patient for their bridge or for their orthodontic treatment was a common and quite safe policy. But for some years now, granting internal credit has no longer felt like a safe thing to do for most doctors. Many practices have noticed that every time they take a risk with that “special” patient -the one
Journal of the American Orthodontic Society July-August 2010/Buyer's Guide: Page 50
