treatment. By holding people’s hands as they cross from ‘potential customer’ to ‘new patient,’ doctors’ staff can strengthen patient bonds by listening and filling in all the gaps that can keep a patient leery of proceeding with a treatment whether it is due to worries around financing or not. In the creation of a bond between a doctor staff and their patient, I have found that having hands-on, face-to-face interaction helps take away the confusion and fear your patient may have around how they will pay for treatment. With MedChoice, flexible payment options for the clients of dental and orthodontic practices have occurred nationally for many years. As the economy recovers slowly but surely, doctors are seeing patients come back and feel better about doing some things for themselves that may have been put off for a while. Having satisfied customers simply isn’t good enough, especially since almost 30 percent of dentists are self-employed and not incorporated. According to the American Dental Association, very few salaried dentists worked in hospitals and offices of physicians but rather almost all dentists work in private practice. This means that it is all the more important to create customer loyalty. All too often it’s easier to think of your last negative patient experience than your last good one. That’s because the service world is filled with poor or average service that doesn’t foster the loyalty needed to sustain a practice. The American Dental Association recently reported that about 3 out of 4 dentists in private practice are solo proprietors, and almost 15 percent belonged to a partnership. When you look at such percentages, it is easy to see why creating customer loyalty is the only way to grow a practice, and that takes adopting a “customer service” culture. It's important to find a company that will work closely with doctors to help them in providing flexible patient financing options so that patients no longer have to worry about how they will pay for their treatment. Doctors appreciate this hands-on approach because it increases patient loyalty, trust and overall better customer experiences. It also eliminates the need for delayed procedures. There is a distinct need to manage workflow and to automate administrative practices and in particular patient financial transac-tions and reporting. To that end, MedChoice has recently developed what we call the Platinum Provider Portal. The ultimate goal is to enable dental and orthodontic prac-tices to become paperless by utilizing web technology to automate applica-tion submissions and reporting. “The key to creative financing is to establish your financial goals based on a percentage of how you want to handle your income from orthodontics.” In this case, the web portal increases visibility into the current state of a patient’s account, show-ing in real time availability of funds. This means that doctors can service patients faster because they are able to see what funds can be applied to their patients’ proce-dures instantaneously. They are also able to fully recommend the entire breadth of procedures recommended by knowing the scope of the financial picture. Dental Practices today are juggling more patients and paperwork, with fewer resources. Technology is being applied today to simplify, accelerate and automate administrative tasks that drain a practice’s precious resources. It allows doctors to focus their energies on better serving their patients and brings the practice one step closer to achieving a paperless environment. Other benefits include increased efficiencies and accuracies, improved access to information, better collaboration and communica-tion between colleagues and patients. Orthodontic treatment has expe-rienced steady growth for years. This has been spurred by more involve-ment of general practitioners, enhanced public awareness of orthodontic treatment and an increase in adult orthodontics. 30 years ago it was rare to see an adult in orthodontic treatment. Now it has become very common, espe-cially now that more cosmetic cases are being done and orthodontic appliances are sometimes used in advance to reduce aggressive tooth preparation. Generally, there has been more demand for orthodontic treatment and that translates into more work for doctors who provide orthodontic services. In fact, comparatively speaking, providing orthodontic services as part of your practice has remained relatively healthy even in the face of the economic downturn. Less than half of orthodontic laborato-ries saw a decline in business in 2009, compared to 62% crown & bridge, removable and full service laboratories that say workloads were down. And, more than one-third of orthodontic labs say busi-ness was actually up in 2009 according to DRP. We see this as a relatively rosy picture. Dentistry, as a whole, has seen some impact from the recent economic downturn; however there is reason to believe that busi-ness should grow in the coming years. In terms of orthodontics, considering the independence of this trade, any measures to increase business should be embraced. Offering independent financing options to clients and potential clients allows the office teams to guide them through the range of available treatment options, and to offer assurance that payments will be manageable – a critical factor in decision-making on any treatment. Valerie Harding is with MedChoice Financial, a national medical financial institution that services the dental community and its patients with flexi-ble, convenient financing solutions. www.orthodontics.com September/October 2010 23
Journal of the American Orthodontic Society September-October 2010: Page 23
