Most dentists who want off PPO plans do it in the wrong order. They drop the plans, then go looking for marketing to replace the patients.
Naren Arulrajah has watched practices do it both ways. In this episode, Dr. Lorne Lavine asks him how to get off PPO plans without emptying the schedule.
What they cover:
- Why costs are up 30 to 50% in a few years while PPO reimbursements haven't moved, and how that slowly squeezes take-home pay, staff and patients
- A biological dentist who was 80% PPO: marketing first, then one plan at a time, from about $1.1 million to $1.8 million while cutting to three and a half days
- A dentist who dropped his three worst plans at once, then moved the $1,000 he used to spend on ads into Friday cash bonuses for every five-star review that named his team
- The keywords that reach the half of Americans with no PPO plan, and why keywords alone won't book anyone without real cases on the page
- "Who do you want to be a hero to?" Picking services you're passionate about
- Why the front desk has to learn to roll out the red carpet instead of asking "what insurance do you have?"
- How Naren's own dentist went from one Google review a month to four a day by asking at a different moment in the appointment
THE ONE THING FROM THIS EPISODE
Don't drop every plan. Find the one PPO plan you're effectively working for free on, and make it the first to go once your marketing is bringing in new patients. The time you get back goes to the patients who choose you.
WORK WITH US
Marketing: book a strategy meeting with Naren's team at ekwa.com/wired
Technology: schedule a call with Lorne at thedigitaldentist.com/call
Subscribe at wireddentistry.com/subscribe for the episode, plus the one thing from it worth doing, written down.
