Why It’s Actually a Plus to Offer Affordable Pricing
Have you shied away from using the word “affordable” in your practice? You’re not alone. Often, dentists worry that by being affordable or offering affordable dentistry, they’re giving off the perception of being cheap. And as you know, cheap sounds, well, cheap. The word alone sends a signal of low quality.
You offer top notch dental care, but that doesn’t mean you can’t appeal to people who might need a little extra help paying for a healthy smile.
Where’s the middle ground? And more importantly, how do you offer affordable dentistry without diminishing your brand?
Here are a few solutions that actually make it a plus to offer affordable pricing in your practice.
Offer a Line of Credit
Sometimes, treatments are about as pricey as a new luxury car. In these cases, most people can’t fork over a lump sum of cash. They also don’t want to max out their own high-interest credit cards just to cover the cost of treatment. In these cases, if you can offer your own line of credit, you can make your services feel more affordable without losing the perception of high quality.
Care Credit or Springstone are two options that let you offer a credit card made specifically for healthcare. It’s a nice way to enable your patients to pay for services over time.
Offer Compassionate Financing Options
Another option is to set up payment plans, or compassionate financing options, for patients with high dental bills. Like buying a new car, these options can break the high pricetag into smaller affordable chunks that won’t drain the patient’s bank account.
Start a Membership Plan
One of the best ways to eliminate the insurance headaches for your practice and patients, and still offer affordable dental care is to create your own in-office membership plan. The program might seem daunting up front but there are several programs that help you manage an in-office benefits plan with ease.
Illumitrac
Illumitrac is a software that enables you to offer a membership plan in your office. It makes it easy to sign patients up and you can automate the billing to take some of the administrative work out of your hands. Set up is easy. Once you have your practice signed up, you do all the marketing to get your patients on the list. It’s a nice way to attract patients or retain patients if you’re not billing or you are dropping a specific insurance company.
Quality Dental Plan (QDP)
This is another program that you’ll have to opt into as a dentist. It’s not traditional insurance and there are no waiting periods or limitations. As a dentist, you offer this program in your office and then patients can choose to sign up for it and get their dental work done through you. The website advertises dentists in your area who offer QDP so you can attract local patients to your practice by offering this affordable solution
Your Own
Yes, you can run your own membership plan to offer affordable pricing. This gives you more flexibility for what you charge and how you charge it. However, it can be more difficult to manage and often doesn’t eliminate the billing hassles. It’s an option but it isn’t as ideal as using a solution that’s already available.
Affordable is Exciting
Talking about your affordable care isn’t exciting; not brand threatening. By taking one of these approaches, you’re able to position your affordability in a compassionate, intriguing way instead of making your brand look or sound like a discount practice.