A dental treatment plan presentation is your dental team’s chance to generate revenue while also helping patients get the oral care they need. You can increase treatment plan acceptance when you communicate clearly, provide payment options, address questions and concerns, provide a positive environment, and follow-up with your patient.
When your team presents dental treatment plans to patients, it’s a golden opportunity to create a dialogue around their oral care. American Orthodontic Society explains is perfectly:
“Dentistry is no longer just about “filling and drilling” cavities. Instead, it is about looking at the entire patient and giving them a relaxed, enjoyable experience. These days, patients want a dental practice that is considerate of patients' feelings and passionate about dentistry.”
Not only is the treatment presentation time for your team to, for lack of better words, “make a sale,” but it’s also their time to address patients’ questions and concerns. When a patient is clear on what’s needed and why, along with their payment options, you are more likely to see treatment acceptance — and prompt payments.
DCS has been in dental billing since 2012, so we know a thing or twenty about the importance of the treatment presentation. Our dental billing solutions and services provide dental administrative teams with time for patient interactions by relieving them of tedious, repetitive billing tasks.
So your team may make the most of that extra time, here are 5 actionable tips to help them achieve a higher acceptance of treatment — leading to higher revenue and patient retention for your dental business.
Key takeaways for increasing dental treatment plan acceptance rate:
- Clarity and compassion are key
- Patient relationships should have trust and communication at the forefront
- Prioritize treatment presentations for every patient to build that trust, and also for efficient collections
- Visuals and financial breakdowns help clarify treatment and costs
- To give your team time for patient interactions, DCS offers an automated solution that takes time-consuming patient billing tasks off their plate
Tip #1: Build trust with clear communication
Like with any personal relationship, you need to cultivate trust through communication with your patient. The treatment plan presentation is a great time to accomplish this.
The treatment presentation creates a dialogue with your patient as they learn what treatment they require and why they require it, and they’re also given an accurate estimate of what it costs. They will also get their questions answered and concerns addressed during this interaction.
For optimal communication during 1:1 meetings with patients, your team should use non-technical language when explaining both the clinical need for treatment and their insurance coverage. They’ll appreciate all the information, and they’ll trust you more for the transparency.
This transparency becomes especially important during collections. When it comes to their bill, the fewer surprises the better — and the more likely you’ll get paid sooner.
Do you see why your team needs plenty of time to assemble each treatment presentation?
Each presentation entails verifying and understanding each individual patient’s insurance coverage for each treatment, and also calculating costs. Then they’ll spend time with each patient to communicate their coverage, give them an estimate of what they’ll owe out of pocket, and more.
Read more: How to have a patient-centric dental business: 3 tips (Free guide)
Tip #2: Use visuals and provide a financial breakdown
During your presentation, it’s helpful to use visuals when explaining the patient’s treatment and its cost.
When we say presentation, we mean it! A treatment plan is time for Show & Tell.
Instruct your team to show your patient their x-rays or intraoral photos so they can see where the treatment is needed, and also show an explanation of their insurance coverage.
Patients rarely understand their own insurance coverage, then get frustrated when a particular treatment isn’t covered. If your team lets them know ahead of time what will and will not be covered by their plan, they’re more likely to express that frustration during the presentation, and not when it’s time to pay their bill. 
To help patients better understand the overall value of their treatment, your team can also break down the total costs into individual line items. This is a good preface to a discussion about splitting up treatment by line item, which we’ll explore next.
And if you find that your team doesn’t have time for these comprehensive presentations, turn to automated solutions like DCS Patient Billing to take over other tasks. Automation removes tedious and time-consuming manual tasks from your team’s plate so they can focus on delivering an amazing presentation that instills trust and streamlines collections.
Tip #3: Address financial concerns proactively and compassionately
As you already know, some patients have difficulty paying for dental treatment, even with dental insurance covering a portion of it. Some patients will hear the out-of-pocket cost, then simply turn down the treatment because they are unable to afford it.
To increase case acceptance, address each patient’s financial concerns with kindness. If there is any hesitation once you present the total cost of treatment, explain all of their payment options.
One option may be to split up the treatment among multiple visits to spread out the expense. Additionally, you could offer payment plans to split the cost into monthly installments. This doesn’t have to be difficult to set up or manage: Easy and customizable financing is a feature of DCS Patient Billing.
It’s better for business to have a patient pay in installments than not accept the treatment at all. They will appreciate your flexibility and understanding while benefiting from your excellent dental care.
Tip #4: Create a comfortable decision-making environment
When you present treatment to patients, it’s not just what you say, but how you say it.
Obviously, your team needs to be clear and communicative with treatment plan presentations. But they also need to be compassionate and respectful of each patient’s unique situation. When discussing treatment with patients, your team should completely answer their questions and make sure patients have all the information needed to make an informed decision on how to proceed.
Your patient needs an environment conducive to decision-making, too. A chaotic office does not invite a comfortable atmosphere for your patients, especially those sorting through what might be a stressful financial decision.
A supportive environment is cultivated when administrative processes and workflows run smoothly. That is, when your dental team is working contentedly, and there are little to no bottlenecks of frustrated patients in the waiting room late to their appointment time. This is an ideal environment for selling treatment to patients.
Read more: 10 ways to create a healthy work culture your dental team loves [Free Guide]
Tip #5: Follow up with personalized communication
Your team should always follow up with dental patients after their initial consultation to address any lingering questions and offer further encouragement to proceed with the treatment.
You might be thinking, “They’re already following up with patients to get payments from them — no way they can also call patient to follow up with their treatment plan.”
And we get it. Both of those tasks sound like lots of time on the phone when your team could (and should) be focusing on something else.
Luckily, we can help you take one of those tasks off your plate: Automated patient billing will send text messages or emails about outstanding balances, while your team calls patients about unscheduled treatment.
Read more: Get DCS Patient Billing Solutions
Automated technology isn’t it for everything. It can’t develop a personal relationship with your patients, but it will free up your team’s time so they can. Everyone wins when DCS Patient Billing is handling your team’s routine patient billing tasks — including the write-back to your PMS, a feature you won’t find anywhere else.
Boost your treatment plan acceptance rate, your revenue, and your patients’ satisfaction
To recap, here are 5 ways to increase dental treatment plan acceptance rates to drive a revenue boost:
- Tip #1: Build trust with clear communication
- Tip #2: Use visuals and provide a financial breakdown
- Tip #3: Address financial concerns proactively and compassionately
- Tip #4: Create a comfortable decision-making environment
- Tip #5: Follow up with personalized communication
These tips may seem easier said than done — especially if your team already has more tasks than they can handle. But the DCS Patient Billing solution will take on all of those manual tasks from the moment the patient’s balance is known to the write-back to your PMS. It will even send patients payment reminders via text or email with direct links to where the patient should pay.
With the patient billing process hands-free for your team, they can devote their day to in-office patients, ensuring they have the best dental experience possible.
Increase your case acceptance by giving your patients what they deserve — and by giving your team the time they need: Book a free 30-minute consultation with DCS today.
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