Thanks to our friends at the Dental A Team for sharing this newsletter with us!
Every year we all suffer from the same thing: Inflation! Prices of goods increase, the cost of living changes, and the cost of owning a business increases. To think that the cost of your services can’t or shouldn’t change is holding you back!
At Dental A Team, we encourage a yearly analysis of fees within your area to ensure that you are in the top percentile for goods and services. There are many resources and people available to help collect this data, most practices will simply use their supply company! Learn more in our latest episode.
Once you have the local area information, you can compare the local fees to your own fees and evaluate where and what you need to increase within your Usual and Customary fee schedules (AKA, UCR). This helps you to see what you should be paid for your services and allows you to see where your dental insurance fee schedules are in comparison.
This is key! In order to ask for fee schedule increases or negotiations at all, you MUST know what you’re looking for! If you blindly ask for an increase and they say “no,” you’re stuck with the feeling of “well, guess we’re still getting this amount at least.” Or maybe they say “Sure, here’s $1 additional per periodic exam!” and you’re excited! You did it! But wait… you increased your UCR by $4 in order to stay competitive, now insert the negotiation. Asking for what you want and having data to back it up will allow you to truly know a win when you see it.
Here’s a quick reference on the order of operations:
The goal is to increase profitability without increasing your workload. Staying in line with costs of living will provide you with some backbone help in the matter!
