691: Ariel Juday - Unlock Your Full-Fee Potential - Elevate Patient Perception and Charge What You're Worth!

In this episode, Kirk welcomes back coach Ariel Juday to discuss how dentists can unlock their full fee potential and effectively communicate value to patients. Ariel emphasizes the importance of billing the full fee for services, the negative impact of write-offs and the need for a clear financial policy. By creating specific adjustment types and understanding the financial aspects of their practice, dentists can improve profitability and ensure alignment within their team.

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Main Takeaways

• Billing the full fee for services is essential to communicate the value of dental care.
• Accurate coding and understanding write-offs can help dentists avoid working for free.
• Creating a clear financial policy and training team members on it is crucial for effective communication with patients.
• Investing in admin team members and providing them with the necessary training can improve the financial aspects of the practice. Create a comprehensive financial policy that covers all aspects of patient billing and payment terms.
• Start billing the full fee on insurance claims to accurately reflect the value of your dentistry.
• Regularly analyze adjustments and monthly reports to identify areas for improvement and reduce write-offs.
• Ensure your team members understand and can effectively communicate the financial policy to patients.
• Seek education and training opportunities for your admin team members to enhance their skills and knowledge.

Segments

00:00 Unlocking Your Full Fee Potential

04:11 Introduction to Ariel Juday

08:29 Billing Your Full Fee

09:25 Coding for What You Do

10:20 Understanding Write-Offs and Working for Free

17:45 Creating Specific Adjustment Types

19:36 Understanding Write-Offs and Working for Free (Continued)

27:43 Creating a Clear Financial Policy

41:56 Creating Two Different Financial Policies

48:04 Investing in Admin Team Members

49:00 Considering Other Aspects of the Financial Policy

49:29 Creating a Financial Policy

52:21 Billing the Full Fee

53:49 Adjustments and Monthly Reports

55:37 Team Education and Alignment

59:30 Minimizing In-Network Write-Offs

Quotes:

“As dentists and dental team members, we are worth everything, the value that we provide, and it's more than just the dentistry.” (9:29 - 9:38)

“What does it mean, billing full fee? That is your practice master fee schedule. So as Kirk had alluded to, right, as some of us put in our PPO fees and our fee schedules, when we do that, we're really undervaluing our services. So we're telling patients, we're telling ourselves this is what it's worth. So we're letting the insurance company tell us what our services are value, right? And that's not true. So we know, and we won't even get into the world of insurance today, but we know that they don't get to decide our value. So start putting out there, what is your master fee schedule so that you can see it, your patients can see it, your team members can see it. What is the full value?” (12:18 - 12:42)

“You can't make an informed decision based off of participation or other discounts or anything that you may do if you don't know the difference between what is, what are you billing and what are your contracted rates with insurance? So you have to know that adjustment and that write -off that you're doing, or you're not going to be able to make a true decision.” 21:01 - 21:24)

“When we say write off, right? There is a connotation to it. I'm like, oh, it's a write off, right? But no, it's just money. walking out the door and you're just saying goodbye to that money because you're never going to see it. So right. What is it? It's an adjustment or it's a discount and you need to know what that number is.” (35:59 - 36:07)

“I always tell my doctors, sit down and do this, work on this. I know this is not the fun part of doing dentistry. But if you want team members coming back every single day asking you, hey, Miss Jones wants an adjustment. Can I give Mr. Smith a write off? Can I go ahead and discount this? That's what you're going to have all day every day if you don't have a clear financial policy.” (42:26 - 42:53)

“Don't underestimate the power of teaching a great team member great practices and training. Actually developing them, not so much training them, but developing people so that they're experts.” (47:54 - 48:04)

“Just get it started. It could be simple, it could be ugly, it could be lousy, doesn't matter. Just get it started and get it to 80%. And then once it's working, improve it another 80%. And then a month later, improve it another 80%. So you're just, you don't want to make it perfect. Just improve it by 80%. Three tries through, you're now at 96 % if you always are improving processes by 80%. And that's where great development comes in.” (50:56 - 51:25)