701: Robyn Theisen - 4 Tips for Talking Insurance Benefits

Do you have a hard time communicating with your team about how to talk about insurance benefits? It's not easy. In this episode, Kirk and his guest, coach Robyn Theisen, have some answers for you. Robin shares four tips for effectively talking about dental insurance benefits with patients. The conversation emphasizes the importance of educating the team about insurance, using the term 'benefits' instead of 'insurance', always saying 'yes' to patients, and making the patient the focus of the conversation. Listen to this episode to hear why implementing these great tips will help you build trust, maximize benefits, and create value for your patients.

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Main Takeaways: 

• Educate the team about dental insurance to ensure everyone is on the same page.
• Use the term 'benefits' instead of 'insurance' to clarify the purpose and limitations of coverage.
• Always say 'yes' to patients and focus on what can be done rather than what cannot be covered.
• Make the patient the focus of the conversation and build trust by emphasizing the value of the dental treatment.

Quotes

“There's a lot of stress that comes with insurance. The business team carries a lot of stress for wanting to be accurate and correct with insurance benefits. There's so much information that is unknown by the team and it's different than medical insurance. And so there's a lot of stressors that are involved in it. And it can take a considerable amount of our time with the business team to have an understanding of all of the different aspects of dental insurance.” (02:25 - 02:48)

“Keep in mind, there's other things at play than just patients and reimbursement here. So don't you think? Oh my gosh. Yes. There's so, yeah. And then like I said, it really starts with the attitude of the team and how we frame it to our patients.” Kirsten Cluthe (04:58 - 05:09)

“There are lots of kinds of insurance terms that get thrown around. Sitting down with your team at a meeting and coming up with those words or what the clinical team may not understand, what the business team may not understand. It would be a great team meeting to calibrate on all of those terms and have a real understanding of what that means.” (07:05 - 07:22)

“You and I have had conversations about eliminating other words and insurance is going to be another one. So, and replacing it with benefits. And it's really an understanding piece and I think it solidifies things for the patient and for the team member. Medical insurance and dental insurance are two totally different animals. They're two totally different things. And so when we use the word insurance, it makes it synonymous or what patients believe to be the same as medical insurance and it's actually not.” (09:50 - 09:55)

“Make sure [patients] hear yes in some fashion because no stops everything.” (15:01 - 15:02)

“Make your patient the focus, not their benefits.” (19:07 - 19:10)

“Dentistry is an amazing profession. There's a shortage of dental care providers. The world is growing in age and population. You're gonna be busy for a very long time and you don't have to take care of every patient. But when you're good about the mindset and where we're going, you're gonna be busy for a long time. If you can help your team understand that we build trust on these phone calls and that's the primary form of currency. People wanna do business with people they trust.” (23:07 - 23:12)

“Get calibrated with your team, what are the words that we're going to use, what are the phrases we're going to use, get really practiced and get good at those and believe in them. Build belief around that, that your people come to you for more than your PPO.” (24:10 - 24:11)

Snippets:

00:00 Introduction

01:24 Importance of Talking Insurance Benefits

05:36 Tip 1: Educating the Team

09:55 Tip 2: Using the Term 'Benefits' Instead of 'Insurance'

13:41 Tip 3: Always Saying 'Yes' and Tip 4: Make your patient the focus

26:05 Final thoughts and Conclusion

Robyn Theisen Bio:

Robyn Theisen brings an entire life and legacy of dental experience to the team and every team with which she works as the daughter and sister of dentists. With almost 20 years of experience in dentistry, her roles ranged from practice management to operations at Patterson Dental to coaching teams. Robyn’s passion is empowering teams to realize that they can dramatically impact the lives of the people they serve by implementing skills and systems to remove barriers to life-changing dental treatment. She has done it for decades and does it every day with dental teams.

Outside of coaching, she enjoys time with her husband, Rob, and two daughters, Emerson and Ruby. She loves traveling, music, fitness, and cheering on the Michigan State Spartans.