Anne: Hello everyone, it's Anne Duffy i'm so happy that you're with me today and I'm really excited 'cause I've got a dear friend and she's a DeW, she's a dental entrepreneur woman. I have known her through a lot of job opportunities and through the years of dentistry and she's just.
Absolutely an awesome individual. I wanna tell you a little bit about her though before we get started. As a former dental office manager, Katie is super passionate about helping dental practices break free from insurance and boost patient care with custom membership plans. She worked with thousands of practices nationwide and is very relatable because she gets it.
Fun fact, full-time sports mom weekends are sponsored by Gatorade bleachers and car snacks. I think we can relate to that and retail therapists believes a good shopping spree can solve almost anything. I love you, Katie Franklin, welcome
Katie: Thank you. It's great to be here and great to be with you.
Oh my gosh, so fun. I've known you through, actually 2014, so we're 10 years, Katie, that I have known you. Oh,isn't, that's so fun. Time sure flies. Yeah.
Anne: She's available. Today's kids start school, so we're in the, end of summer, which is really awesome.
And. I know that you're really into the membership plan. And so before we started recording guys, I'm like, tell me how you got into this. I mean, didn't really realize that you've been in this for a long time and started with, a company that you helped get off the ground. Yes.
And now you with
DentalHQ, which is a membership planned company. Correct. and you believe in membership plans and that's why you're here. And that's why you're always excited about the company and so much so.
And thank you guys for supporting Katie to come to our retreat this year. It's gonna be super cool. But tell me why, why you believe in membership plans and why should an office offer a membership plan to their patients?
Katie: so I think it really started for me back in like 2010 when I started managing a dental practice and it was my first experience in dental.
Prior to that I was a teacher. So I came into the dental world, brand new, not really knowing much and. Started, you know, managing insurance and the finances and started to quickly realize what insurance was doing, to our bottom line, but also just how it was making it difficult for our patients, you know, to have access to the care that they needed and deserved.
And so. I, started kind of thinking like, what can we do? You know, there's gotta be a better way to do this.
Anne: Yeah.
Katie: And so my doctor suggested that I go to a CE course that was taught by Dr. Charles Blair, the late Dr. Blair. And learned so much from him just about the insurance world and coding.
Andhe was actually the one that. Introduced the concept of membership plans to me. And as I was sitting in this course, you know, it kind of was a light bulb moment. It was like, oh my gosh, this is what we need to be doing. So I took all the information back to my practice and spoke with my doctor and was super excited about the thought of all of this, and he encouraged me to reach out to Dr.
Blair to get more information I kinda laughed at first 'cause I'm like, you know, he's a busy man. Like he doesn't know me, like he's not gonna take my call. But sure enough he did. And he actually invited our practice to be part of a beta test group that he was starting where he was more or less consulting offices on how to get these membership plans up and going back in like the 2012, 2013 timeframe.
Mm-hmm.
And so, yeah, we started a plan and we quickly realized that. It was just a great alternative to insurance. It was allowing our office and our doctors to get paid their full fee for the work that they were actually doing and not having to take all the write offs We found that our patients were happier.
They were, you know, being able to afford the care that they needed. And it was just truly a win-win, for the practice and the patients. And so ever since then, you know, membership plans have truly been my jam. And I, just from being my own practice to now like as you mentioned, have helped, you know, thousands of offices across the nation see success for membership plans.
And I think now, you know, fast forward a few years recognizing that we really live in a subscription economy. So many people, you know, have so many different memberships, whether it's in, you know, food or travel or entertainment.
And it's really been proven through the research that it's people's preferred way of buying things. and so because of that, we have found that having a dental membership or a dental subscription is just another avenue that really caters to that consumer mindset. And, we find that they're working really well.
So. For those reasons. You know, I feel like that's why every office should really consider having one, just because it does allow them to break away from some of that insurance dependence, regain control of their practice, and be able to deliver that care to their patients that they need.
Anne: that's really a great explanation why, and then also.
Why should they not go it alone? Because you guys are the experts at it. I mean, I love that you were a teacher because that's so cool. Yeah. And then I love your, strengths. Woo. Achiever, discipline, positivity, empathy. You feel it for these,practices?
I do. I sure do. I mean, and.Pain point is insurance for dental practices and then obviously I love the fact that you just reached out and called Charlie Blair 'cause he's a great friend of mine as well, and great friend to so many. And then now Delaine Logie was very, active with Charles and helped build his coding book.
now she's out in her ownand speaking. She's also a great resource for you and for everybody that's listening here. But why shouldn't they go it alone? my old dentist that I worked for after I retired, he's like, I'm gonnastart my own membership plan.
And it never got off the ground. I'll say that, but tell me what you can do for a practice is thinking about it.
Katie: so again, just based on my own, past experience of starting a plan for my practice. We quickly realized that it was a lot of administrative work. Oh, okay. You know, from the initial research of where do we start, how do we start, how do we structure these plans?
How do we price these plans? What are the legalities around these plans? And then once we got that initial work done, you know, once we launched, then it was like, okay, how do we track who's on the plan? How do we track what services that they've used? How do we track the discounts that they're getting as being a member of the plan?
How do we track their payments? How do we track their renewals? And, you know, I'll be honest, Anne, like we truly had patients slipping through the cracks where. Maybe the plan that we were offering was including two cleanings and a patient was coming in and having a third cleaning before we realized like, oh shoot, we should have charged them.
so, things were slipping through the cracks. And that's the same thing that the founder of DentalHQ Dr. Brett Wells, it's the same thing that he noticed in his practices years ago, is that his membership plans were a great option for patients, but it was a lot of extra administrative work.
For his team to keep up with. so to prevent those things from slipping through the cracks, you know, that's really where we encourage offices to turn to a membership plan. Software like DentalHQ that can manage and automate everything for you. So that. Payments don't get missed and that the office can, focus on the other things that matter more like patient care and customer service, and they're not so bogged down with trying to manage the day in and day out operations of a membership plan.
Anne: that's genius actually to have an automated, tech service for them. AI basically, you take care of the heavy lifting. how does that work? do they pay you a commission on the plan do they pay a monthly charge that you take care of it?
I'm just curious.
Yeah, so with DentalHQ, there's just a monthly license fee that we charge to offices to have access to our platform. With all of the features that we offer. And so it's just a flat monthly fee that we charge.Wow. that's how you keep patients in too, because when they are on a subscription plan, I mean, I gotta say they think they're getting their care appointments.
Let me, I'm a dental hygienist, so there's not a cleaning, it's a care appointment It feels like it's free. Right. Because when you watch Netflix, you still feel like it's free, even though that bill's going every, month. But that just takes the headache out of. trying to keep track of all that and then also keeping your patients engaged in your practice.
Do you white label it for each dental office? We do,
Katie: yeah. The idea here is that we wanna be a software company that has the tools in place to manage and automate everything, but we wanna keep the relationship between the patient and the doctor. And so therefore we want everything to be white labeled and.
Branded to the office. So that way everything that's going out to patients and everything that patients are seeing, it looks like it's, specifically a plan from that office. And no affiliation with like DentalHQ for example.
Anne: It sounds so smart because first of all, you're experts.
You've been doing this for years, DentalHQ, and then you're gonna brand it. Well, it's all gonna be automated, so it's gonna have, the system figured out.
Katie: Yes.
Anne: And to try to find, johnny down the street you know, gonna put your website together and help with this membership plan and give you the gravity.
Oh my God. It's,a total nightmare. And then we put this all on you guys, all on dental H hq to handle that. It's just a headache that you don't have to worry about.
Katie: That's what I always tell offices, when I'm talking to them to show them our platform.
I'm like, you know. Why take on this extra work? you guys are already busy enough? Trust me. Like I've been in the trenches with you. I know the day in and day out operations of running a dental practice and it's a lot. And so why add one more thing to your plate when for a low monthly fee you could have everything automated.
You don't have to think about it. And the way I like to describe it is we're kind of like a well-oiled machine. That's working in the background, that's really allowing these offices to have a hands-off approach with having to keep up with it.
Anne: let me ask you this. So like, if you're using a membership platform sodoes it automatically get you into the fee for service?
Katie: It can. a lot of offices, you know, I feel like a hot topic that.
I've been hearing a lot now for the past few years offices are saying how they want to eventually go fee for service, but
Anne: Oh, uh, like every office out there? Yeah. Okay. Basically,
Katie: as you and I both know from having worked in an office, like that's a scary thought.
Because the minute you make your patients aware that you're no longer in their network.
They're likely gonna be looking for an in-network provider. Sometimes they don't. And you know, what's important is that you have that strong relationship with those patients because hopefully they wanna keep coming to you. And even if they leave, hopefully they'll come back because they'll realize how good they had it.
But having a membership plan in place, prior to making those transitions can really help ease that transition process. Mm-hmm. And can help practice too. Retain those patients, through the transitions of going out of network. So, you know, there's definitely a play for both.
we're not necessarily like telling offices that they need to go out of network. Mm-hmm. It just seems that iskind of the hot topic. But certainly, you know, offices that wanna continue working with insurance, that's fine too. There's definitely a place for both within a practice.
Anne: Well, I mean, to me it makes sense because there are some insurance plans you wanna get rid of because what I've heard on the street is for instance, the recare appointment, the insurance gives you so much and you got like $10 left over by the time you pay the hygienist.
Right? And then you've got all the other. you know, Fees and, all the other money going out for all the different equipment and air conditioning and all that kind of stuff. it does make sense to have that first step of this, and then you could probably get rid of maybe the one insurance plan that's only paying you $10 more for a recare appointment and then go with some of the insurance plans that are a little bit more lucrative for your practice.
they can't all be across the board horrible, but, we just got into that,problem of, you know, if it's not covered by insurance, do I really want it? And yeah, you need it, you need it, and our fees are worth, but this also puts this on the dentist to get ready for this, you have to have excellent teamwork.
You have excellent communication. You've gotta have a,welcoming, hospitable office. And you have to do excellent work. You've got that in place. They may go somewhere for a nanosecond, but I tell you, they will come back because I've seen that the office that I worked in was fee for service. And so often they would come back because they just did not get the care that you're gonna get in that kind of a practice.
And I mean, your teeth are important and it kills you when you go somewhere and you have.18 cavities when you, have been going every six months and you have no cavities, and you thinkis that a red flag? Yeah, that's a red flag, right? So, absolutely. stick with your doctor that you love and there's a better way to pay for your appointments.
How do you market it? Once you sign up for that, what's the best way to market the, membership plan?
Katie: So the ultimate best way is gonna be word of mouth. Build that trust with your patients and having those patients that are coming to you that know you and trust you, having the conversations with them that offer, a membership plan and just making them aware of what other options are available to them is the best, ultimate way of marketing your plan.
But then of course, there's other things that are important too. Like we wanna make sure that. It's on a practice's website. So as a potential new patient who might be searching for dentists in their area as they happen upon someone's website, we want them to learn right away. Like, Hey, you don't need dental insurance to come to this practice.
We offer membership plans, so having it on a website is super important. having it on your social media pages is super important. DentalHQ also helps offices to send out email and text campaigns throughout the year.
targeted to different themes throughout the year.
So right now, for example, we are helping offices to send out a campaign to their patients about open enrollment. And we really find like this time of the year is a time for practices to really capitalize on promoting their plans to their insured patients. Because as patients are considering their options for the next year, it's an awesome opportunity to make them aware or remind them of other options that are available, and that's where offices will see.
Success with patient conversion. You know, getting patients converted off of insurance and converted to the membership model, which again is a huge win. 'cause through that process, the office is gaining a new cash patient. The other thing that I wanna share that I love about DentalHQ is the fact that we have a tool in our platform that allows us to help offices connect with small business owners.
And different community groups in their area that could benefit from knowing about the membership model. And so, targeting a business owner with, 10 employees where they're likely not offering dental benefits is a great opportunity. Or going to a retirement community or a senior living center, or a country club or an apartment complex, those different groups that we can help practice is to kind of target.
It's a way of getting that messaging outside of their four walls. And educating their community on other options that are available besides just cash pay or insurance. And just by increasing that awareness, we have found that those tools that we offer are awesome new patient generators for practices.
And of course these are cash patients. These are the bread and butter, whatever practice wants. So that's another great way of marketing it as well.
Anne: That's a great way, for them to be able to pour into their team Yeah. Because they may not be able to afford, to give everybody dental insurance.
But they can certainly afford to give them Possibly the membership plan or, give them that opportunity and then they feel like they actually have Dell Insurance through their company. it does cover your cleans, what's the average yearly cost, I guess, for the patient is there a range? Can everybody pick what they want
Katie: So in our platform, we actually have a built-in pricing algorithm where we plug in the office's UCR fees. So then as we start together building out their custom plans, whatever they decide to offer, the software's gonna show them what the recommended price point is based off of their current fee schedule.
I would say, and so again, you know, this is kind of all over the board, depending on Yeah, wherethey're located and what they're offering. But I would say on average. Like an adult wellness plan that is pretty standard. You know, includes like two pro fees, two exams. A set of bite wings each year. I would say those plans go from anywhere between like three 50 to four 50 a year
Anne: on average.
Yeah.I mean, that's just super cool. That's,great for everybody 'you're gonna make those appointments, you're gonna make honey you got five days to get in, you better get your appointment.
more apt to reschedule every six months so that you don't miss that window
Katie: see that with the member patients, again, across the board for all the offices that we work with and all the members that have enrolled on the plans that we've helped with, the cancellation and no-show rates are under 3%.
So these are good patients. These are patients that are financially committed to the practice, and because of that financial commitment, you know, they're paying that recurring subscription fee, it is gonna motivate them to come in more regularly and to keep up with those appointments and to accept more treatment.
So you're right we're not seeing an issue with these patients not showing up or canceling because again, they're committed.
Anne: that's another plus for them. I absolutely love that and I am so excited to learn about membership plans Katie, for anyone that's interested we're gonna tell 'em how to get ahold of you, because there's so many things that I was thinking that you would do so much better.
Even, giving them the opportunity to know what is the right number for their. geography for their,current fees. I mean, that's just a guesswork for somebody. you've got so much data in there, so you can really draw from all of that versus just, somebody on their own.
Last words and then we'll tell 'em how to get a ahold of you.
Katie: I think the one last thing I just really wanna put out there, 'cause it's been really exciting to kind of see it develop you know. Membership plans have been around for a long time. This is not a new concept.
Membership plans have evolved through the years though. Mm-hmm. And where we're seeing success now is not only helping offices to develop, like their wellness plans that are covering patients, routine preventive care. But we're also really encouraging offices to think beyond preventive. And what other services do you offer that you wanna kind of showcase for your practice?
Or what other services would you like to be doing more of? You know, maybe you wanna do more whitening, or maybe you wanna do more ortho and let's think beyond preventive and let's help you to structure. More boutique type plans, if you will, that can kind of be add-on options for your patients. And what we're finding is that those add-on plans or those boutique plans that we're helping offices to create are awesome opportunities for not only uninsured patients, but for the insured patients too, who maybe want those more elective procedures and if they're not covered by their insurance.
It's an awesome opportunity for them to then turn to the membership plan that the practice offers. And just by getting more patients, again committed to these different plans that you offer, you're just generating more predictable recurring revenue for your practice. So dentally Q is really trying to encourage offices to think beyond just preventive plans and really trying to create those add-on options as well.
So that's been really cool to kind of see all of that come to fruition, in the last couple of years.
Anne: Yeah, that's really cool. I can see the, especially the younger crowd, if you get a whitening plan in there, they're like, okay, I'll take that. Yeah, that's really, really cool.
So DentalHQ, okay, you guys are doing all,right. You've got Katie Franklin at the helm of like really cheerleading this along. How do we get in touch with you and DentalHQ Katie?
Katie: Well you can visit our website DentalHQ.com and on there there is an option to watch our recorded demo video or you can click on a link to schedule like on one-on-one chat with us.
Or you can reach out to me directly and my email is just k franklin F-R-A-N-K-L-I [email protected]. So hq so love that. You know, I always tell offices This is truly my passion, as you know, Anne.And whether they're just kind of getting started with the idea of membership plans wanting to automate their current plan and take it to the next level, or even if they just wanna pick my brain on something about plans in general.
this is what I love talking about and I love talking to people, so always happy to help in whatever capacity I can.
Anne: Oh, I love it. Well, thank you so much for your generous hospitality. Good luck on the ball field. Oh, thank you. And,I love that you are sports mom.
So, you know, have the best fall. It's gonna be a great fall football season starting, and then all the other sports, you know, that we love to attend. it is gonna be a great year. So, Katie. Franklin DentalHQ. Thanks for hosting this today with me, and then, you know, hey, I'll see Katie at the retreat.
Ladies, if you're listening, the guys all wanna come too, but you know, you guys are dudes. DWD Ss men that support women in dentistry, but. For women listening today, please join us in November in Charlotte, North Carolina for our seventh annual due life retreat. That's for dental entrepreneur women. If you're a woman and you happen to be in dentistry in any capacity, you are welcome to join us, to sit at our table, to grow, and to soar in not only your, professional life, but also in your personal life. So Katie, good to know you. Maybe I'll see you one of the ball fields. Alright. Yeah,
Katie: absolutely. Looking forward to seeing you at the retreat. And again, thanks for your time, Anne. It's always great being with you.
Anne: Thank you, Katie. Take care everybody, and remember everybody to keep doing you. Thanks Katie. See you next time. Bye-bye. Thank you.
Katie: Bye
Anne: bye.
