Sally

I am under the understanding that it is illegal to give or even offer discounts to patients that have dental insurance. I have a situation where a patient asked us to give him 10% discount after his insurance paid their portion on his bill. We explained to him that we are not allowed to do this. He still is insisting that he has done so in the past why can’t we do this now. Can you send me any article to show him that this would be considered fraud and we can get into trouble. I appreciate it.

Thanks, Patient Coordinator

Dear Patient Coordinator,

My guess is that an “article” is not going to be enough to convince this patient. If the insurance company in question and your dentist employer is a “provider” of this insurance company, then the doctor should have some signed agreement with the insurance company. I would locate this agreement and then extract from that agreement what has legally been agreed to.
The other option would be to contact the insurance commissioner of your state and ask for a statement from them.

Hope this helps,

Sally

We are so proud of the creativity and interest one of our Dental Teams has taken in their new rewards program put into place by a McKenzie Management Consultant. Pictured here is the container the actual practice’s hygienist constructed for their rewards program.

“I asked someone who is ‘artsy’ to come up with the container, the objects, etc. I just give them the idea. I want you to see what a hygienist in [this Dental Office] came up with last week after my visit! This is awesome!”

McKenzie Management Consultant

Part of our work with Dentists across the country over the years has been on retraining both the Dentists and their staff with their system of rewards. Or what is referred to as a rewards system, but is either not set up right, not monitored, otherwise broken, or non-existent.

It is astounding to me just how many Dentists actually end up paying out bonuses to their staff just for doing their jobs! A functional rewards system will have true goals and measurements that are tangible, measurable and definitely go above and beyond each individual’s regular job description.

If you know me, or you have read my articles over the years you know it is also my personality that I would expect my staff to do their jobs without added reward. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t continue to encourage your staff in the good work they do, just don’t pay out a bonus for basic status quo. Makes it hard to pay the bills!

I’m proud to have helped many Dentists discover how to properly encourage and reward their staff to be more efficient but also for the dental team to feel more fulfilled with attaining and surpassing real goals that are actually helping the practice to achieve more. When reward is given for surpassing team goals, it also feels good. Plus a proper reward system is one powerful motivator!

As you know we do not have a cookie cutter approach to our consulting programs. McKenzie Consultants also implement ideas and solutions for individual practices. This is just one of our success stories I just had to share with you. We enjoy working with dental offices across the country and would love to make something like this happen for your team too!