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A couple of clients have told me recently that they’d been getting 80+ new patients per month, which sounds great! Of course the influx made them feel busy and hectic, but more patients is better…. right?
Turns out, 90% of the new patients were Delta PPO patients. The patients’ original office had gone out of network with Delta (and probably did a poor job of communicating it), so Delta’s nasty letter to patients spooked them and got them looking for a new office. Unfortunately, if you are already plenty busy, getting a slew of new patients that bring in low reimbursement PPO rates is a curse. It makes you busier, stresses your staff, puts the burden of verifying and filing insurance on your front desk, but most importantly, makes you very little money. Oh, and it fills up chairs that could be occupied with cash patients.
New cash patient calling in? No, we can’t see you for a $150 cleaning because we have someone prioritized in front of you for whom Delta is paying us $75. Do you think a Las Vegas casino holds open top-notch rooms just in case a high roller decides to come into town on a whim? Yes, they do. Because they know that’s how they make their real money, and the mere chance they could lose someone making million dollar bets is worth keeping that room open rather than giving it to an infrequent tourist.
Contract insurance rates are roughly 40 to 50% off your list price (“UCR”). Thought of another way, if you went out of network and got full fees, you could lose 40 to 50% of those insurance patients…and make the same amount of money seeing fewer people because you’d no longer be working at a discount.
Going out of network may not be the best option if you have lots of open appointments. But once you are busy enough, the solution isn’t another high paid associate to serve low-reimbursing insurance patients. It's strategically and methodically going out of network.
Wes knows what's best for dental practices. He's been doing this for a long time and he sees lots of practices. He can tell me how our practice is doing, and what we can do to increase our productivity. With past CPA's, there were no ideas. It was all coming from me, saying "I think I can do better, but I don't know how." I come in to meet with Wes and he says "You CAN do better, and I know how."
PracticeCFO is in hundreds of dental offices around the country. They know what numbers should look like. They know what percentages of payroll, rent and supplies should be, and they will hold you accountable to those numbers, which will really help you stick to your plan and your path of growth and savings. That is invaluable
Whenever something comes up, whether it's building or practice related and we weren't sure where the numbers would go, PracticeCFO has been instrumental in helping us figure that out. I can't say enough of how important that is - that it goes beyond that initial partnership. They make sure this business marriage works.
When I go home from work, I don't spend a whole lot of time stressing about what my books look like, or how much I owe in taxes. By using PracticeCFO, the burden of keeping track of a lot of the big financial numbers and metrics are taken off my plate.
PracticeCFO helped me develop a plan for the future. I have colleagues that work with other accountants that don't have a plan - they just look at the numbers of the practice and that's it. There's no plan for 10, 20 years from now. But with PracticeCFO, you get that. PracticeCFO makes you feel like you're they're only client.
(In reference to his practice sale) What could've been super stressful, wasn't! When picking John and Wes, it was from word of mouth recommendations and other people's experiences from the past that really did it for me. And it turns out that those recommendations were right on the line.
Wes knows the business side of dentistry. His comprehensive plan will organize your personal and professional finances so you can focus on taking care of patients. Massive ROI.
I can’t say enough good things about everyone at PracticeCFO. Everyone on the team is professional, organized, knowledgeable, helpful and kind. They also respond to emails and phone calls immediately and are always happy to help. They have helped me navigate year-to-year as a business owner. PracticeCFO gives me peace of mind that my business is in good hands.
I love Practice CFO! They have helped me obtain a practice and maintain a practice. They are incredible people who are on top of everything and make owning and running the business portion of a practice easy. They couldn’t be better for my business and my sanity. They have every detail of the business and taxes taken care of where all I have to do is show up and follow their easy steps to success!
Practice CFO has the best tools I’ve seen for personal tax and financial planning in addition to top-tier corporate tax and accounting services. I have been very pleased with the level of quality service. They manage my monthly bookkeeping and accounts payable. It is a great system and saves me a ton of time, and it allows us to have monthly financial statements within a week of month end.
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