How to Attract Uninsured Patients

When you learn how to promote dental care for adults without insurance, you open up a whole new revenue stream for your practice. In this guest post, BoomCloud CEO Jordon Comstock shares how you can pull in uninsured patients by way of a dental membership program.

‍In 2014, there were approximately 180 million Americans who lacked dental insurance. This begs the question: Why do so many practices choose to contract with PPOs when the uninsured market is more plentiful, and more lucrative, for a dental office? I believe it boils down to one thing: marketing.

Most dentists depend too much on PPOs to drive “leads” to their practices. However, when you look at all the write-offs that are given away when contracted with a PPO and compare it to attracting the right type of patient, you're overpaying for the PPO patients. Your practice writes off hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to attract and maintain the PPO patient base. Did you know that it can cost your practice far less when you focus on internal marketing and promoting your practice the right way?

In this article we are going to discuss ways to cut out the middle man PPO and start attracting the uninsured market because, again, this market is more profitable and easier to work with!

Attracting Uninsured Patients

Using Free Gifts

In my opinion, this type of marketing is one of the best ways to attract new patients to your office. Here is the step-by-step strategy:

1. Purchase an Opalescence Go whitening kit.
2. Create an ad on Facebook or send a direct mail ad. Whatever works best.
3. Use the messaging: “Don’t have dental insurance? Free whitening kits on us!” You can experiment with other phrases that have the similar meaning.
4. Make the leads fill out a form to receive the coupon for the free whitening kit. Require the patient to come into your office to pick up the kit.
5. When the patient comes into the office, make it a big deal. Give them a tour of your office, introduce yourself and the team and then give them their whitening kit.
6. While giving them their free kit, discuss your dental membership program, pass out brochures, and educate them that they DO NOT need dental insurance to receive quality dental care.

I've seen a practice help approximately 1,500 uninsured patients get quality dental care and generate over $30,000 a month in predictable recurring revenue simply by cutting out the middle man! How would this benefit your practice? Would you feel free from the red tape and regulations of PPOs? Would you have a stable cash flow coming in each month to help you run your practice? Patients who are members spend 2x to 3.5x more than non-members with your practice. Amazing right?!

Educating Patients

The second way to attract uninsured patients is by education. You can also consider content marketing educational marketing. This is a fantastic strategy that you can use to attracted uninsured.

Here is an example: Every local news station in every state has a website with articles posted daily, sometimes hourly. These news websites are constantly looking for newsworthy content to share! Reach out and submit an article about why patients don’t need dental insurance to visit the dentist. In it, educate readers about dental membership programs and how beneficial they can be for the patient. Make sure you have a specific page on your website that allows patients to sign up for your membership program. Share that link to your website so readers can learn about your specific membership plan.

3. Leveraging Partnerships

Partnerships can be a great if you like to network with other local business owners. Here are some examples on what you can do to grow with partnerships:

Join a networking group

There are weekly local meet-ups called BNI (Business Networking International) where you can network with local business leaders and collaborate on ways to refer to each-other. This can be a fantastic way to educate other business owners about your dental membership program, and even influence them to sign up their employees to your practice’s membership program.

Partner with direct primary care physicians

Every state has medical doctors that offer a monthly membership program to their patients. These patients are fantastic because they have the right mindset and understand the benefits of a membership program. Start networking with these medical practices and ask if you can put your dental membership program information in their offices.

Join forces with local gyms

People who frequently visit the gym care about their appearance. And we know how important our smiles are when it comes to our appearance. Set up a booth at local gyms or ask them to put flyers and brochures about free whitening for uninsured patients.

Conclusion

Hopefully these strategies motivate and inspire you to grow your own dental membership program. I would recommend you try several combinations and see what works best for your practice. They will collectively help you grow your dental membership program and market to adults without dental insurance.