Ben Tuinei has personally worked with more than 5000 dentist nationwide over his 10 year career as an advocate for dentists. He is well published and writes articles for magazines such as Dental Economics. He is recognized by associations across the country as an expert in negotiating insurance reimbursements.
In this episode we discuss:
– Negotiating with insurance companies
– Some tips for talking with Insurance
– How to get beyond the gatekeepers
Can you tell us whom Veritas Dental Resources caters too and what exactly do you do for your clients?
Primarily we help those that are in network with a variety of dental insurance plans. Not everyone can call an insurance carrier and be successful negotiating. That is one of the first things we ask a new client is if they have had any experience negotiating with insurance carriers and a lot have said that they tried and haven’t been able to get anywhere. There are key steps to negotiating with these companies. Every insurance carrier has gatekeepers and they do a great job insulating the key decision makers from the dentist or front office managers that are trying to negotiate fees. We know how to get past those gatekeepers and from there, how to negotiate with those key decision makers.
Why can some people negotiate and others not? What else is there to get around besides the gatekeepers?
It’s different for everybody. A lot of times when you are negotiating with someone that might be a decision maker on the insurance side. You have to understand that they are dealing with doctors that are asking for fee increases multiple times a day and they have really good training on how to overcome objections and how to steer doctors down the path of accepting that they will not get any fee increases. So for a dentist it is very hard to represent yourself because these insurance decision makers are really well trained and most dentists will not push past the first or second “no.” One of the reasons that we have more success is because we have already overcome those objections and the insurance companies are already used to negotiating with firms like mine. What we find is that a lot of practices have leverage thats there that they have ignored or didnt know that they had and we use that to negotiate with insurance carries. Its all about understanding all the ways to overcome all the “nos” that will be thrown at you by the insurance companies.
If I wanted to approach you to help me as a fee-for-service dentist, how does that process work?
If you are a fee-for-service or a majority insurance independent, I would say keep it that way for as long as you can. There are means for you to capture and acquire patients but you may not retail all and you may not capture all. Once you go down the path to dealing with insurance thats when it becomes increasingly difficult. We do get a very large portion of fee-for-service dentists that do call us and I give them a marketing technique that they can focus on before they start joining insurance plans. Anyone that calls us, we will try and give you at least one solution, something tangible that can work regardless if you hire us or not.
What are some of the times that you can not negotiate with insurance companies?
If a practice has already negotiated this year with all the plans that they are able to negotiate with, most insurance carriers do require that you retain that fee schedule for at least 2 years. So for a person like that, we can not help them. You have to honor those contracts and obligations with the insurance carrier. Another situation is where the doctor is in an area that is oversaturated, and 99% of the dental practices participate with a certain insurance plan and that is not something we could really work against.
Can you share with us at least on of your secrets?
One tip for a fee-for-service practice that is thinking of participating with insurance, if to have some effective marketing. The challenge that fee-for-service dentists have when patients call in is when the patient asks, “Do you take my insurance?” Most have effective scripts to overcome those initial objections, but one of the tips that we have learned, we simply tell the patients that you can file for insurance but if you are really insistent on using an in-network practice, heres our offer. Come and see us and let us do your initial exam and if you don’t like us, we simply wont bill your insurance. There is some liability with that statement, and that is, if your team is not ready to take care of that patient, and if you are not confident that the patient is going to have a great experience, you are going to end up giving away a lot of free initial exams. For the practices that are really big on customer service, maybe one out of a hundred patients will not let you bill their insurance.
How can we get in touch with you?
Website: Veritasdentalresources.com