Practice Perspectives CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
Since COVID, the number of uninsured patients has skyrocketed. Membership programs are a great marketing tool to open the doors of any dental practice to this growing population, as well as promote this option to the retired senior patients, uninsured patients, small business own- ers, etc.
What do you envision as the future of dental mem- bership plans? Will they take a significant share of dental insurance carrier’s current business or can the two coexist? The dental profession is always evolving. One area where it has evolved the most in the past several years is dental insurance and the rise in popularity of membership programs. I believe that dental insurance is here to stay. I also believe that dental insurance will never improve (or only marginally, if so), and instead it will continue to present lots of challenges and frustra- tions for patients and practices alike. Membership programs have gained popularity because of these insurance challenges and have become very preva- lent across the nation.
From the HR side, we hear from year to year of more business owners dropping dental coverage for their employees. The number of uninsured patients is likely to continue to increase and membership programs are what patients will turn to. Membership programs used to be a competi- tive edge for dentists, but now these programs have become a must-have for any practice! Yes, insurance and membership programs can coexist, as they have up to this point. However, I think as dental insurance continues to present its limita- tions, membership programs will become an even bigger player in the dental industry—2020 has been the biggest year yet for membership pro- grams and this is likely the trend we will see for the foreseeable future. f
Dr. David Thein is a periodontist and associate clinical professor at UMKC School of Dentistry, where he advises students/ residents/recent grads in professional career development and is course director for the practice management curriculum. Contact him at 816-835-7480 or drthein@drthein. com. Katie Franklin is the Program Director for Smile Advantage. The nation-wide company, based in St. Louis since 2014, specializes in helping dental practices design, implement and market customizable in-office membership programs. Contact her at
katie@smileadvantage.com or 314- 885-4640.
30 focus | NOV/DEC 2020 | ISSUE 6
Emergency medical kits support patient
T
he high probability a dental practice someday will experience an emergency medical episode is something Dr. John Graham has thought much about. “As a profession, dentists are highly exposed to the potential for a medical emer-
gency,” said Dr. Graham, a private practice physician, oral surgeon and orthodontist in Salt Lake City. “These are not hospital-based settings, and so if someone has a medical emergency, you need to be prepared to do something between the time you recognize the emergency and the time Emergency Medical Services arrive to take over the care of that patient.”
When considering potential for the occurrence of emergency medical episodes in his own orthodontics practice, Dr. Graham has done the math and found the number of possibilities astounding when accounting for the fact every dentist has not just his or her patients to consider, but also anyone who enters the office.
“The reality is there is a bunch of people who come in to an orthodontist’s office who are not the orthodontist’s patients,” said Dr. Graham. “Many of those people are adults, and some of them are even older adults—grandparents. So, we have a lot of these people in our offices, and their medical history is totally unknown to us as the health care provider in that setting. If you do the quick math on all of that, what you end up with is, in that very average setting, more than 22 million adults are in orth- odontic practices every single year. Now, if you add that to all the other specialties where you are doing surgical and dental procedures that number goes up far higher.”
To protect both his patients and others in his office and to buffer his practice against liability, Dr. Graham outfits his practice with a HealthFirst Emergency Medical Kit, which has an ADA Member Advantage endorsement. He also subscribes to mainte- nance services that automatically replace expired medicines and other kit compo- nents. He is a member of the HealthFirst Advisory Board. His goal is to help other dentists with best practices and top-notch products.
“HealthFirst has been the leader in office medical preparedness for years now,” Said Dr. Graham. “It is one of the few companies really solely dedicated to emergency preparedness in a non-hospital setting for health care professionals.”
Dr. Graham points to HealthFirst’s relationship with Dr. Stanley Malamed, a re- nowned dental anesthesiologist, as another attestation of the quality of its Emer- gency Medical Kits. “Stanley Malamed is one of the members of our medical advisory board, and he’s also the preeminent and most famous person in all of dentistry when it comes to emergency preparedness,” said Dr. Graham.
The HealthFirst kits include choices that cover all types of dental practices, including those for the general dental practice; those that provide organization and mobility for a practice’s emergency medications, devices, first-aid supplies, oxygen and AED; and, a mobile solution containing medications and devices appropriate for a dental office practicing IV sedation, which also can carry an oxygen tank and an AED. HealthFirst also offers services that complement and support its Emergency Medical Kits to track medication and device expiration dates and automate refills before expiration.
“I think that puts HealthFirst, when you combine all of that, in sort of a league of its own,” said Dr. Graham.
Learn more about HealthFirst Emergency Medical Kits, and other ADA Member Advantage endorsements at
adamemberadvantage.com. This article first appeared on the ADA Center for Professional Success website at
success.ada.org.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48
