Are Your Insurance Contracts Costing You More Than You Realize?
In this episode, I take a closer look at how contractual write-offs, insurance mix, and network leasing can quietly eat away at practice revenue and owner income, often without being obvious.
You’ll learn the five numbers every practice owner should be watching:
- Insurance mix
- Write-off percentage by plan
- Net collections
- Effective hourly rate by payer
- Patient concentration by insurance plan
I’ll break down how to calculate your effective hourly rate and why a procedure that looks profitable on paper may actually be costing your practice money once insurance adjustments, collections, and chair time are factored in.
But this isn’t simply a conversation about dropping insurance plans.
We’ll explore practical options for improving your payer strategy, including renegotiating fees, optimizing an in-network practice, adopting a hybrid model, or strategically transitioning away from certain plans. You’ll also learn how to approach timing, patient communication, front-desk scripting, membership plans, recall, and case acceptance so you can make changes without disrupting the patient experience.
Most importantly, you’ll walk away with a clear, data-driven starting point. We’ll identify three reports you can pull right now to better understand where your practice is making money, where it may be losing money, and which insurance relationships deserve a closer look.
Key Takeaways
- Learn how to calculate write-off percentages by insurance carrier using 12 months of production data.
- Identify two common traps that can hide profitability problems: outdated fee schedules and network leasing.
- Understand the five key numbers that should guide your insurance strategy.
- Calculate effective hourly rate by payer and compare collections against your cost per chair hour.
- Discover alternatives to simply dropping an insurance plan, including renegotiation, optimizing your in-network model, and creating a hybrid approach.
- Learn how to strategically transition away from plans when necessary while maintaining clear communication with patients.
- Get three actionable steps to complete this week: analyze write-offs by plan, identify active patients by insurance, and calculate effective hourly rates for your top procedures.
Your insurance strategy shouldn't be based on assumptions. It should be based on your numbers.
If you are looking to get some guidance for your practice, let us know! The KLAS Solutions Coaching team is here to help! Check out our website: klasdentalcoaching.com or klashealthcarecoaching.com to learn more!
