How to Keep Patients Through a Delta/PPO Transition

1. Don’t – Send mass mailings. Don’t send letters to patients unless the insurance company is also sending them. I know because I used to help dentists write those letters! They were self-laudatory and complained about the cost of doing business, and how the insurance companies were being unfair, etc. Those messages don’t work! We know better now. Letters are often not read, and often when they are read, they are misunderstood.

2. Do – Talk to patients face to face or over the phone, or by letter and phone. If a patient is important enough to save, then they’re important enough for you to call. Call patients in the order they’re due for their next checkup. If someone isn’t due until next October, they’re not going to run out and get another dentist next week. Success depends on effective person-to-person communication. Simple, sincere language works best. In fact, your team members already know how to communicate with your patients, you just have to educate them about the situation and train them, so they feel that they’re being fair and honest in their hearts.

3. When patients ask, “Why did you do this?” (which they won’t as often as you think), don’t go into lengthy explanations about how tough your expenses are and how high quality you are and how insurance companies stink. Keep it simple. “We’ve worked with XYZ PPO for years and things just got to the point where we did not think they were being fair. For the long run we feel this is the best choice for our practice and our patients.”

4. Don’t drop PPOs without buy-in from your whole team. In our experience, often the clinical team won’t have any idea of how much you’re writing off. Once they do, they may better understand your decision. In any case, they have to be on message too. If you have good caring team members, they’re not going to want to upset patients or have uncomfortable confrontations. They need to know that when a patient is upset, they’re likely upset because they like your practice and they don’t want to have to leave! So, if a patient is upset or has questions it’s important that you and your team are not defensive, but empathetic. “We understand, of course we are going to do all we can to work with you to help you stay and get you all the benefits we can…”

5. What if a patient says, “The insurance company says I’d get a better deal if I go to an in-network provider?” Do respond…
   “Yes, financially they do give you incentives to go with an in-network provider. However, we find many of our patients are happy with the benefits they get here.”

6. Don’t drop them all at once. Take it one PPO at a time. Start with a small one, learn how to do it, and then go on to the next one. In fact, the more PPOs you have, the more opportunities you have to reduce your write-offs. The toughest situation is when you have just one that involves 70% of your patients. It can be done but, you really have to have a thought-out plan and well-trained team.

7. Do – Remember that your colleagues are dropping PPOs and you can too! According to the ADA’s recent “State of the U.S. Economy Report,” during the 4th quarter of 2025, 35% of dentists reported that they intended to drop out of one or more insurance networks in 2026. More importantly, almost 24% of dentists have already dropped out during the first six months of 2026.

It’s never just enough to leave a PPO participation, you must be working toward something. More on that later.