PPO Negotiations
Thinking of dropping Delta Dental?
Thinking of cutting back on dental PPO participation?
Tired of writing off tens of thousands every month to dental PPOs?
Want to Lose the Discounts and Keep the Patients?
The right “plays” with PPOs can have a substantial impact on your bottom line. No one has more experience with PPO plays than Bill Rossi and his team at Advanced Practice Management. If you are considering joining, dropping, or negotiating with a PPO, call us.
No contracts, no hype, just straightforward advice. We have helped scores of clients increase their collections by tens of thousands per month. Find out the right dental PPO play for you!
Call 952-921-3360 or text 952-228-9486 for your 30-minute consultation. No pressure, no bull; just a chance to find out more. Or schedule your 30-minute consult with Bill by clicking here.
Negotiations - Decisions - Transitions
Bill Rossi is the country’s leading expert on PPO decisions and transitions. PPO decisions must be made in the context of the practice’s realities. Bill has over 35 years’ experience in advising dental practices. For the past 20 years he has helped many dentists strategically and safely cut back on their PPO participation. This has added substantially to their bottom lines and their practice independence.
Shelly Ryan has successfully helped practices increase their bottom line through negotiating insurance reimbursement and leaving networks with minimal patient loss. Her 30 years of experience in dentistry as a registered dental assistant, practice manager, and team coach gives her an edge when working with teams as they navigate through the tangled web of insurance. She analyzes and identifies where your practice is losing money; and when it is time for your practice to get out of PPOs.
Read Bill Rossi’s Profitable Dentist Articles:
Read Bill Rossi’s McGill Advisory Articles:
- How To Increase Profits By Playing It Smart With Delta
- 3 Steps To Increase Profits By Reducing PPO Participation
- 4 Steps To Make Profitable PPO Changes For Your Practice
- How You Can Make Practice PPO Decisions Profitably
- Boost Profits By Managing Your PPO Participation
- 5 More Ways To Boost Profits While Dropping Managed Care (PPO) Plans
- 7 Steps To Boost Your Practice Profits While Reducing Managed Care (PPOs)
- Evaluate PPOs When Building Your Practice By Purchase
- The McGill Advisory Drilling It Down Webcast February 2021
- How To Offset Rising Wage Costs
- Survey Reveals More Doctors Reducing PPO Participation
Read Bill Rossi’s Dental Economics Articles:
Read Bill Rossi’s Collier & Associates Articles:
Fortifying Your Practice Through A PPO Transition- Is Your Practice Primed To Drop One Or More PPOs?
- Three Case Studies Show How Dropping a PPO Plan Increases Profits
- Dropping a Low Paying PPO Plan and Limiting the Damage
- Negotiating PPO Reimbursements
- According to Bill Rossi of Advanced Practice Management, There Seems to be a Law of Diminishing Returns by Adding the Next PPO
- “PPO Transition: Lose the Discounts, Keep the Patients!”
- Balancing PPO Participation
“Performing a PPO Exorcism”: Bill Rossi – Advanced Practice Management
Zoomcast: Boost your DentistryIQ: Should you drop PPOs?
Zoomcast: Boost your DentistryIQ: You’ve dropped PPOs. Now what?
The Practice X-Factor
Listen to Bill Rossi’s Podcasts & Interviews:
How a Dentist Can Manage and Exit Being In-Network with a PPO with Bill Rossi – The Art of Dental Finance and Management Podcast
March 11, 2020
Bill Rossi
10 Things You Need to Know About You and PPOs
By Bill Rossi
1. You have more power than you think.
2. Practices with little or no PPO participation generally do get fewer new patients. However, practices deep into PPO participation do not get proportionally more new patients as they take on more and more programs and more discounts.
3. Each practice has to find the “right balance” of PPO participation. When Dentists have complete control over their fees, most of them try to balance the fees so they aren’t too low or too high. In effect, moderating your PPO participation is like setting your fees.
4. Chances are that you are already seeing some patients out-of-network. For every PPO plan, there are providers both in and out of the network in your area. No insurance network, not even Delta, has 100% of providers in a given area.
5. Employers provide Dental insurance to make their employees happy. Of course, they want to save money, but their employees aren’t happy if they can’t see the provider they want to see.
Therefore, most insurance companies do not have “punitive” out-of-network benefits. In fact, for some, the out-of-network benefits are surprisingly good.
6. If you drop a PPO and your staff is properly trained, you will retain the majority of the PPO patients – unless the patients have no out-of-network benefits or very little out-of-network benefits.
7. Whenever dealing with insurance either as in-network or out-of-network providers, it’s important to accentuate the positive,
“The good news is that with your Delta policy, you can go to the Dentist of your choice…”
“We have many patients on this plan and in general things work out quite well.”
8. Some PPO fees can be negotiated. If you haven’t tried, there is a good chance you’ve left money on the table. It costs little to do this and the extra dollars are “free money.”
9. You can’t just leave PPOs without having a strategy. In other words, you must take measures to fortify the practice and build it up in the face of the inevitable patient attrition.
10. If you are collecting less than 80% of your Gross Production, you need to take a serious look at reducing PPO participation. Too often Dentists sign up for a plan too quickly and drop too rashly. There are thousands of dollars and many patients at stake. Make your decisions logically.
Dr. Stephen Saunders (Waupaca Dental Excellence)
“It became a time in my career where I was sick of being abused by dental insurance. My accountant gets paid fairly, my electrician gets paid fairly, my computer guys get paid fairly. I balance my fees so they are fair, so why was I having to give 20% or more of my fees up because my patients have discount insurance plans? I didn’t pick their plans.I came across Bill Rossi’s website and contacted him. What was impressive was that we made a decision to drop out of network with the largest dental insurance provider in my area. I didn’t do it emotionally, we did it mathematically. Bill breaks down exactly how my office was doing compared to the average office. He breaks down how many patients are on insurance plans. He gives you a realistic view on potential loss of patients AND potential increase in revenue with changing network status. So here I am 2 years later after becoming 100% fee for service. The dream of every dentist. I just want to do great work for my patients and get paid fairly. Turns out that patients come to me because they like the care they get. Yes, some patient left after changing status, BUT way more stayed and now my dental insurance chains are off. I can’t thank Bill enough. Dentists are smart professionals, we just need to do some basic second grade math and take emotion out of insurance choices.” Aileen Helton D.D.S, Carmel, IN
“I enlisted Bill Rossi’s help in October of 2018 after listening to his podcast with Dentaltown’s Howard Farran. His thorough analysis and strategic game plan allowed us to drop 6 PPO insurance plans and be in a great position to handle the pandemic. I am so grateful for Bill. He’s a great guy who is always available and willing to help. I highly recommend him to any dentist who is thinking about dropping PPOs.” Dr Chris Leiszler, Baldwin City, KS
“I think most dentists have a lot of trepidation when it comes to freeing themselves of the restraints of dental insurance. It’s difficult to remove the emotion from the decision-making process, but Bill Rossi was able to do that for me. He will objectively analyze your situation and shoot straight with you on the best way to proceed, based on his many years of experience.” Dr Alan May, Virginia
“I was working five full days a week and feeling overwhelmed. Bill helped me with some key, strategic moves over the course of the uncertainty last year. Those moves resulted in me only working four days a week at a much more relaxed pace now. The net profit of the practice has even gone UP compared to before. I don’t even do most of the good things Bill’s recommended, but if I liked dentistry enough to want to work more, I bet we’d be able to really turn it on.”
Dr Nate Henderson, TN
“I feel like we have great confidence dropping insurance in the future as a result of all your guidance.” Dr. Abby Krienke, Lincoln, NE
“I have started to create a women’s dental group and added an association for dentists in my area. I have been so happy as your client and tell everyone about you. After working with another consulting group in 2017, I can tell you APM has exceeded my expectations.”Dr. Stephen McCuin - Radford, VA
“After a careful analysis, Bill determined we could transition out of a major PPO in my practice. After some thought (and another year of aggravating write offs) I decided to go ahead. We sent the drop notice. The next thing we know, the PPO offered a significant increase in our fee allowances. So we decided to take it. We will collect thousands more as a result. Bill says that the best negotiation tool a Doctor can have is to send a drop notice. If they hadn’t come up nicely, we were ready to act because we knew we would be well prepared.”Lois Y. (Office Manager, Centre Family Dentistry) - Fort Collins, CO
“Bill helped us with the process of leaving the PPO and working together we adapted the approach that suited our practice best. Very helpful advice.”Dr. Bob Boyat
“We worked with Bill Rossi to leave a PPO and it reduced our discounts significantly. We did not have any serious loss of patients and continued to grow through the transition.”Dr. W. Kiesel, Quakertown, PA
“After an analysis by Bill we decided to go ahead and drop Delta Dental. It is quite a leap but with Bill’s coaching and advise we are actually up 20% in production plus, of course, seeing a big increase in collections.”Deborah Parr, office manager, Dr Olan Parr Culpepper Va.
“Have you ever seen the look on a small child’s face when you try to gently take away their security blanket? Eyes widen in horror and their grip tightens even more. I believe most dentists [and office managers – that’s me] feel the same way when first considering going out of network with an insurance company. The blanket is frayed and doesn’t smell so good [write-offs are so big you lose money on every patient], but the loss is too scary to think about…. Or is it? After being in network with one particular insurance company for 12 years and experiencing exactly ONE increase in what they paid us [not on all codes, just some fillings for about $.25 per filling – yep, that’s 25 CENTS] we were looking for a way out. I hated watching my highly trained and excellent practitioner husband working harder and harder for less and less. The smartest move we made in our bid for independence was to contact Bill Rossi of Advanced Practice Management. We sent reports, details about our practice, investigated which employers used which insurances, and then more reports. The FBI could take lessons from Bill! But because of his thoroughness in finding out about our practice, he could tell us that he believed we would not only survive but do very well out of network with that company. Then he visited our office and walked our team through what to do, say, expect. Had we attempted it on our own, we would have made some serious mistakes in our approach to patients. Seven months later I can honestly say we are doing at least fine. The vast majority of our patients have stayed with the practice and it turns out for most plans the insurance company pays really close to our fees. We are so glad we made this choice. Letting go of the in-network security blanket isn’t easy, but Bill will get you through it just fine.”
Dr Lee Fletcher, Greenville S.C
“Bill analyzed my specific situation and showed me how to negotiate for my practice from a position of strength. He provided me with the knowledge and advice that I needed to manage my insurance relationships in a strategic manner for the long term success of my practice. Bill is a passionate advocate for the solo practitioner and has the knowledge to help you manage your practice in today’s complex environment.”Lis Bradley - Lisbeth S Bradley DDS
“I first met Bill Rossi when I read an amazing article he wrote for the McGill Hill newsletter. Even tho I am not in his part of the country I was impressed and Bill agreed to talk with me. We ended up working with Bill on several things, one being transitioning out of a PPO which is always a very scary thing to do. He held our hands and walked us through the process. The results have been impressive! Whenever I have a question or need a solution to a problem Bill and his team are always very responsive and have excellent suggestions for me and help with how to implement.I depend on and trust his expertise.”
Dr Ross Hock, Canton, Michigan
“Bill and his team have been a great resource for me in the advancement of my dental practice. He has consistently given me great advice on topics ranging from questions about staffing issues, integration of a new associate as well as the acquisition and integration of an outside dental practice into my own. Bill also helped me through a major PPO transition. I would recommend him without hesitation.” Drs. Potach and Mitchell
“Shelly helped our office go out of network with a major PPO and become a fee for service practice. There were difficult aspects involved in making this decision and she provided guidance that was well thought out. It feels good to come to work every day and get paid for what what we do and our patients feel the same way! We wish we would have done this years ago.”
Dr. Tina Theroux, North Grafton, MA
“Bill Rossi was referred to me by a colleague that is a huge proponent of FFS dentistry where it is about quality of care not the quantity of care. That referral was the first step in getting my practice, and me, to achieve some goals I had set a long time ago. Bill systematically went through a ton of information and determined that we were in fact ready for the next step and that moving in a FFS direction wouldn’t be practice suicide. Then he laid out the steps I needed to take on a timeline. Finally, he came in and coached my entire team on how to go through with our transition, deal with patient concerns effectively. We were well prepared and then he stood in the background and coached us from afar when various little questions/issues arose. Overall, thanks to Bill and his team, we are almost 100% FFS!!! (We choose to stay in-network with 2 insurers for personal reasons.) We have managed to effectively navigate the muddy waters and come out on the other side practicing dentistry the way we WANT to practice dentistry. Thank you, Bill!!!”Dr. Paul Keelan, Bulter, PA
“We are very pleased with Advanced Practice Management. Bill Rossi and his team helped us work through the insurance network process. After a year of working together we have decreased the number of insurance plans we are in network with and increased our the fee schedules for some of the insurances we are in network with. Thank you Bill and your team for all your help.”Dr. Smaltz, Newnan Georgia
“By careful analysis, Bill took the emotion out of the decision and showed us angles we had not thought of. We were able to significantly reduce write offs on a couple of the plans we participated with which certainly helps the bottom line.”Dr Jeffrey Garner, Maryville , Mo
“With Bill’s preparations, we had the confidence to see the PPO transition through. It all went pretty seamlessly and has certainly helped revenues.” Christine Cavanaugh Portsmouth Family Dentistry, Providence Rhode island
““By careful analysis, Bill took the emotion out of the decision and showed us angles we had not thought of. We were able to significantly reduce write offs on a couple of the plans we participated with which certainly helps the bottom line.”
Dr. David Parks, Clinton, MS
“Bill’s advice helped us through two PPO transitions. Like most Dentists would be, I was a little nervous about doing this but it has worked out well. Collections are up by thousands per month.” Ruth Lackey, Office Manager - Radford, VA
“Bill’s advice was very helpful.” Dr. Jordan Humbert of Fort Collins, Colorado
“Bill analyzed our situation and helped us through a major PPO transition. It has added thousands of dollars per month to our collections and our patient flow is as good as ever.””Dr. Kirby Johnson - Spicer MN
“Shelly and Bill have given us coaching and advice that has helped us have a strong growing practice. Their guidance was also very helpful in our decision to cut back on PPO participation last year and increase our collections by over $10,000 per month.”Roy Krengel DDS, Bloomington, MN
“I was dealing with a PPO that said they wouldn’t negotiate and wouldn’t pay me more. With the information and advise Bill gave me I was able to successful pushthem and received a significant increase in reimbursement allowances.”
Andrew Olsson DDS, Hood River Oregon
“Bill helped tremendously when I was struggling to find the right path for my practice. I am about 6 months in since our first conversations and we have made several big changes in the practice for the better. The experience Bill brings to the table helped me be confident in making these decisions. We have reduced our PPO participation considerably and will be adding an associate soon. Thanks Bill and APM!” Dr William Poole, Leola, Pa
“Bill, will be faxing (an unnamed here ppo) new fee proposal to you today. I got firm with them on Monday and they came up quite a bit. Thanks for the advice!” Dr. Jim Tomhave, Cloquet, MN
“Bill helped us significantly increase our insurance allowances. His advice at a key juncture of practice transition has been very helpful.” Dr. Joseph Gendler, Hopkins, MN
“Bill Rossi’s advise on insurance-related topics has worked very well. Our work with him has added many 1000s of dollars to our bottom line.” Dr. Jeffrey Chandler, DDS Dentist - Oral/Maxillofacial Surgery, Elmhurst, IL
“Bill’s advice really helped me organize my approach to negotiating with and making decisions about PPO’s.” Matthew Colaizy DDS
“Shelly provided a detailed analysis of our insurance participation and found “hidden” ways we were losing money. I would not have had the time nor the staff to dig through this complicated process. Because of her efforts, our collections increased by 3%-4%. I am able to work less and collect the same.”
Call Bill Rossi at 952-921-3360 today to schedule your free, no obligation 20-minute consultation to find out more!
