Episode #439: Verbal Skills to Move Away from PPOs, with Kirk Behrendt & Jenni Poulos

Dropping bad PPOs can be daunting. But there is one thing you can do to make the process a little more comfortable — utilizing verbal skills. Different words carry different weight, and Kirk Behrendt brings back Jenni Poulos, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, to explain how a small change in language can make a big difference in perception. By improving your verbal skills, you will build trust, value, and confidence. And, ultimately, you will retain the patients you want to keep in your practice. To learn how, and to learn more about ACT’s free Say This, Not That resource, listen to Episode 439 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

• Language matters — your words carry weight.
• Your team needs to be aligned on language.
• Think of ways to phrase things with a positive spin.
• Tell patients what you can do, not what you can't.
• Eliminate fear and communicate confidently.

Quotes:

• “The things that we say do carry a lot of weight. The language that we use — people have preconceived notions. They have stories that they tell around words. So, the language that we use matters. The safety that language can build, the trust that it can build, it is going to help your team navigate their own fear and stress around this and help move your patients through any fear and stress that they have about this transition [from PPOs]. So, you need to practice this, to lean into this, to give it plenty of time to have this transition be successful.” (3:40—4:15)
• “The person that answers your phone doesn't represent your business — he or she is your whole business if I don't know you. And the care and skill and eloquence of someone at the phone determines a lot of your success.” (4:24—4:38)
• “We don't think about this. Our clinical team comes in with extra school. Our hygiene comes in with extra school. And our administrators come in, and they are expected to execute a ton of tasks every day that they’ve received no additional training in. And we, as dentists, as managers, as those running the practice, we’re responsible for filling that gap and giving that training to our admin team members.” (5:07—5:38)
• “Everyone on your team needs to be aligned around the language that you are using when you decide to make these transitions [from PPOs]. And you're going to practice, practice, practice, practice, and everyone is going to be comfortable and confident with the message that you're delivering.” (5:43—6:00)
• “I absolutely believe that when we make the decision to transition away from PPO in-network status, this conversation begins chairside with our patients. There's a different level of trust that exists, oftentimes — not oftentimes, the majority of the time — between doc and patients, between hygienists and patients. And we don't want our admin bearing the brunt of this conversation. We want our clinical team to be starting the conversation about this transition [from PPOs] from a place of what our core values tell us about how we practice dentistry and why we are making this transition, and then we can move it up to the front for admin to fill in gaps.” (6:14—7:00)
• “Many, many docs that I have been lucky enough to take through this transition of decreasing their dependency on insurance, the first question always is, ‘I don't even know where to begin this conversation.’ There's so much fear tied to it. And I would say, ‘What does it mean for you to practice dentistry with your core values at the forefront?’ Because when you can answer that question, you can succinctly tell your patients why this transition — because just like you said, you didn't get into dentistry to join a thousand PPOs and to write off a third of your paycheck. But I bet your core values tell you quite a bit about why you got into dentistry.” (9:10—9:50)
• “Get rid of the limiting belief that, ‘My patients will only see me because I am on their insurance plan.’ I want you to throw that out the door, and I want your team to throw that out the door. Your patients come to see you because you are valuable, and because of you. And you need to own that and believe that. And we’re going to begin communicating from that place, of the belief that, ‘The patients that value me, that value the service, the valuable service that I provide, are going to stay here.’” (12:49—13:23)
• “People have to come to you because of you, not because of their plan, not because of how cheap you are, or anything like that.” (13:45—13:51)
• “People’s conditions change. So, you might say to yourself, ‘Well, I only have a certain percentage of my practice that's on a PPO.’ Well, you don't understand that they're part of an employment group that could change their participation in a second, and their plans. And so, with that comes a shift in your patient base. So, you can't necessarily set the winds so that you're going to be able to keep up with these patients. Their conditions change over time, and they can jump from PPO to another PPO in a second. And so, it’s really important to position yourself long-term that, ‘We are the people that care about you the most.’” (14:36—15:15)
• “[Ask] patients, ‘What's important to you?’ What a great question that people don't ask. And it is a value builder, just asking people, ‘What do you value? What's important to you?’ This is going to lead them to believe that, ‘Hey, there is something different here.’” (15:24—15:48)
• “I don't want you to overthink this process and get into these crazy, long, scripted conversations. But really think about, ‘What do my values say? Why are we doing this?’ and a simple statement from there. And then, really, it’s about, ‘What can we still do for you?’ I always want you to be approaching these conversations with, ‘What can I give you?’ the value that I can give you, that we’re still insurance-friendly. We’re still going to process claims for you. We’re still going to be your advocate. We’re going to still provide you with amazing care. And it should be as simple as that.” (16:11—16:54)
• “There is always a way to phrase something that has a positive spin.” (18:14—18:19)
• “With so many of these questions that we get from patients and entering into the unknown of this transition [from PPOs], there is a lot of, ‘I don't know what I don't know.’ And with that comes a tremendous amount of fear. Docs have fear about, ‘Oh my gosh, am I going to lose all my patients?’ Their patients have fear because they don't know any better. We come from this belief of insurance that we have to see the person that is in-network. And it’s simply not true when it comes to dental benefits, except for a very small percentage of plans in which you have to see an in-network provider to get benefit coverage.” (20:45—21:26)
• “We oftentimes get confused, concerned, and sometimes angry patients because we don't have the skills, we’re not equipped with the answers that we can confidently say, ‘This is what I'm going to do for you, and this is why we have made these decisions.’ So, we’re going to knock out the, ‘I don't know what I don't know.’ We’re going to eliminate the fear, and we’re going to practice together so we can confidently communicate these things to our patients.” (21:46—22:18)
• “We oftentimes talked about the difference between talking about the fee of something or the cost of something versus the investment of something. I love this example in the Say This, Not That because a fee or a cost, it’s money out the door. An investment has a return.” (24:25—24:41)
• “‘We’re out-of-network.’ This is a big one. ‘We’re out. We’re a non-participating provider. We’re out-of-network.’ I really like the shift to, ‘We’re an unrestricted provider.’ Because it’s like, we’re not out-of-network — we’re able to provide care without restrictions to you. So, it’s what, positively, we can do for you. And also, we’re not out-of-network — we’re insurance-friendly.” (26:06—26:37)
• “Even fee-for-service, if someone has a little bit of dental acumen, they might hear fee-for-service as, ‘You're going to do nothing to work with my dental benefits.’ They may have come across that phrase at some time. Telling people, ‘We are insurance-friendly,’ we’re going to advocate for you. We’re going to help you get coverage. We’re going to send the claims or provide you with the claims, the X-rays, the narratives, the resources that are necessary to get your coverage.” (26:44—27:16)
• “Your ability to communicate will determine how far you go in dentistry. So, don't ever stop improving how you communicate.” (30:42—30:51)

Snippets:

• 0:00 Introduction.
• 2:42 Why language skills are important in a dental practice.
• 4:54 Your admin team gets the least amount of training.
• 6:01 Where to begin.
• 7:00 Eat and breathe your core values.
• 10:58 Have a framework for responding to questions.
• 12:24 Get rid of your limiting beliefs.
• 15:19 Be equipped with the right questions.
• 17:25 Tell patients what you can do for them.
• 19:56 Eliminate the fear.
• 22:50 ACT’s Say This, Not That document.
• 28:37 You get to decide what you say.
• 30:51 Last thoughts on verbal skills.

Reach Out to Jenni:

Jenni’s email: [email protected] 

Jenni’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenni.poulos

Jenni’s social media: @actdental

Resources:

ACT Dental Say This, Not That document: https://form.jotform.com/221665137804153

Jenni Poulos Bio:

Jenni brings to dental teams a literal lifetime of experience in dentistry. As the daughter and sister of periodontists and a dental hygienist, she has been working in many facets of the dental world since she first held a summer job turning rooms and pouring models at the age of 12. Now, with over 10 years of experience in managing and leading a large periodontal practice, she has a firm grasp on what it takes to run a thriving business. Her passion for organizational health and culture has been a driving force behind her coaching career. She has witnessed firsthand how creating an aligned and engaged team will take a practice to levels of success that they never believed possible!