Are You Insurance Aware—or Insurance Driven?

 There’s a big difference.

As long as dental insurance exists, your practice will be in the insurance business. Even fee-for-service practices that collect 100% of their fees should be versed in how to effectively respond to insurance questions. But let me be clear  -  you are a helper and advocate for your patients, NOT an insurance expert. 

Helping a patient maximize their dental plan is different from letting insurance lead every decision.

So how can you tell whether insurance has quietly taken the wheel?

• Do you bring up insurance before the patient does?

• Doctors, do you find yourself influenced by insurance when diagnosing and treatment-planning?

• Do you focus on what the plan might pay before learning what the patient wants?

• Do you routinely send predeterminations?

• Do you put an estimated insurance payment in writing as though the carrier has guaranteed it?

• Does your team spend hours verifying benefits while meaningful patient conversations wait?

These habits usually come from a good place. You want to be helpful and prevent surprises. But when every conversation begins with “Let’s see what insurance covers,” patients may hear something you never intended: My insurance decides which options I should consider.

Being insurance driven means letting insurance become the conversation.

An insurance aware team helps patients maximize the dental plan they’ve paid for without allowing those benefits to define the patient’s goals.

Your patient deserves a helper and an advocate - not an insurance expert. Make sure that’s the role your team is playing.

Dig into these resources for more: 

Whose Insurance is it, anyway?

Top 10 Ways to respond to, ‘What does my insurance cover?’

How to handle the ‘I’ word

Do we need to ‘warn’ new patients that we’re out of network?

The Answer is Never No