Choose an easy name to remember, market and make personal. Have fun with it. Think “Dr Bob’s Smile Club” or “Super Senior Dental Club”. Make it a contest with current patients in creating the name, and create some buzz around your new program in the process.

Determine a percentage discount you want to offer. You may offer any discount you wish to your patients. There is definitely a sweet spot for discounts; too little and it’s not an incentive for the patient to participate, and too much get’s you closer to your typical insurance write-offs. The most common discounts we see GP’s offer is between 10-25% depending on the type of program.

You will need to decide whether to charge your patients for participation in your program or to offer it for free. Both options have benefits and are useful. A great strategy is to offer 2 programs; a free program with limited benefits and discounts, and a paid program with enhanced benefits and discounts. If a patient isn’t interested in the paid program, you have the free program to fall back on that creates customer loyalty and a more financially qualified patient.

Before offering a paid program, check your state’s direct patient care laws, which may have restrictions or criteria for offering this type of program. Work with a qualified legal professional that can guide you in creating a safe and legal program. For more legal information and resources, visit our legal resources page.

Your program can specify the exact procedures you will include and those you will not, limiting the offer to only the specific CDT codes and treatment types you want to offer. Consider a one-time offering specifically for new patients or for the first year of participation.

For those practices who already have an established patient program, beef up your already existing program by integrating the valuable features of MyHappyMouth. No need to start from scratch, convert your existing program over and take advantage of features like trackable and registered cards, discounted health savings tools, customized and professional marketing pieces, and participating Cooperative specialists.

Work with a legal professional to determine how the implementation of this plan will affect your business and how your state’s laws may limit what you can offer and how you can market your program. Work with a qualified legal professional that can guide you in creating a safe and legal program. For more legal information and resources, visit our legal resources page.

Have your attorney help create or review your patient agreement. The Cooperative has a template agreement available for our members to download and use as a resource in creating their own. Patient agreements protect you and your patients and may be required in some states when offering a patient program like MyHappyMouth. For more legal information and resources like such as a template patient agreement, visit our legal resources page.

Every state is different and laws change. Check your state laws when creating a program. Some states have strict regulation when offering patient programs, some have little to none. Some state laws restrict how you can charge your patient to participate, some do not. Verify whether your state considers these types of plans to be insurance and make sure that your plan is compliant with any state law. Some states require an annual licence fee to offer a patient program, and some limit the ways you can market this program.

Work with a qualified legal professional that can guide you in creating a safe and legal program. For more legal information and resources, visit our legal resources page.

Some managed care agreements include clauses that may affect your patient program, e.g., most favored nation clauses. Check your signed managed care plans to review any potential conflicts.

In order to have a successful program, your practice needs a person who will be the “champion” for this program. Your Champion should know the program inside and out and should be the point person to run and track the success of the program. Programs succeed when someone specific has responsibility over its success.

Establishing a process from the beginning and maintaining that process helps to ensure success. Defining a process allows you to create a standard on how and when to offer the program and a follow through on signing up and receiving participating patients. Here are some things to consider:

• What type of patient will be offered the program? All fee-for-service patients or just some?
• When are patients invited to participate? At check in or checkout?
• Will you activate a patient’s card for them while they are being treated, or will you send them home with instructions to do so?
• How frequently will you communicate with participating patients and how?
• Who in the practice will explain the program to the patient and invite them to participate?

Choosing a launch date will help you get all your ducks in a row before you start. It creates some buzz in your practice and get’s your team on the same page. Make sure your staff knows how it works, what to say, and their part in helping to make this program a success.

A health savings account offered to any qualifying patient is a valuable tool for both you and the patient. The best fee-for-service patients are ones with money saved for treatment and a health savings account is the best way to accomplish this. A patient can set up their own and automate contributions to their account monthly. Set it and forget it. This way, they will always be budgeting for treatment. The health savings account paperwork is available for every patient once logged into the website after they activate their card. You can also access HSA fliers on our marketing page.

You may request the data from all your Activated Cards as well as Visits anytime you wish. This data will help you know which patients have actually used their card and when they have visited. Custom marketing can be sent to these patients via their included email, address or phone number.

You are going to look good! Your MyHappyMouth program comes with lots of materials to help market your program to existing and potential patients. Check out the marketing resources which include customizable posters, fliers, brochures and patient cards. Print them yourself or save the edited file and send it to a printer of your choice.

To give a boost to your program, try a friendly in-office competition to see who can get the most patients activated. Simply give your staff members a stack of cards with an identification number written on each that corresponds to an employee or set an office wide goal for total activated cards. Get creative and find ways to leverage your whole office when talking about your program.

You may make more than one patient program if you wish, although we recommend starting with one until you get the hang of the program and process. Creating more than one group allows your practice to offer different discounts and promotions that attract various groups. Some ideas for additional groups may include:

• Friends and Family Discount Cards
• Senior Citizen Discount Cards
• Student Cards
• Veterans
• Inactive Patients
• New Uninsured Patients

Create a promotional offer for your new program and new patients. Use the customizable marketing materials to kick things off.