How to Obtain Insurance Information

During the course of her meetings with two separate visiting families, a Treatment Coordinator for whom I reviewed recorded consults this past week asked the following questions of both visitors:

• “Do you have any insurance?”
• “Do you know if it covers orthodontics?”

This is a common occurrence in many new-patient consultations, and whenever it occurs, I cringe, because it virtually guarantees, on the spot, that the family will not be making a decision to start treatment during the meeting. This is a factor beyond the scope of control of the TC that negatively affects their ability to start cases, and it needs to be corrected. In both of the aforementioned scenarios, that is exactly the outcome that occurred.

The reason for this predetermined outcome is simple: if the TC does not know what the visitor’s insurance benefit is at the time of the consultation, they cannot tell the visitor what their out-of-pocket investment is going to be, and since this information is unavailable, the visitor does not have the information that they need to actually make a buying decision and leaves without making one.

For a few of you, this is a fairly rare occurrence, but for many, it is part of your standard operating procedure – a self-imposed obstacle to getting a decision made that appears on a regular basis.

The responsibility for fixing this problem – and it is easy to correct – is at the front desk.

Many of you reading this will claim that your team at the front desk is good about asking for this information. Before you make that assumption, ask your TCs how often they have the above scenario occur in their consultations. That will tell you definitively how well, and how consistently, it is being done.

Also, asking “properly” here also means more than just requesting the information. Presenting the need for insurance information in terms that make cooperation appealing to your caller – i.e., reminding them that providing it may reduce their out-of-pocket cost for treatment – provides plenty of motivation for most people to get this critical information to your front desk, who should then pass it along to the TC. This process ensures that an accurate cost of treatment number can be provided, and a “yes” decision can be made, at the time of the consultation.