How to Prevent the Insurance Takeover

Welcome to the navigating dental insurance podcast where we don't take from insurance companies. Here your hosts Mr. Jordan Comstock and Mr. Ben Tuinei. This podcast is sponsored by BoomCloud Dental Membership Software www.boomcloudapps.com and Veritas Dental Resources www.veritasdentalresources.com. Enjoy the show. >> Welcome everybody to another wonderful and exciting episode of the navigating dental insurance podcast. First I have to say we are back. >> Yeah, baby. >> I'm Ben Tuinei got Jordan Comstock. And man, it's been a while since we've done a podcast together. We've been doing

them separately for the last couple of years. >> Yeah, I mean I haven't been on it. It's it's probably been a year for me other than I I did record one early this week on my on my drive into the office cuz I'm like ah I feel like I need to be on this on our on our podcast. Uh and you know, a lot has changed. You know, Ben and I are now neighbors. So I think about our podcast every time I drive into my house.

I'm like I got we got to jump on this again. >> Absolutely. You know, there's so much that that has changed. Um you know, I and we get so many uh listeners asking hey when you guys going to redo your podcast or send out more episodes? Well, we're going to do it now. We're going to be more consistent and persistent especially now with all the freaking changes in the industry, you know. >> So many changes, yeah. There's a lot of changes and you know, and I

the reason why I've been gone is I've been so busy at BoomCloud um you know, bringing in some leaders to help me run the company cuz it just it's getting crazy busy over here. so uh finally got some awesome leaders in our company that allows me to break away and and do these webinar or these podcasts again, so >> There you go. Growth is good. Growth is >> It's good. It's there's challenges. It's painful. It's fun. It's it's a mix of of those feelings. >> Absolutely.

>> Yeah. >> Let's let's dive into the the podcast portion. So, there have been changes. You know, we've been talking about how Well, number one on my list is that insurance companies are lowering fees despite increased inflation. >> What I mean, the current inflation rate, what is that? Eight and a half percent now, the consumer inflation? >> It's a It's in many parts of the country, it's above 9%. It's ridiculous. You know, then housing prices, too, you know, the with interest rates creeping up, the housing

has slowed down, especially the new construction. But still, rent is going up. There's so many things that are going up. But insurance companies are reducing fees, which is ridiculous. >> Yeah. >> So, if anybody is getting a fee cut, my recommendation is you just have to drop the plan. There's just no way around it. You know, why why negotiate with terrorists? >> Exactly. Yeah, you're they're terrorists. You're they're businesses cuz you know, they're you're you're having to deal with their rules and their way of doing

business, and it it just it doesn't make too much sense anymore to have, you know, every PPO plan under the sun. Um it it's time to optimize your revenue, and PPOs play a large part of why you would want to consider that, especially in the in the economic environment we are in today, where inflation is on the rise. Um costs just and we're talking consumer inflation, but if we look into, you know, a business or a dental practice, they're the costs are are rising, you know,

all over the board. And then you got you got your good old partners called the PPOs that, you know, will are going to uh reduce profit margins. They make it very challenging to operate your business, increase denials, and just it doesn't seem like a very good partnership to me anymore. You know, I'm sure there's still places, you know, where PPOs make sense, but the reality is uh it's time to get them out. >> Yep. I agree. So, over the last 2 years, I mean, you've had

companies like Aetna, Cigna, and others do fee cuts. And that's just public knowledge, right? We're not putting those companies on blast. >> Sure. >> Um you know, we want to put the whole the whole industry on blast, but these companies are are reducing fees. And And so our experience is that whenever our clients get these fee cuts, more than half of them end up dropping out of the networks. And the ones that get help in terms of training, they're retaining most of their patients. The ones

that don't get training, they're still retaining most of their patients. >> Sure, yeah. >> That leads me to believe that you could you could have the worst um protocols in place and drop an insurance plan, but if you try, it seems like if there's some effort and desire that going out of network with with a lot of dental plans is not really that scary, right? >> Sure. >> And so the worst we've seen this year for the PPO plans that have cut fees is 15% rate

of patient attrition. And that was not our clients. Those are our people that usually come to us and say, "Hey, we kind of feel like we're we're bleeding patients." But when you look at the numbers, it's like, "That's only 15%, but overall you're trending ahead." >> So if you If you think >> If you If you think about it, right? Um they are isolating a metric when they when you look at just 15% attrition. Well, on the other end of that Ben, like what what are

they seeing in regards to revenue production from their their patients that stay with them? Have you got any data on that? >> Yeah, we're building that. We have Well, we have data from former you know, older clients that have dropped in years past. And usually the rate of patient attrition is less than 10%. The overall revenue increase goes up by anywhere between 40 to 50% depending on what your previous in network discounts were or write-offs. But with a 10% cut in patients usually the profitability goes

up still at least by 20-30% right? >> Sure, yeah. >> You know, there's I like Gary Takacs's formula that he he kind of learned from the Kodak study that you know, for if you raise your fees by 20% you could you could lose 47 and a half of your patients and still maintain the exact same profit margin and this is based upon a a business that has a 70% overhead structure. >> Yeah. >> In many dental businesses there's their their overhead structure is not 70% it's

around 60 or 50%. And so naturally when you see a 30 to 40% increase in revenue and you lose 10% of your patients, there's a huge jump in in overall profits, right? >> Yeah. >> And so we're working with some accounting firms to calculate those profit margins based upon overhead dynamics and what we're learning so far is that practices have more than 50% rate rate of risk meaning you can lose 50% of your patients. >> And still produce. >> Oh, yeah. >> So yeah, this is

yeah, this is called optimizing your revenue and and one of the metrics I look at just from a a standpoint and this goes for any type of business. Um the the most important metric or thing to to watch, you know, in your practice is the average revenue per patient. >> Mhm. >> You know, um when you cut out PPOs, what happens? Well, you remove that discount barrier that's that's affecting profit margins. So, if you when you remove that, you know, your average revenue per patient increases.

Um so, to your point, Ben, with if people lose >> their their uh >> a good amount of their their, you know, PPO patients, the the the reality is that the revenue increases per patient, the average revenue per patient increases, and um allows the business to to still operate, you know, um in a similar fashion in regards to revenue. So, average revenue per patient is one of my favorite metrics to look at, you know, for obviously I run a software company. We we look at the

same thing. We look at average revenue per account or average revenue per user. Um and it's the same it's the same concept. As long as that's going up and increasing, you got a healthy business. If it's decreasing, which the PPOs uh make it decrease, especially with what they're doing with, you know, constantly uh decreasing and and, you know, uh causing denials to happen, which decreases revenue opportunities. Um as long as you're watching that metric and it's going up, you have a healthy practice. That's kind of

That's kind of how I look at it, Ben. >> Yeah. So, that's number two on the list of the insurance changes is an increased rate of denials. And I've never seen in my career uh the the rate of refund requests from insurance companies. Illegitimate refund requests and hey, you owe us X amount of money, but they don't say how, like where where that calculation came from. >> Interesting. >> And then denials. Like the the the and the the denials are everything like fillings now, a lot

of insurance companies are asking for x-rays, right? Which in the past, um that wasn't necessarily a requirement to have uh reimbursement for uh things like fillings, minor restorative procedures. Um and then you see build-ups where insurance companies are just >> Huh. >> crazy denying those and and asking for both uh well, post-op x-rays as well for for build-ups after the crown seats. So, you have all these different changes that speaks to one theme as an insurance industry, how do we pay less? Or how do we

either slow down the rate of pay or overall pay less to the providers. >> Mhm. >> So, so all these new techniques, it's well, basically the the same issues we've experienced in the past, but they've really been magnified to the extent where offices are spending more payroll dollars to get money that's rightfully theirs. And this is why I believe that going out of network is important. You know, when you go out of network, so many offices have that idea that when I go out of network,

I'm going to lose all my patients or um you know, that they have to continue the same in-network protocols. >> Mhm. >> Which is you're you're you're feeding an insurance-driven mentality mentality to the patients, right? >> Sure. >> By giving them their estimates, by telling them how much their insurance is going to cover and all this and that. Those are things the insurance companies should do for them. The thing that really ticks me off about insurance is that when you go to the pharmacy and get

a prescription uh filled and you have insurance, right? >> Yeah. >> The pharmacy techs put in your insurance information, they put in the code for the the medicine, they hit enter, and within seconds it tells you what if it's going to get paid or not. >> Sure. >> Or what the payment to the pharmacy is and what the patient's co-payment is. >> Yeah. >> Why can't that be duplicated for medicine and dental claims? You know what I mean? >> It's because It's because Yeah, it's because

it's a it's a It's a game, right? They They know that they have control over the the the rules of the game, and you know, let's be honest, I would imagine with inflation and everything going up in the economy that that these insurance companies are trying to optimize their own revenue, which is just good business practice, you know, nothing against that. Um but it does affect the other since they own, you know, a multi-sided type business model where they're they're attracting patients and practices together. It's

like a match-up service, right? >> Yeah. >> But they're they're But they're controlling the the the outcome of of revenue for your practice. But it you know, if you think about that, they're they're trying to optimize their revenue. It's like, "Okay, if we deny more claims, we keep more money. We keep more money, investors are happy, shareholders you know, shareholders are happy. Every Everyone's happy on that end except for the dentist, right? The practice owner. >> You know, what the funny thing is, Jordan? >> Yo.

>> Is that a lot of us have 401(k)s and other investment accounts, you know, stocks, bonds, you name it. I wonder how much of our investment money is in Delta Dental. >> Oh, dude, I Well, like with ETFs and everything, yeah, I guarantee it. There's There's There's that out there, you know? I'm sure. >> here's Here we are fighting, and who knows, a lot of us might have investments that are tied to the insurance industry, which is kind of sad. >> Yeah, that's right. >> Without

even knowing it, cuz it may be in a ETF, you know? >> At the end of the day, that's spot-on, you know, the insurance companies have a fiduciary responsibility to Wall Street, right? To make themselves look good. >> They They don't have a Yeah, fiduciary duty to the dental office, the practice owners, the office managers. So, like I I understand those those laws, you know, as a as as a business owner, you know, when I've had co-founders, like my duty was to them. It's not to

my employees or to my customers. It's to them. Obviously, nowadays it's it's different. Um I I have built BoomCloud in a way where now I can focus on only customers and only employees. >> Right. >> Right? Um but the reality is insurance companies aren't that They're not They're not living in that world. They're living in a world where they can they the their duty is their legal duty, fiduciary duty, is to their shareholders and investors. Right? So, that's that's that's one thing that I think is

really important to understand when you're working with insurance that they don't really have your back and they're really not legally obligated to have your back because of the the how, you know, their businesses are structured. Um so, uh just another reason to say, "Okay, they're not a true partner. They're not They're not a true um somebody that can help your business take it to the next level. From my perspective, >> You know. >> Absolutely. >> That's how I look at it. >> I think that's spot

on. Okay, so the last thing on my list, at least for this podcast, we you know, we don't we don't want to take too much of our listeners' time, so we know the shorter podcast versions are what most listeners love. >> Sure. >> Um so, the last on my list and then we'll get into Jordan's list and some solutions that uh that we feel are important for you for well, to help address some of the issues today. So, on the insurance change side of things, we're

seeing an elimination of coverage or benefits or a a complete reduction of benefits. And a good example are you see a lot of these individual plans. Patients that had a plan in 2021 roll over into 2022, now all of a sudden you as a practice are out of network with their plan, right? You're in network with the network, but for that plan in particular, they're paying out of network. And sometimes that out of network can >> exception. >> Yeah. It results It results in patients paying

something for for their trophies, whereas in the past, you know, the quote-unquote free cleanings that patients believe are free. Um Now they're paying something for those trophies, or they're paying a little bit more or a lot more for restorative procedures. And you're naturally seeing a lot of those changes in the dental plan dynamics that uh are designed to force the doctors to take the lowest fee schedule. So there's one company in particular, and I won't name it here because, you know, we we don't want to

put individual insurance companies on fla- on blast. We want to put the entire industry on blast. >> Yes. >> Um but this one particular company insurance plan um they the only way for patients on these individual programs to get their full in-network benefits is if they go to a practice that's on the lowest fee schedule tier. And that lowest fee schedule tier for most most doctors that are on that plan is 30% less than where they're currently at. And so when you add it against their

office fees, if you if you took the low lowest tier fee schedule, it's almost a 60% discount or write-off, right? And so that's what's That's what these insurance companies are doing is they're trying They know that patients will complain to the doctor before the patient will complain to the insurance plan. And so they're reducing the coverage >> Interesting. >> to try to put pressure on the doctors to take the low fee schedule programs. So beware of those plans. My recommendation is if you need to let

those go, let them go. But, you know, membership plans is is a good solution to get those patients off of these uh you know, they go to the healthcare.gov uh the marketplace plans. I think nobody should be buying plans there. They should be purchasing a plan that you have, right? An in-house membership plan, which is >> Yeah, I mean, that's what I do with all my employees. We One of our dentists uses BoomCloud, and all my employees, we pay for a membership subscription, you know, to

for all of our employees and they love it. You know, and I I think to your point, you know, of that that lowest paying PPO plan, which is Did you say 60%? >> 60% off. >> Discount. Yeah, well, then then what happens? Here's Here's kind of like that's one metric, right? What Like I like to look at full funnel revenue metrics cuz I'm a geek. I like revenue metrics. I'm a revenue geek. The when you look at it, it's like, okay, cool. That patient's on that

plan. All right, that's great. What happens when that patient needs some type of financing? A lot of financing companies are making practices take another what they call merchant discount, you know, and that can range from 10 to 15%. So, you add that to the six the 60% discount and when they need financing for, you know, a a crown or whatever, and you're you're looking at what? What is that, Ben? You're looking at >> 70% off. >> Well, yeah, if if it's a if it's a 10%

merchant discount from financing and then you got a 60% discount from PPO, that's like a 70% discount. If they need financing, right? So, in this era in dentistry, I think it's really important to understand your revenue and and really understand how to optimize it because of what insurance is doing and what inflation is doing to your practice. I think it's it is the time to know your revenue and what it looks like and how to optimize your revenue. So, I usually when I look at that,

I look at, you know, obviously cutting out PPO plans like like Ben mentioned, it's it's it's super important in this day and age to be looking at that and to have you have to have a strategy for that. If you don't have a strategy, just like start now. Um because of of how critical things are getting, um running a a dental business, you know, the next thing you want to do or even have before is is making sure you have a membership program so you can

convert those as you cutting out PPOs and plans, you can convert those patients and retain them on your membership plan. >> A lot of people switch. >> Yeah, you know, and we have we now have some integrations into the the the big practice management systems. So we I'm I'm able to see a lot of data and help practices out. Um you know, we're seeing a lot of lot of uninsured patients in practices, a lot of inactive patients because um you know, they've gone uninsured or they

lost some type of, you know, insurance where they like, well, I can't go to the dentist anymore. It's a very common mindset with a patient. There's so much revenue optimization to be doing in in practices today. It's it's kind of fun. >> Yeah. If you think about it, I I get all geeked out about it, right? >> So cut out PPOs, get that membership program running so that you can, you know, make those switchovers. But also, you're in control of a membership plan. You're in control

of how much you discount, you're in control inflation goes up, you can increase your prices in the next month, you know, combat inflation. I call it revenue control meaning you know, when when you got a thousand patients on a membership program, which a lot of our clients at BoomCloud have that amount, it's insane how quickly membership programs are growing in in single location practices and multi-location. >> Yeah. >> Multi-location is interesting. They're they're double the single location in terms of active membership patients. It's really fascinating.

Um so you know that, you know, if DSOs are are trying to do this and they're they're put pushing the gas, you know, in in getting active membership patients signed up, it's it's I would follow that strategy cuz we're seeing that trend um with the DSO space. But I I think, you know, by optimizing it through cutting out PPOs, uh adding a membership program, but and having those Maybe I'm just a control freak Ben, but I like controlling my profit margins. I like controlling my pricing

and a membership program allows you to do that. Inflation goes up, you can tweak it up, you know, uh you can tweak your pricing and it adjust the the pricing across the your active membership patient base, right? Uh we've helped lots of practices do that with inflation. You know, that's been a huge thing that my team has done is you know, practice calls in and they're like, we have a membership program managed, you know, by BoomCloud. Inflation's out of control. We need to make some adjustments.

Sure thing. We we can increase those and it affects everybody on the plan. Obviously, you you got to do some communication to your patients, you know, >> Oh yeah. >> make sure they understand of the change, but um that's a that's a whole different topic. The other thing that I talk about here is, you know, I'm looking here in a lot of practice management systems and the average practice has like $116,000 in delinquent invoices or in unpaid accounts receivable. It's insane. Dude, that's a boat, Ben.

You wanted to buy a boat this year. It's just Yeah. So, that's another thing that we need to think about optimizing and looking at at revenue with inflation going up and and with with PPOs pushing down on on the practices, it's like, well, we got we we have to get our revenue together. You did those That's That's treatment that you've done. You've You've spent your time. You've paid out employees and yet it's sitting on the on the books as unpaid, you know, and and I think

that's a really important thing to automate and to get right. I speak to a lot of practices. Often, they say, we're so spread thin because of insurance. Um we're so spread thin that we often we don't have time to follow up on unpaid invoices and get patients to pay their their bills on time. I'm like, man, that's insane. >> Yeah, the best thing the best thing to do on that, you got to collect them you got to collect them full up front, whatever the >> Oh,

yeah, if you can. If you totally if you can, yeah. And obviously there's situations where, you know, if the patient's getting, you know, you know, extensive work done, it it may not be realistic to get paid up front, maybe a portion up front. So, I think, you know, payment plans, uh whether you're using financing, once again, choose a profitable financing partner and that I mean, I think that can be another episode alone is choosing a profitable uh financing partner uh for patients. Um But I I

I think yeah, exactly what you said, Ben, collecting up front, but when you can't, you know, creating installment plans and you know, we we have uh tools in our software that allow you to automate installment plans or even look into your accounts receivable and and automatically, you know, text them and create a a payment plan. You know, at the very least. >> That's a good point because a lot of the a lot of the the reasons why people don't move forward with treatment, especially um more

extensive treatment, right, higher dollar amounts, is money. Yeah. And when they can't qualify for CareCredit, which is the majority of people out there, >> Yeah. >> um we did this when we ran a group practice is we did in-house financing, right, where >> Installment plans. >> And and we had to have a guaranteed them a credit card, right, where they would pay 20 or 30% down. >> Sure. >> Um and then we would do installments and it worked great. Yeah, cuz the patients also agreed to

pay a financing fee for, you know, to cover the finance charges for for the installments as well. >> Yeah, you can do that and you know, as I said, you know, you can add those like in our in our system at BoomClub, you can they can add the a fee, you know, um for like a finance fee and things like that, but um it I think it's smart to do in this day and age, especially you know, with with you know, the cost of things are

expensive and if you can make it easy make it easy and convenient for for patients to say yes and buy from you, that's you know, you're in a you're in a good spot. >> And on yourself in terms of the collections having it automated. So many times practices have sheets of papers, right? With credit card information on it, which is Yeah, I don't know the laws on that whether you can >> There it's it's not good. Yeah, you don't want to be caught doing that. >>

And they're going in monthly to to charge each card, you know, and you can you can automate that. I have it automated in my system, you know. >> I mean exactly what you Oh, yeah, I did everything's automated with with with BoomCloud on on our customer end, but I'll obviously, you know, with what we help, too. But I mean, that's essentially what motivated me to start BoomCloud, Ben, is I remember having these conversations, you know, in regards to collecting payments and this practice pulling out a

binder of all the credit card information of patients that were on their, you know, membership program. I'm like, oh my goodness. You're you're you're running into some compliance issues here and just efficiency issues, you know, you you can you know, that's that's kind of what started my journey to start BoomCloud is because of so many practices were doing that, you know, or using even Google's like Google Docs or Google Sheets, which is so insecure. You know, from a there's a security risk there even more than

a binder. >> Right. >> You know, people had Gmail and and you know, all that stuff all the time. If you got financial data on there, that you're in some you're going to get some into big issues. But I mean, those are the some of the things that that come to my mind when we talk about optimizing revenue. You know, again looking at the practice data, I see so many unscheduled treatments, too, where you know, the the patient's been diagnosed with something and needs something, but

um they didn't go through with it. So there's a lot of that sitting in practices um practice management softwares. >> Mhm. >> Um you know, so give me a second, Ben. I think there we go. My computer went weird for a sec. Um but, you know, looking at the unscheduled treatment where you're like, okay, well, we this patient needs crowns but they ended up not going through and and and scheduling and getting the treatment. Well, why? Was it because of an insurance issue? Was it because

of of money issue? Most likely it's one of those two. Um or timing issues, but reach back to those patients um and get them back in the schedule, you know, that's these are the best ways to optimize revenue that's existing into your practice. Then obviously continuing finding new patients that may be um out of network or uninsured patients to build up that book of business in your practice. There are so many ways that you can optimize your revenue, especially as you're cutting out PPOs, and those

are some of my tips there, Ben. That's what that's what that's what's on my mind this morning. >> No, that's perfect. That that is excellent. I think the last thing we wanted to talk about is probably a really controversial one, but we're going to talk about it anyway. So, here's our disclaimer. Uh we work with many coaches and consultants. >> Yes. >> majority of them are wonderful, great people philosophy-wise and the way they coach is is excellent. But there's a contingent of people in dentistry that

bow to insurance companies. >> Goodness. Yeah. >> I'm surprised. You know what? Enough is enough. And Jordan got blasted for being What was the phrase, Jordan, that you made a T-shirt for? >> Yeah, I made an internal T-shirt here. I got I got labeled as using inflammatory rhetoric. >> Yeah. >> Against the PPOs. And I believe it I believe one of the consultants was in a PPO meeting or whatever. And they're like, oh yeah, and they my name came up with like an insurance meeting and

they're like, yeah, Jordan Comstock, yeah, whatever he speaks about insurance, it's inflammatory rhetoric. So, I made I made shirts I made shirts that we just ordered here in BoomCloud uh say just that, inflammatory rhetoric. Cuz number one, I thought it was funny as hell. And um uh yeah, I just think it's silly that the a lot of the consultants out there in the industry um are controlled or can be controlled, you know, by insurance companies. >> by them. >> You know, which that that actually Ben,

that I mean, I called I I think I immediately called you and I I would be in shock. >> I know, because I've been through the same thing where I've been thrown under the bus by people that I thought were on my side, right? You know, we're we're on the the dent the side of dentistry, right? >> Yeah. >> And the the the thing that really really ticks me off about this whole mentality that I can't ruffle feathers with insurance companies cuz we worked so hard

to build relationships. So, well, you know what? >> Yeah. >> The United States has worked so hard to build a relationship with Russia. And look where it's at, right? We're not friends. In fact, you know, for for many for for many years, people would argue that political there's a political divide between countries. And they don't like each other, but you know what? They work with each other. They have to. >> They have to. >> There are ways for them to work with each other and not

necessarily have to go out and have a, you know, dine and wine or or or get in bed. You know, when it comes to being diplomatic. >> Yeah. >> You should never be friends with your enemy. You should never hold hands with the side that's trying to hurt you, right? And abuse you. But that doesn't mean that you can't work together. >> Right. >> Sure. >> It doesn't have to be an an adversarial relationship to the extent where you're constantly throwing blows at at each other.

But there has to be a a good understanding, which is where we're at, right? You know, where you're at and where we're at. Yeah, we know these insurance people. We know these companies. We're not friends with them. We never will be unless they conform to the things that will help dentistry and help the patients. Um but when you give in and you make friends with these insurance companies to the extent where you're basically representing them. >> Yeah. >> Not the dental industry. You got to re-

you got to reassess and and and rethink, you know, how you do business and how you coach people simply because inflammato- the the inflammatory rhetoric is this, insurance companies don't give a crap about patients. >> Yeah. >> They don't give a crap about benefits. In fact, they they don't want to pay it, right? >> Ben, several of my employees here at BoomCloud came from insurance companies. You know, I got a I got a couple of them that have come through from insurance companies and um yeah,

that's exactly what they said. Like, they don't care obviously what And these are people that you know, would call and educate patients and and all that um in regards to insurance and their plan that they're on and things like that. And they're like, "Yeah, the insurance companies, they don't they just don't they don't care about uh helping the patients. They just like we I think they just need a have that type of custom- patient support team there because of laws and regulations." >> Yeah, it's it's

all about image, you know. >> I'm very Yeah, I'm very similar it's image but also the I mean there are regulations for insurance companies that they have to have um a a support team to contact if a patient has questions, right? Like there they The crazy thing is that there's a law that says that they have to do that. I think that's just expected in any business that you need to have people to help your customers, right? But there's a actual there's a laws that you

have to have a team that maybe not a team but it depending on the size of the company but I've looked at the the you know, the laws with my my attorneys um but I think it's interesting that the like Ben, you don't have a law that says Ben, you got to have a support team or people to help your customers. Like that's just known and you've you've implemented that, right? Like that's just expected, you know, like but but like you and I don't have like

like software companies don't have laws that say you have to have this because there obviously and clearly was past problems because of insurance companies not having that. That's how I look at it at least. Obviously, I don't know, you know, the the true story of that, but it it it's obvious to me that there there was issues in the past and that's why they implemented those laws. So, it's just silly to me. The whole insurance industry and the no matter whether it's in dental or auto

or medical or wherever insurance exists, it is a funny business model to me and yes, it is a very profitable and uh great model for that, right? For investors and things like that. It's it's interesting in that and I'm sure we can learn some of the good things about it as in the industry, but the reality is it's a silly it's a silly model that uh doesn't really bring much value to practice owners. >> No, it doesn't. It it doesn't and and it just boggles my

mind as to why people on our side of the industry tend to favor insurance more than people like you and me, right? >> Yeah. >> Or >> Yeah, it's it's I like I was uh that that was a rude awakening for me um to hear that um a little few months ago from from a trusted consultant, you know, and and I'm sure there's a lot there's a lot of them. I'm sure you've seen it more than I have, you know, I'm in my own little boom

cloud world over here. >> Yeah, well, hey, you know, we're we're disruptors and that's that's what this industry needs. It it needs a whole lot of disruption to correct things and and get the insurance industry where they need to be. Not necessarily to uh give in and give up and throw in the towel and say, "Well, we have to work with them." Yeah, we have to work with them, but we don't need to be friends with them. >> Yeah. >> Totally. >> You need to fight

them. >> And there's definitely there's definitely a place for, you know, you know, the the insurance and PPOs, but you know, the longer you're in practice, you know, I'd hope that you're optimizing and and you know, getting rid of the the the crappy plans that aren't doing aren't doing you or your patients any favors. So, that's that's kind of what I would say Ben. We do Ben and I have done a lots of courses on this. Like to share one. If you go to boomcloudapps.com, we've

got a resource section. You will see more courses on like how to fire PPOs and things like that. I think that's like what the I think that's what the course is called fire the PPOs. You can go there. You can watch a whole course where Ben you know educates you on on some verbage skills that you need to utilize when you're talking to or or cutting out PPOs but talking to your patients about it. And then we have a whole bunch of other resources there on

this topic of cutting out PPOs and setting up membership plans. So, just head over to boomcloudapps.com. You can you can check those out and then go to veritasdentalresources.com and and schedule some time with Ben to get some awesome consulting in regards to cutting out and even negotiating or optimizing those PPOs. So, that's that's what I have to say Ben. >> No, that's perfect. You know, and I'll I'll close on this because I get passionate about this whole battle with insurance and yeah, baby. I don't want

you to go out and physically punch somebody. You know, when I use fight it's more of a it's it's more of a a strategy, right? And and my version of fighting with the insurance industry has led to this. You're dealing with people on the other side and then they come and work for people like Jordan or they come and work for for people like me. >> Uh-huh. >> Cuz we have people that even from the largest dental insurance plans in the United States that often text

or call us or email us from their private email addresses and say, "We love the way that you work and how diplomatic you are and kind." >> Sure. >> You can be kind in a battle. And you You you fight fire with fire whenever fire is necessary. But the type of fight I'm I'm talking about is strategic. >> Yeah. >> Not physical, so don't do that. >> Yeah, yeah, we're not encouraging that. No, no. >> Yeah. But But yeah, so so check out the resources Jordan

mentioned, and then we'll be back. Every Friday we're going to be cutting an episode and uh having some new guests on and >> Yeah. >> you know, we're going to we're going to shake up this industry like many of our other colleagues have, like Gary Takacs and Genevieve Poppie and a bunch of others. You know, we're we're we're putting our hat in the ring to to disrupt the industry for for the for the Well, to make it a better for everybody. >> Yeah, absolutely. I mean,

primarily practice owners and patients and and people that are in, you know, team members of the practice. So, No, this has been fun, Ben. I'm so pumped that we're doing this again. Um so, uh welcome welcome back. >> Welcome back, everybody. Everybody have a great week. We will check back with you again next week. In the meantime, we wish you the best of success. >> Rock on.