How to Scale a Membership Program to 365 Members in Just One Year

What's up everybody? Welcome to another exciting episode of the Automatic Patient Podcast. I am your co-host today, Jordan Comstock. Dan is not with me today. He is practicing dentistry. I'm hanging out with friends in the dental industry and I wanted to bring a special guest on our show today. Her name is Gina Keener. Gina, welcome to the show. >> Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here. >> Yes. Gina is an office manager for a practice the name of is Pioneer

Valley Dental Arts and I wanted to bring her on the show today cuz she's they they've launched a patient membership program and she's grown it very quickly in a short amount of time. So I'm like, Gina, I got to know what you're doing and I got to get your tips out to the people that listen to our podcast and anyone that uses BoomCloud. So she's kind enough to come hang out with me today and and discuss strategies that have worked for her office. So Gina, again,

welcome to the show. >> Thank you. I look forward to sharing our tips. >> Yes, it's going to be awesome. So Gina, for our audience, tell people how you got into dentistry. How did you get into the current role you're in today? Let's learn a little bit about you. >> Sure. I was always interested in the dental field. I don't know if it was particularly dental or health care in general, particularly preventive health care, but I did find myself in hygiene shortly after graduating high school.

>> Mhm. >> I was hired straight out of hygiene school to the practice that I'm at now, Pioneer Valley Dental Arts, as a hygienist. Um that was in 2011. A few years in, I wanted a little bit more for myself. I was more drawn to the business side of dentistry. I didn't know if it was marketing, management, research. I'm very lucky that the practice owners that mentored me when I first was hired, they really wanted to see and they were very supportive of my growth. I

went back to school. I changed my master's degree in 2018. >> Yes. I dabbled in little areas, side projects while still maintaining my career here um in education, research, marketing, all of it. Just to experience where my true strengths were and it it resulted in staying where I am and just transitioning and being promoted from hygiene to practice manager with the support of the practice owners. So, I've been in this role for about 2 years now. And I love it. It's a it's a great challenge.

I can stick to my roots of hygiene, but still utilize my management and uh business skills that I developed over the years and it's it's a really nice compliment for me. >> I love it. Uh so, I have a similar story as you. I I didn't go to hygiene school, but I my dad owns a dental lab. Well, my grandpa, he owned it first and then it passed down to my dad and I ran the dental lab for about 8 years and I was very similar

to you. I The first thing I learned how to do with wax a gold crown, right? And I thought that was really cool. A lot of cool things that I still use today from the dental lab of my career. But, I same thing. I'm like, I love the business side of dentistry and I converted over that and I experimented with marketing and I went to school and I My dad's like, "I don't want to spend money on a on a website because it's too expensive." and

I'm like, "Well, we need a website." And then that's how I got into tech is because I said I volunteered and said, "Hey, I'm willing to go learn and figure out how to build a website." And that's what got me into dental tech, right? So, very similar in dentistry for a long time on the clinical side and and had a passion towards the business side of of dental. So, that's really cool. I love it. >> Yes. >> So, you've been 2 years in the office manager

seat over there at Pioneer Valley Dental Arts. And how's that been going for you? You're still learning, I bet. >> I learn something new every day. I don't think that this is a skill that you, you know, you don't hit the maximum level of knowledge and experience ever because every day is different, every experience is different. I'm learning from the patients, I'm learning from my team, I'm learning from my practice owners. Every day is a new experience and that was what I think with hygiene, you

you learn everything you need to know and every day feels very similar. >> Sure. >> this role, I just feel like I'm always on my toes and I'm always ready ready to learn, ready to work. >> Yeah, I think as long as you as long as you keep that mindset in in general, you anyone can be successful with a a learning mindset. I've been a CEO for 8 years now and I am still learning and still being challenged every day. It's wild. So, I I think

Do you have any favorite like business books that you've read? I don't know if you're a big reader or audibles. >> [laughter] >> You know, I'm just staying as current as I can with the field itself because it's constantly changing. >> Yeah. >> that's that's been my focus right now. >> Sure. No, that's great. I think one of my favorite business books on this topic before we get into all the nitty-gritty questions here that I'm going to ask you. I love the book Traction. Um it

is a management book on how to manage people whether you're in a dental office or a software company or or whatever. And uh they have a concept called EOS, which stands for Entrepreneurial Operating System, and it teaches you how to operate a a like a practice, for example, off of scorecards and how to manage people. It's probably one of my favorite management books uh in regards to just managing business, dentistry, software, whatever. It's a good foundation. So, >> like a very interesting book. >> Yeah, Traction

by Gino Wickman. There's a lot of like dental consultant dental business consultants that will teach their their concepts. It's one of my favorite um it's one of my favorite books. And that that's a For those listening, that book helps um helps you get your team aligned with your vision and what you're trying to achieve and with within your practice. So, in this case, in today's episode, we're going to talk about how Gina achieved uh great growth with a with her membership program, and um the the

book Traction will talk about. How do you get all the people aligned together, which you probably naturally did, but it gives you some methodology behind uh the madness, right? So, favorite book, Traction. So, all right, let's get started, Gina. Let's Let's get Let's put you on the hot seat. >> Okay, I'm ready. >> All right. So, Gina grew their membership program in a year uh from scratch uh from zero membership patients to uh 365 active patients and growing. You guys are you There's some trends it

sounds like you're signing up 30 patients roughly a month. So, um the data we're going to be talking about today is going to be different, you know, 2-3 months moving forward because Gina's a rock star and she knows what she's doing. So, Gina, let's talk about that. So, you've you're a year in with your membership program, 365 active patient membership patients paying roughly $399 for a yearly subscription or $39.99 for a monthly subscription. >> Right. >> You know, which is a healthy recurring revenue amount for

the the practice, um but that's just the beginning of the story, right? There's a lot more benefit both on the patient side and the practice uh ownership side side of scaling a membership program. So, first question for you, Gina, how did you do it? How did you grow your mem- the membership program to 365 in 1 year? >> When I transitioned from dental hygiene to practice management, that was my priority. That was the first conversation I had with my practice owners that I wanted to build

a membership program. I wanted to improve our patients' internal access to the optimal care that we're recommending to them, and I knew a membership program would be the most successful way to improve our diagnostic acceptance rates. >> Sure. >> So, how I did it, I think one of one of the reasons why I feel like we've been consistently growing and consistently successful with it is that my goal with developing our membership was to educate and empower our clinical team, and not just our admin team when

it came to promoting our membership. Typically, everything financial or any anything insurance-related, our clinical team will defer those conversations to our admin team. >> Got you. >> Our admin team is wonderful. They're very educated. They're very much in tune with our patients' needs as well as the industry itself. However, one of the most strongest bonds that you will find in the dental practice, which makes a dental practice successful, is that bond between the patient and their provider, whether that be their dental hygienist or their dentist.

They trust those recommendations. They look forward to seeing and hearing from their provider, and I knew that that was really the golden ticket for this to take off. Um >> Oh, yeah. >> I wanted our hygiene team and our doctors and our assistants to nurture the conversation and the discussions of the membership the same way they would with any other recommendation that they would clinically. I think psychologically when the provider that a patient trusts is one able to personalize why this membership is suited for this

particular patient and two can simplify the entire animal of the finances and the quote coverage, it truly makes the decision an easy one for them to make. And they're often saying yes before they're even leaving the chair. So >> So empowering the clinicians, the clinical side of dentistry. Yeah, I've seen this a lot with successful practices where they have they've empowered not only not only the front office team, right? Who the admin team but they really get their hygienists, assistants, and the doctors aligned to the

concept of the benefits of a membership program for the patient and the patients listen, right? I This is This is how This is how boring I get sometimes. One day, I literally went and sat in an office dental office for like 3 hours just observing how they were growing their membership program cuz this is how geeky I get, Gina. Right? I literally sat I literally sat and that is one That is one key element that I observed is that their their doctors and their clinical staff

were educating and talking about it as well as the the admin staff, right? The admin team. I like the word team better than staff. Um staff is an affection, team is who we hire to get things done, right? >> Exactly. We say that same thing. We [laughter] say the same thing here. Staff is an affection. >> Yeah, team. I like team. I call my team team. I never call them staff. So let's just get that out of the way. No, that is that is really interesting

that it often I I see practices abdicate, not delegate, but abdicate abdicate abdicate to the admin team. And to your point to your point, yes, they have some influence in regards to PPO plans, most likely, right? But your your clinical team has way more influence both on the clinical side and on the financial decision-making side. I think that's a wise observation that you made. And when you first started your role, I love that that was your mindset. Um it's so rare to hear that in dentistry

today, where most people will try to to abdicate the roles and responsibilities to the admin team and the clinical team the clinical team admin team admin team we don't cross paths. >> [laughter] >> Correct. >> I love that you mixed that. That is very smart, obviously, right? We've got the data that's saying Gina's smart. >> That That really is my I think being in my role and having a strong clinical background, my entire day is just trying to marry the two departments. It's so often that

we're split front and back and we the more cohesiveness we have between the front and back and and knowing you know, not just cross-training with tasks and duties, but cross-training of information. It's so important that the patient is one getting continuity when they're having conversations with team members. >> Yeah. >> But two that we're we're empowering our patients all the same way and that we can we can speak not just on our clinical side, but our financial options that that we're recommending. And you know, I

I like to try to empower our front team on a lot of our clinical philosophies that we have as well. It's just as important. But I think in in this case, I I just heavily weigh that conversation with my clinical team members when it comes to the membership. And if a conversation of finance comes up, they are ready to they're ready to have that conversation. Right off the bat. They know they've got that brochure ready to go. And when we audit, yeah. Right. It's just it's

part of their routine now. They when they audit, they're even looking what patients are self-pay, what patients um may may be this might be a conversation before I even ask about her medical history. Here, go over this brochure. I can answer any questions you have. It's It's part of what we're providing for every patient that walks in the door now. It's It's very important to us. >> I love that. And you guys are It sound like you guys are looking at the schedule and seeing um

what type of patient is coming in, meaning PPO patient, uninsured patient, or or whatever it may be. You're looking at that and like, "Hey, we can discuss the the program with this patient." Are you discussing it with like existing insured patients? >> Absolutely. >> And educating them? Yeah. That is That is a trend I've seen for a long time that that practices they don't isolate the cohorts of of patients. They simply just educate everyone who's coming in their door and cuz you never know when a

patient is so sick and tired of their insurance plan, right? And they just want to go they just want to work direct. Like that's a simple relationship. Just work direct with with practices. Sorry, I think I cut you off. >> No, that's I just another point of that is I'm currently, you know, I've been mentoring the hygienist that took my place. She's seeing all the patients that I used to treat. She's sitting in the chair that I used to sit in. And often times she'll come

to me and say, "Oh, this patient has been refusing X-rays for the past two visits. What should I do?" I say, "Give them the brochure." We know that one of the giant barriers of accepting any care is is the finances. Give them that brochure. show them the value, and she'll come in the room in my office and say, "Guess what? We signed up, no problem. They consented to everything that we needed." It's It's just It's breaking down so many financial barriers that And not even just

financial barriers, sometimes we're not sure what the barrier is. The patient comes in declining, and then when they see this this membership, this service that we have, it allows them to one, trust us, and and to invest in the health that we want to provide for them. >> Yes. No, I love that. Do you guys What What What is said on your your guys' brochure? Is it just Is it pretty basic? Just shows the the details of the plan and and says, "These are great benefits."

>> I wanted this as simple as possible, and our brochure is just that. We do have the QR code that they can scan to give um that leads right to the landing page that was created by the brochure. >> sign up. >> Correct. They can sign up um by themselves on their phones. Um but we have a lot of elderly patients that we do have on Yes, and we're happy to help them. >> Sure. >> bring them into our consult room and sign them up. >>

So Okay, so you guys have a uh a consult room where you talk financial matters or help with financial >> uh Correct. >> processes. Yeah, that's great. I love hearing that, too. That's fantastic, Gina. All right, here's my next question here. I I want to know um you're talking to patients every day, and your team is. I want to know like what do What do patients think when they become a member of of your guys' program? Like what are their thoughts and feelings and all that

good stuff? >> We just hit 1 year right after Thanksgiving. And for the full month of November, I wanted to reach out to every single patient whose membership was just about to expire. Just wanted to give them a courtesy call, remind them this is an automatic renewal, just wanted you to be prepared because $399 is is quite an expense if you're not expecting it and with a lot of these automatic renewals, I just wanted to make sure the transparency was there that they were >> Great

customer service on your part, yes. >> Yep, I also wanted to just make sure our payment information was correct. >> Sure. So you didn't have any problems? >> third Yeah, my third reason for calling was I wanted feedback. I wanted to know how this was serving them, how they felt. Did they feel like it was a value? Was there anything that we could change, um, amend, add? >> Sure. >> thought it was financially I I I just and I'm I feel very comfortable with many of

the patients that walk in, so I felt comfortable having these conversations. Um, but I do have one of the team >> Almost like you built trust with them in another role. >> Exactly. [laughter] That's the magic of it. I do have another team member who's been helping me with these calls and we found that every single person so far that we have called has given us an overwhelming positive response and not only positive feedback but also sharing gratitude for us for developing this program that they

find to be just such a wonderful opportunity for them and not realizing how much easier it is for us when our patients are on the membership. We don't even go there with them, but for their perspective >> feel it, the feel the experience being on an insured patients versus a membership patient. I would guarantee you they feel the different experience. Less confusion, less red tape uh, with members versus PPO plans, right? And clarity for the patient, like budget-friendly clarity. We'll say that. >> Right, exactly and

I I just I was overwhelmed with the amount of gratitude they were sharing with me. Please don't ever take this away from us. This has just been such a wonderful easy thing for us. It was a no-brainer. We didn't know what the catch was and here we are a year in and it's it's just been wonderful. Um >> Yeah, and and that's when you say, yeah, well, there's no catch cuz we're not an insurance company. >> Exactly. I said, the catch is that we're not chasing

after your insurance provider. That's the catch. >> Yeah, it has nothing to do with you. >> Right. [laughter] >> No, that's great. That's great. >> So far our feedback we are we will be reaching out to every single patient individually. Like 365, that's essentially a call a day. It's it's not that difficult to do, but I feel like for us with it being a new program and it really is unique to our demographic, our area. It's it was important for me to just have that conversation

with them to see, you know, you're a year into this program, how is it serving you? And I'm just really I'm very happy with it. I'm very happy with the response we're getting and it's just motivating me to build it even more. >> I can see um why uh patients like working with you guys cuz it sounds like you really care about the patient experience. >> We care >> Which is really really important. >> [laughter] >> Yes. >> I remember years ago, Gina, I had a

practice call into our office here at BoomCloud and he's like, "I need to talk to somebody here. I'm not growing my membership program." I'm like, "Whoa, hold on. Let's let's chill out here." And um he was all grumpy, right? Cuz he wasn't growing his membership program. And one of my team members came came to me and I'm like, "Hey, what's going on with Dr. So-and-so?" I I you know, I heard uh one of our team members talking on the phone with him and he seemed, you

know, upset. I'm like, "Yeah, he just hasn't been able to grow his membership program." I'm like, "Pull up his uh pull up his reviews and see what type of patient experience he's giving to his patients and then we can determine why he's not growing his membership program, right?" Sure enough, we pulled up those reviews, so many poor reviews from patients. And "Patients don't trust you because you're treating them poorly. And when you do that to people, they don't buy more from you. >> [laughter] >> Right,

exactly. >> So, um I will add this based off of what I'm hearing you say is if you do not have a process for patient experience, one, figure out how to delight patients and get feedback like what Gina's doing so she can understand how to better improve, right? Cuz the beautiful thing about offering a membership program or anything new is that you can continue improving it and caring about the voice we have a saying here at BoomCloud, I care most about the we call VOC, voice

of customer, right? And you guys's uh in the dental industry, it's voice of patient, right? What does the voice of the patient say? What do they need? How can we How can we listen to that voice and improve upon what we hear that voice say, right? So, voice of patient. Listen to the voices of your patients. If you don't have a great patient experience and those pa- a patient experience it sounds like loose and gray, but it's a process. You can process a patient experience. I

remember walking in to a practice and every time I walked in they had a warm plate of cookies. I'm like, oh, a cookie, right? I would get it was great experience, right? Um but like clockwork, they had things like that throughout every station in the practice and I loved going to that office because I knew exactly what I was going to get every time and I was greeted with happy, friendly faces that were asking about how I was doing and it felt very uh it it

felt like a genuine experience, right? >> Mhm. >> So, there's ways to optimize your patient experience. We won't get into that details on on this episode, but I can tell right away, Gina, that you guys care about patient experience and that's one of the reasons why you've grown your membership program in addition to having your clinical team be a a driver of the membership program growth. >> Well, I would argue too that part of optimizing patient experience is having the membership. >> that Yes, yeah, they

goes hand in hand. >> think it it's [laughter] helped. Be- because it's almost like I mentioned bringing our clinical and our front team together on on a shared a shared philosophy that we want to share with all our patients, but two, it's giving our patients that value. It's it's inc- it's improving how we promote the value of our of our services. >> Yeah. I really think >> BoomCloud and the membership has really improved that in our past year. >> That's so awesome. I love hearing that.

>> I um whenever I talk about BoomCloud or membership programs, I always say that a a patient membership program is two things. It is a marketing strategy and a patient experience strategy first, and then afterwards, it is a case acceptance strategy, right? A revenue strategy. >> Correct. >> But that is a byproduct. Anything involving revenue I and I talk revenue and business metrics all the time. The truth is revenue is a byproduct on the value you give to others. If you're not giving enough value, it's

you're not going to get that byproduct. Right? So, if you're trying to increase revenue or do whatever, grow your practice faster, first and foremost, think of how how much value you can give to those you're serving, your your patients, and then the the byproduct of revenue or growth happens. So, that's typically how it works. Um so, on this topic, are you guys seeing membership patients say yes more to treatment? >> I feel that that is correct. I just don't have the actual quantitative data on that.

>> Sure, yeah. >> But just based off of my experience of listening to conversations that I'm hearing up front, I think one of those reasons is we're um eliminating presenting the patient with two potential bills. If they're coming in for their a recall appointment or an emergency exam, that's all covered. So, psychologically >> Beautiful. >> They're they're getting free services, right? And then when we're going in with the treatment plan to review the treatment plan, it's not it it it it's eliminating coming at them with

two different bills that they they need to handle in one day. So, psychologically right off the bat, I think we're giving ourselves an advantage by providing these services that are complimentary with being part of our membership. So, >> Yes, you get included benefits for this simple budget-friendly price. >> Yes. Second, I do think we utilize buzzwords when presenting treatment plans like, "Oh, you're part of our membership. There's no maximum here. So, we do offer >> don't know what it is. Yeah. >> Well, they do if

they came from a PPO plan where they maxed out at a thousand dollars and their plan's fifteen hundred. Yes. So, we do try to um utilize our verbage to show why the membership is a little bit more financially advantageous than being on a PPO plan. Well, then that bill there's no maximum. No, we don't need to do a pre-estimate. We don't All of the barriers that or all the hoops that we have to jump through with PPOs, we remind the patients like, "No, we are in

total control of this plan. We >> So, I think right off the bat, the conversation is easier, it's more simplified, and it allows the patient to just focus on that diagnostic uh recommendations that the doctor had or the hygienist had recommended. So, right off the bat, yes, I do think without the data to back it up, I know I am seeing a much more smooth conversation, a much more um assuring conversation when our admin team is reviewing treatment plans or just overall the bills with the

patients or their or their balances. >> Yeah. Yeah, I look at this data all the time and in several episodes ago, me and Dr. Dan Nelson, uh we did a kind of a deep dive into his uh practice or their metrics. Here Here's the data side that we found. We found that membership pay Well, we'll start with PPOs. PPO patients, um because that's that's why people are listening to this podcast. They want to figure out how to reduce dependence on PPOs, which is a great strategy.

Um uh PPO patients typically say yes to treatment about 30-ish% of the time, right? And with that 30% of yeses comes a lot of administrative work to take to manage that that income or that revenue to the practice, right? You know this, Gina. You've had to deal with uh or seen a lot of over your career in dentistry, you've seen a lot of PPO admin work. It's not fun. >> Oh, yes. >> My mom was an office manager, still is, and she she worked from home

when I was a kid, and I heard every single conversation she had with insurance company. And I'm like, man, that doesn't seem like a fun job. >> [laughter] >> So, I feel for you. I feel for all you all you insurance coordinators out there dealing with all the the the red tape and and uh well, now AI. They're using AI to deny claims, uh which is a super fun to combat against AI. Sarcastic Say that sarcastically. >> Very fun. >> Yeah, it's so fun. Uh we

did an episode on that uh a couple Well, I don't think it's launched yet. Maybe it has. I forget what's launched, what's not launched on this podcast, but we just did a episode on AI denials and how to combat them because it is becoming a thing that we need to think about in in the dental space. So, let me get back on track. >> our we have to put our insurance coordinator in a corner because she's constantly getting heated on the phone with the insurance companies.

>> Jeez, yeah, yeah, goodness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, put her in the corner, let her get let her get angry. >> [laughter] >> Um, it uh PPO patients say yes 30 per- 30%ish times uh to treatment plus the admin costs, right? We have to add that in cuz a lot of the times we forget about those those that those costs. And then you have the invisible write-offs, right? That a lot of practices aren't keeping track of how much they're writing off. Some do, some don't. Just depends

on how you're managing in the practice management system. But, uh you've got those invisible write-offs. So, it's like holy smokes, the average practice writes off $37,000 a month in PPO write-offs. If you do the the math, Gina, that's like $18 million in a career of in dentistry. Like a dental practice >> We're higher than that. We're higher than that. >> Yeah, yeah. So, you're Yeah, it's insane. So, yeah, that number that I shared is just the average. There's definitely some above and some below that average,

right? >> And depending on your state and >> depending on your state and the the type of patients you're attracting um to your practice, which that's a whole 'nother episode I can spend time on how do you attract quality patients to your practice. Uh membership program is key. I'll just that's a hint. Uh a little teaser for the next episode. >> [laughter] >> Um but so, PPO patients say yes 30% of the time uh when they when they're presented treatment. >> Cool, great. They're on a

plan. >> Right, those plans do help with treatment. Um but it is interesting to me that insurance companies have been around a long time and it's almost like they designed them to not accept as much treatment for practices cuz they don't want to pay out all the claims, right? It's almost like they figured that out. Um right? Maybe that's why they have limitations and maximums and all that stuff. It's like to to get into the patient's psyche and figure out how to tell them to say

no to treatment. >> Right. >> Um the the second cohort of patients that we looked at are cash patients and I talked to dentists all the time Gina and they're like we love our cash patients they're amazing amazing patients. I have been a cash patient for a period of time not anymore. I'm a membership patient now. So Dr. So Dr. Anderson at Essential Dental Dr. Anderson what's up? Uh uh >> [laughter] >> Congratulations that's amazing. >> Yep. Um and a cash patient say yes actually 20

20 to 24% of the time right? Where most uh practice owners or dentists will say well why should why should I discount my cash patients when they're when I'm collecting 100% of my fee? Well the truth is you're collecting 100% of the 24% of patients that are saying yes. So um that's why. >> [laughter] >> So cash patients are great but they're they're they're less likely to say uh yes to treatment um and then we looked at membership the membership patient cohort for Dr. Dan Nelson's

office Wood River Dental. And those patients were saying yes 40% of the time plus the recurring revenue from membership subscriptions. And then uh we dug in the data a little bit further and saw that their membership patients were spending $2,150 in that first year of membership. Whereas PPO patients were paying about spending about $500 so that's 4.2 times the difference. Uh I believe that was actually their Delta Dental PPO patients which makes sense. Um so the the PPO patients roughly were were or the membership patients

were spending 4.2 times more than the the Delta PPO patients. Which is really interesting to me as some >> going to say that. >> Right? It's really interesting cuz like okay now we're thinking how do we find more of these patient types right? The membership patients and this is what Dan Dan Dr. Dan calls me all the time and uh I'm always strategizing with him cuz he one he's a he's a really cool dude and and then obviously we speak every week on the podcast. So

Um but we call these patients the ideal patient profile membership patients, right? So, how do we find more ideal patients? And we can do that through marketing. Which Gina, I have a question for you on marketing. What are you guys doing to find and get new new patients? >> We rely solely on word of mouth. >> Okay, perfect. >> We don't >> The best type of marketing. >> Yes, absolutely. We don't invest in third-party marketing of any sorts at this time. We are very busy. We

have three doctors and six hygienists. >> Yeah, you guys are busy. >> We never turn down new patients, but I think our our goal every day is as we spoke earlier just improving and maximizing on the patient experience for our existing patients. >> Yeah. >> Um, we currently when we started the membership back in November of 2023, we had 1,100 self-pay patients and that's my goal. >> So, 1,100 1,100 members? >> Yeah, no, 1,100 self-pay patients. >> Okay, got you. >> in our patient um demographics,

which is Yeah, we have approximately 4,900 patients. >> 4,900 active patients right now and you're trying to get >> Correct. >> 1,100 >> 1,100 were self-pay. >> Okay. >> My goal is to hit that number in memberships. I want us to show the value for all of our self-pay patients. And along the way, convert some PPO patients, which I know is a lot harder to do when patients are receiving their PPO plans with their benefit packages from um their career their their jobs and their um

employers. So, you know, that's definitely something that we focus on, but my my main goal is to market our my membership plan to all of our self-pay patients because I know that the value is there for all of them. >> Let me let me just tell you how impactful that will do for on the business side of growing the practice. Most practices will think they'll spend a lot of money on new patient acquisition, which is important. And you guys It sounds like you have a great

referral engine happening for you guys, which is the best type of marketing. >> [laughter] >> Right? So, what typically happens is a practice will spend a lot of money on marketing, which I do I do recommend having some type of agency, but if you've got three doctors that are stacked and a very healthy patient base that is that you're converting to PPO patients, there's actually some uh magic there is what I'll call it. >> [laughter] >> Um in terms of increasing the average revenue per patient

is actually one of the most impactful things when it comes to growing a practice or any business, you know, including my own business. Um so, when we acquire new patient and spend money to acquire new patient through like a marketing agency, um which is great, we need to understand that those patients are actually not as valuable right from the get-go from a business standpoint, right? As humans, they're they're valuable. >> [laughter] >> But from a from a business perspective, it's like cool, there's a cost associated

to acquiring that patient, and we need to make sure that we get our our our money back for the marketing spend, right? And that can get really complicated really quick if you're not tracking and measuring all the details of of marketing spend and patient acquisition, right? >> Right. >> Your model with what you're actually trying to do is actually the smartest thing to do in dentistry and in any business, right? Is okay, I've got this base here of 4,900 active patients. We know 1,100 of them

are self-pay. We're going to convert the self-pay to membership patients. If you use Dan Dr. Dan Nelson's data from his practice, we can really reverse engineer the value of that that 1,100 uh those 1,100 patients, right? If you got 1,100 patients sign on, which I've seen this a lot uh with practices, we actually have a prac- several practices that are that have million-dollar membership programs or multi-million-dollar membership programs, meaning they've got like 3,000 active membership patients paying 30, 40 dollars a month. And then you times

the the conversion rate math. Now, all this is just math, right? And I was just geeking out with math, right? Um so, if you were to get 1,100, which is your goal, which is totally doable, Gina. Um 1,100 patients times that by the 30 that we'll do a monthly rate of $39 a month. Um that is $42,900 a month. Totally doable totally total totally doable in membership plan land. Um which is for all the practice owners listening uh that's a half a million dollars in annual

recurring revenue, whether you do dentistry or not. Um most of the time though, those patients will say yes more to treatment. We know that they do. So, let's take Dan's math. 1,100 patients times that by 40 patients uh 40% of those patients say yes to treatment times that cohort by the 20 $2,150, that's what Dan saw. Now, of course, you're going to have your own data. Uh that cohort on a membership program is worth $946,000 plus the subscription fees, which was 500,000. Um which is 1.4

million. So, if I were uh doing an analysis on your practice and said, "Okay, let's look at how we really maximize growth and revenue and all this fun stuff." That is the value of that cohort of patient, 1.4 million dollars in in treatment and subscription revenue value. So, that's how geeky I get, Gina. >> I love it. >> Um so, that is the value of your target, your TAM, your total addressable market within your practice, right? These are all geeky words that we're talking about here.

>> That's my goal. Maybe in a year I'll hit that. >> Yes, do you use Do you guys Yes, you will be back and we'll really dig into it. Absolutely. Do you guys um use any patient communication software? >> We do. We use Modento through Dental Intel. >> Modento, cool. They're right down the street from us here. BoomCloud is here in Utah. Modento um is was acquired by Dental Intelligence. Uh plug for you guys. Uh love the Dental Dental Intelligence team. They're fantastic. We do a

lot with them and uh uh go check them out if you don't have Modento or Dental Intelligence. They're great products that actually go really well with with BoomCloud and what we do with with membership um plans. So, Gina, my last question. What are your top What is your top tip to help a practice just getting launched with a membership program to get some traction? >> My top tip would be one, building a team. >> Okay. >> Not a subteam, I should say. A little subcommittee to

get it up and running with it. Two, expect that the practice owners or the main decision-maker will have the time in the day when typically the main decision-maker is the dentist who is busy with their hands in, you know, bird in tooth >> Yeah. >> 40 hours a week. >> Cut margins. >> Yeah, it's unrealistic to think that they can think through everything that needs all the the moving parts of the membership. So, build a subcommittee, a subteam that you trust. >> Yes. >> Have that

include and incorporate both your admin and your clinical team members. >> Yes. >> Have them brainstorm what is going to work best for this program, what will best suit the needs of our patients, and let them take over. Let them build it. It's It's one less thing that the practice owners have to worry about. You know, definitely check in and and be aware of what's happening, but I think having building the trust in building the confidence in your team members who who know the patients, who

know what the barriers are, what you know what the value are. Let let them do the work. And I I think by utilizing BoomCloud, we were just able to personalize and cater our plan exactly to how we wanted it. On top of that, I haven't even had a chance to brush upon this, the customer service, the support that we received from BoomCloud is just it's been so helpful. So I think just having >> Mhm. >> you know, the the team at BoomCloud helped get through all

the obstacles, um work out the kinks with you, help and I I felt during that whole time building the program and then moving forward, I was always in the driver's seat. I just I had somebody just guiding me. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Motivating, encouraging, and guiding me. Yeah, and what's maybe don't do it that way, but if if you want to do it that way, yes, but this is how other offices, other teams is making it work. [laughter] >> So yeah, I'm guessing

you you worked with Lisa, right? From our team. >> Absolutely. Lisa told me when I signed up, I feel like a team member in the other room. If you ever need me, it's like knocking on the door. And she was not lying. Whenever I need her, I text her, I get a phone call within 3 minutes. And if I don't >> she'll call me and be like, I'm so sorry it took me an hour to call you back. I'm like, oh trust me. This is it

it she she's been incredible. I just I think having having a team that you trust internally and then externally through BoomCloud is two of the two of the biggest things. And then also just keeping the communication with the patients, hearing from them throughout the whole process, what's working for them, what's not working. I think, you know, we knew this going in that we can always change. Like let's set that framework and then we can always amend it, we can always build upon that. And here we

are a year in and it's it's working. We thought we would have been amending our plan by now and >> Yeah, and some practice too and and that's okay. You you you can do it. >> we have talks [laughter] actually. My boss is just saying, "Wouldn't it be nice if in our perio program we included four right now we include three recalls." Like we should we should have update and include that fourth recall. I'm like, "Okay, I will I'll get Lisa on the phone and we'll

get going with that." >> I was going to say you you you have a perio membership plan which is awesome. >> We do, yes. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Other creative plans that I've seen out there are Botox plans. A lot of practices are doing Botox. >> [laughter] >> Yes. >> Oh, unlimited subscription plan uh whitening subscription plans. >> Yes, whitening is great. >> That is popular. I've seen a lot of plans that look like that. And then of course uh we help other other practices

that are in dental. So like optometrists, there's vision plans out there. And I just signed up I'm I just signed up there's a doctor down the street his name is Dr. Colin Gray. He's an optometrist. We helped him launch his membership plan and I just signed up to be a member of of his his membership for his for the eye clinic um with my daughters and my wife. And uh it's an amazing it it's just I love being a membership patients in two practices now, Gina.

>> [laughter] >> Yes, it's it's great. It's such a great gift to give to the patients. >> Ah, I love hearing that. >> be in control. Yes, I've I've been so pleased. I can't wait. I got this goal for myself and I'm going to get there. We're going to get there. >> [laughter] >> Yes, I would love to sit after after this recording sit and brainstorm with you on ways you can hit your 1,100 goal number. I would love to be somebody at least that that

I can help strategize with you on that. That is such a great goal and would love to get in the weeds of that with you. It I like geeky stuff. So >> [laughter] >> Gina, this has been an absolute awesome episode and I know it's going to bring a lot of value to our listeners here at BoomCloud and to just people that aren't at BoomCloud. So with that said, thank you so much for all the the great things the great tips that you've mentioned today and

for all of our listeners out there go to boomcloudapps.com. I've got ebooks, webinars, podcasts like this that you can that you can listen to and learn about this strategy as well as just booking a demo and scheduling how boomcloud can change your practice. But with that said, we hope everyone has a rocking day. >> Thank you so much.