Dentist offers 'member' services for upfront fee to help struggling patients
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Dentist Robert Baker is offering an innovative payment plan for patients without dental insurance.
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Even before the national economic tsunami hit two years ago, Moon dentist Robert J. Baker and office manager Marie Lindeman noticed that more of their patients had started paying cash for checkups. Others simply had stopped coming, except when an abscessed tooth became unbearable.
It was no surprise, really. With an office in the heart of U.S. Airways territory, many local residents were employees of the airline who lost both their jobs and their health insurance.
When the 2008 economic slump added even more patients to the list of uninsured, Dr. Baker decided to do something about it.
Beginning in August, Dr. Baker's solo dental practice on Beaver Grade Road has been offering what he calls "memberships" to his dental services.
For a prepaid $200 a year (and $150 for each additional family member), he provides two exams, two teeth cleanings, one set of X-rays and a teeth bleaching kit that includes a $200 teeth whitening appliance. He said those services would otherwise cost more than $500 (or about $300 once a patient has the teeth whitening appliance). He also offers a 20 percent discount for all other procedures.
So far, Dr. Baker says, 50 patients have signed up, and another 175 have expressed interest in doing so next time they're due for an exam.
"We've heard it for years and years, that they don't have insurance," said Dr. Baker. "When someone loses a job, dentistry becomes a luxury unless you're in pain."
The program is the brainchild of Ashland, Ore., dentist Dan Marut and his wife, Samantha, his office manager. About a year ago, they started their own company, Quality Dental Plan, that sets up a customized program for dental practices that offers the uninsured an alternative to standard preventive dental care.
Dr. Baker says the plan is not insurance, but rather a membership "like Sam's Club or Costco."
That, in fact, is the key to the program, said Dr. Marut in a phone interview Monday -- eliminating the third-party insurer from the equation.
"With QDP there is no middleman or third party. Patients deal directly with the doctor. There are no paperwork hassles, waiting for payments, or mountains of follow-up hassles that the office needs to deal with," he said. The labor and paperwork of handling insurance claims and collections cost a practice money, he said, "and if we can eliminate that cost, the patient will save, and the office is not spending man-hours dealing with insurance."
First Published November 30, 2010 12:00 am
