Part 4 and conclusion:"The Discount Plan; the final solution”

Well the ultimate way for insurance companies to insure predictable profits and is to eliminate paying out anything. Well this was finally figured out, but not by insurance companies initially.

            The year was 1993, a very astute businessman saw an opportunity to start a business with very little risk, minimal investment and potential lucrative profits. The idea was this; sell a dental insurance plan to people that would give them reduced fees. Dentists would be recruited who, in exchange for patients, would agree to reduce their fees to the amounts created by the discount dental plan (let’s call it DDP for now).  DDP would then sell their plan while providing a list of the dentist who agreed to accept these fees. That is it. Simple. Brilliant. DDP would collect money for the sale of their “insurance plans” and it was nothing more than a list of dentists and a fee schedule.

            To increase profits, a low-cost way of selling plans was devised. Following the pathway of great companies such as Avon, Mary Kay etc… they employed the business model of Direct Sales. In this case, people who purchased the dental plan would then get a kick back for every plan they would sell. This is a cost cutting way to increase sales while spending very little in the way of advertising or employing actual sales people. Unfortunately for DDP, this backfired, as the pyramid direct sales route ended up with a patient purchasing the plan and then selling the plan to other patients at their dentist’s office. The dentist realized that by participating in these plans, they were not getting new patients but rather having their patient base converted to DDP patients and thus the lowered fees were not being offset by increased patient volume. For the moment, the discount dental plan was rarely seen.

            Years later with increasing health care costs and an economy reeling from various causes the discount dental plans rose from the ashes. This time it was organized into a legitimate style of business with resources to advertise their plans to the underserved population and in turn, the DDPs flourished. With more dentists competing for patients in the poor economy they signed up in droves. At first, the “real” insurance companies objected as they felt threatened by these companies. In fact, the DDPs were made to drop any reference to “dental insurance” and only advertise as “discounted dental plans”.

            After some time the insurance took on the philosophy: “If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em”. They realized that this model made the most sense from a profitability stand point and as of this writing most dental insurance companies now offer some form of a discount dental plan.   

Conclusion

            There have definitely been some ups and downs between the dental profession and dental insurance. However, a significant consideration is that people who have dental insurance tend to see their dentists more regularly.

            The preventative aspects of dentistry are well documented and if we can help patients when issues are detected and treated early this will improve oral health and keep costs down.

            So many times I am saddened when patients delay coming into the office and then return with large expensive problems only to hear them say I didn’t come in because I don’t have insurance. Of course I am aware of the ever increasing costs of health care, dentistry being no exception, but how dentistry and medical fees skyrocketed over the last few decades is for another time. But    fillings (which aren’t cheap) are nowhere near the costs for root canals, crowns or implants if the tooth can’t be saved.

            I went into dentistry to help people have healthy and beautiful teeth. Believe me, I would much rather focus on cosmetics and comprehensive care for patients who weren’t fortunate enough to have genetically beautiful teeth or patients who had trauma resulting in tooth loss or injury. Being a vulture preying on patients who need expensive care because they couldn’t afford routine or preventive care is not what motivates me. So, any improvement in our system that allows doctors to focus on unavoidable conditions or treatments that improves the quality of people’s lives is what we, as doctors, strive towards.

As a society, we have tended to look toward progress in the form of technology to cure all that ails, and it easy to see why. Advancements such as Penicillin, computers, vaccines, etc…. have touched and improved all our lives as a matter of fact. However, future solutions especially in the healthcare field must dealt with by using our intellect, common sense, and morality to navigate us through the world of technology, economics, and modern lifestyles that we are faced with now.