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Maximizing Growth Benefits: Incentives and Strategies from OrthoFi · Hey Docs!

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Welcome to the Haydocks Podcast with your host Jill Allen. Today we have special
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guests Oliver Gellis from Orthophi joining us on the show. In this episode,
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we are highlighting how data driven strategies are reshaping patient financials and practice efficiency,
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from the transition to autopay systems to the strategic application of interest and flexible financing.
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We're unpacking how these changes not only align with current data, but also
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significantly enhance patient satisfaction and practice growth. Let's jump in by now we all
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KL dot com. Oliver, thank you so much for being on Haydocks with
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me today. I have been looking forward to this. We've had the opportunity
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to have Orthopi and Orthobank on a couple different times, so I feel like
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we're saving the best for the last here. Yeah. Thanks for having me,
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Jill. It's great to be able to take time and sure some ideas
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there, some data. Love it. So in the event that somebody is
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listening and they maybe just don't know who you are or you know what you
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do within Orthophi Orthobank, would you kind of give us a little history and
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also tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey in the orthodonic industry.
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Yes, I am currently the chief marketing officer for Ortho FHI, but
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my origin starts over twenty five years ago, combined in the dental industry and
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twenty of that happily in the ortho specialty. I think of it as a
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love affair. This has been the best career I could have possibly dreamed up.
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What I love is that I kind of had two lives in orthodonics.
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I fell in love with orthodonics through the clinical channel, leading up the marketing
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effort for ORMCO and really helping to put passive self ligation and that clinical conversation
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on the map and getting all kinds of really good satisfaction from the things that
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we did there, and building the Damon Forum and really good meetings and education
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help practices in that way. And then towards the end of my career at
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ORMCO, I started to really understand the financials of our practices in a deeper
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way, and I became invested in and I started doing lectures at ORMCO meetings
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regarding how we thought about flexibility and financing and things, and that connected me
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with doctor Reynolds and doctor Kozlowski, who ended up being the co founders of
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ORTHIVI. So that's how I found myself at Orthify. And that's been a
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whole other journey, right ten years of really diving into the financials and data.
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So I've gotten I feel like two of the great halves seen, two
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of the halves of this industry. So you know that kind of leads me
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into what you did not say is that you have also co authored a best
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selling book, Level the Curve, And what I have really appreciated about that
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book and I really want you to dive into is the insight into data that
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you have and that you guys are continuing to gather on the Ortho side that
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I think really set the new tone and track for where patient financials are at
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now and are going in practices. So would you mind just kind of talking
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to us just a little bit about that. Yeah, So, I mean
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the decision to write the book with doctor Reynolds, Jamie, you know,
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my good friend. At first, it was just a realization that we had
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already written a lot of blogs and articles and things that have been published in
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a variety of different media, and you know, it was a little bit
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of the you know, hey, we've written so much. I mean,
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do we think that we can pull this all together into a book. And
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so, you know, at first it was sort of like, let's just
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you know, conglomerate all this. But as I thought about it, you
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know, it really became more of a give back, you know, initiative
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for me to give back to an industry, into a group of customers that
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have enriched my life. So much. So that's what I'm you know,
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happiest about this is that I've had people unsolicited come to me in the hallways
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at a meeting and just say, hey, I read your book and it
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really has helped me. And that's what it was all about for me.
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So to your thing about the data, you know, I think that's the
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edge that we wanted to bring. That there's a lot of great insights and
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education. I mean, Joe, you yourself, I mean, you share
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so many great insights to the industry. I think where I thought that I
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could bring something a little different was you know. Of course, being that
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I was with AUTHORFI, it had access to all this information and data from
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what is now over six hundred practices, and so I have a unique you
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know, advantage and purchase point to be able to help people understand especially since
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you know, we as an industry don't have you know, done in Bradstreet
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reports or market share reports, or we don't have this stuff. And the
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average you know, practitioner and the average practice owner is trying to run a
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two million dollar business with almost no market data. And so I thought that
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I could help shine a light on some things, to clarify some things for
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doctors out there, and I so appreciate that. You know, one of
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the things that I wanted to do was really kind of take a walk down
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memory lane for a minute. Here. You've been in this industry over twenty
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five years. I've been in over a little over thirty two now, and
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you know, as I look back, one of the things that I have
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really appreciated, but I find so interesting is how we are collecting money and
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how flexible financing is making such an impact on the way our practices are growing
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and the way patients are able to accept care. Again, I'm gonna walk
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us way back in time. You know, I got into this, you
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know, again, quite a long time ago, and you know, I
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can remember when the train of thought, especially from a lot of consultants that
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was out there for all the practices was we accept at least a thirty percent
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down at minimum, we make sure that we are taking our pays no longer
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than three months less the shortest amount of time that we're going to be in
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treatment. At that point, we weren't even on auto pays. It was
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like patients come in every four weeks and they get a little cube on booklet
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and they bring their money in and you know, we live by the four
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week marker for kind of our cash flow. And so, you know,
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one of the things that I have just really loved as I have seen this
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evolution and what we're doing. And I really believe that Orthofi really pioneered this
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for our industry but also gave us the data to be able to show what
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flexible financing can do for our practices. And can you just kind of talk
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to that a little bit, the first set of just what we are seeing
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in case acceptance and you know, because you've got the insight into over six
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hundred practices and you're seeing all of this data, kind of what that is
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doing for our industry. Yeah, I mean, you know, you think
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about it just quickly in that evolution. I mean, there's so many things
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that touch somebody dots to connect to that, like the why it has evolved
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this way. I mean, first of all, back to the whole like
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clinical understanding is you know, we used to have them in once a month
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conveniently because not only did we want them to make a payment with the coupon
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book, but their elastics were likely fatigued and we needed to read tighten the
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braces. And so it all worked out right, and then all of a
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sudden, we're using a ligners or we're using passive self ligation where they can
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stretch appointments out and make themselves more efficient by seeing patients every eight to ten
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weeks. Well, if I see everyone eight to ten weeks, but the
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expectation is they're going to pay when they come in, like all of a
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sudden, my cash flows off. So some of these things like were the
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mother of invention of the next thing. Then paired with that consumer behavior people
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falling in love with credit card points and putting everything on their credit cards,
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which is the whole thing, and then now buying behaviors in terms of like
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how people want to pay for things. So natural evolution you layer on top
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up of that the fact that we're treating in a lot less time, and
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the whole mantra of having to get your treatment your time and your payment time
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to match is no longer feasible. At a time when the economy is tighter
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and people need more affordability, you cannot compress a larger, higher fee into
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a shorter time. So that's not a reality that we're able to live.
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So we have to have some level of flexibility. So the innovation I think
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that we were able to bring by looking at data is okay. So we
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got to be more flexible. But there's lots of ways to be flexible.
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Anyone today on this call can go home, they can lower their minimum down
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and they can allow themselves to take more months in payment. You can do
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that today, and you can put that on a static sheet and slide it
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across the table and you will probably see more starts. You will probably see
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a little bit more growth than you would if you didn't do that. But
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everyone on this call knows that if you did that, you would see your
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cash flow the road, You would see a hit to your cash flow,
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and you might see an uptick in the risk. So what we set about
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with Orthofi, by analyzing the data and then trying to build systems and understandings
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and philosophies to help maximize this is how do we maximize the growth potential of
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flexibility while still balancing cash flow and risk. And so what we saw is
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the answer. Most of the answer to this is using what we call open
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choice. So giving patients the ability to choose among a wider set of options
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allows you to get the benefit of having some more flexible options, but also
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allowing patients to pay you more and higher downs that you would never suspect.
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That create a balance of leverage and cash flow, and then also the risk
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mitigation of that comes down. So just by instituting that concept and that philosoph
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then measuring it and seeing the progress, we were able to validate that you
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actually can balance those three key levers. What I love about that is we
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just didn't have the data up until recently. You know, it has to
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take some time to play out, and we all had our gut feelings about
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what that would look like. And again we really went against the grain in
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the beginning, against you know, previous era of how we did financing and
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practices. It was almost like we were penalizing doctors for becoming more efficient,
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but then penalizing the patients for not being able to pay for their efficiency,
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and then in turn they wouldn't get that start. So I really appreciate that
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you guys have really been able to bring that to light. You know,
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that kind of leads me into what I think is almost the next generation of
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Okay, we got it sorted out. We now know that patients want to
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be able to use their credit cards. Patients want to be able to have
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a flexible financing. You know, I always say, ideally, we don't
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want to let finances get in the way of the patient saying yes to treatment,
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just like we don't want to get in the way of the modality of
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treatment that they want to use either. But I think that there's something new
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coming into our future. And we kind of touched on doing interest with payments,
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but for a long long time that was a no no, Oh my
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gosh, we can't do it. We can't manage it. We're going to
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leave that to third party companies to only do that for us. And so,
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you know, I want to peek behind the curtain because I think this
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is the future of giving our patients another choice, another opportunity, and us
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as practitioners and office managers being able to feel safe that we can manage possibly
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allowing patients to go even longer with adding some interest and we aren't just putting
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ourselves out there. Maybe all of our skin is in it. Do you
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mind talking to that a little bit? Yeah, And what I love about
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this is I really have a lot of appreciation for the practices that trusted us
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in the early times before we had all the data to your point that now
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we have you know, ten plus years of data, So this is no
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longer theory. This is now you know, close to fact, you know.
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So I feel pretty confident in the way that I'm talking about this today,
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But it wasn't always that way. Now. The idea again is that
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first of all, just for everyone's sake, we still offer majority of options
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zero interest. So this is not you're either going to be non interest as
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a practice or you're going to be interested as a practice. The idea is
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to create carrot and stick incentives in this open choice model, where if a
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patient needs to go longer that there is a disincentive for them to do that,
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so they will only do it if they need to, meaning there will
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be a little bit of interest, and it will like the further out they
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go, the more interest that they will see. So it's intended to encourage
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to pick a shorter plan. But we see that the patients that need it
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do pick it. It's about ten percent of the patient so it's not a
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dominant portion. It's I'm going to share some data the show that it does
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not negatively affect case acceptance or conversion rate. In fact, it's almost the
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opposite. I'm going to get to that. It's not intuitive, but I'll
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get to that. And the idea is not to layer on a punitive amount
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of interest. It's far less than they would have in their own credit card.
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It's just a guide rail. It really has two purposes. It is
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a a disincentive to get people to only pick it if they need it,
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like I said. But then the second thing is we use the data on
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payment performance to actually calculate the incremental risk of that particular choice, because we
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split that with practices. We calculate how much incremental risk they are taking by
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allowing that patient to choose that, and we are using that little bit of
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interest to offset that incremental risk, so that the net collection rate ends up
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being what you would expect or better, even though you are technically accepting a
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little bit riskier plans. And so that's what we see in our actual collection
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rate is that it is the same or better than when we see in the
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industry, partly because we are offsetting the incremental risks that we're introducing. I
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love that, and again it's like it's just one more tool that now we
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have the data to support to say, you know, hey, if there's
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ten percent out there that accept that, that's ten percent that we could be
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missing because we just weren't able to kind of fit this in. This hasn't
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been the norm, just like you know, taking credit card payments wasn't the
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norm twenty years ago. It's very rare now that we ever get cash into
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practice anymore, or we have somebody actually physically walking in and giving us a
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check anymore. It's almost like now it's like, well, shoot, what
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do we do with this? You know, I don't know what to do
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with this here, That's right. I think what's super interesting about it is,
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yes, we as a fleet can say confident Lee, what this does
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for practices. I think what we commonly do is just to make sure that
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you know that we're walking the talk is we go back and we do analysis
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practices that use if I don't have to use interest, they can override it.
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And we looked at all of our practices and we looked at the ones
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that overrode interest, meaning eliminated interest from their options almost exclusively, right,
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So the top group that overrode the most. And then we looked at and
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compared it with the group that was not overriding at all and letting the system
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ride. And it's the second time we've done this, so we just updated
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it last year. But what's super interesting is that there are some intuitive things
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that we saw and then there's some counterintuitive things that we saw right, and
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so from an intuitive standpoint, you would assume that the collection rate, the
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overall collection rate, would be better if they leveraged interest, which it is
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about, you know, half a percent to a whole percentage point better collections.
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What was super interesting though, is that cash flow was far better for
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the group that was using interest or at least having it as an option.
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And the reason why that is is because again, when a patient has the
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open choice and they're using you know, in our case, the slider,
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and they're looking at options, the actual consumer behavior that is very typical is
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that they will try to avoid interests. They'll find the longest amount of plans
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and months that they can pay without interest, and then they will ask themselves,
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is that low enough? Is that the lowest that I need? Is
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that the monthly that I need? And if it's a little higher than what
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they need, they will sometimes keep going into the interest area. But what
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will often happen is that they will then go back to their down payment and
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they will move the down payment up a little bit to a comfortable level,
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but still to where the monthly comes down. And that is the compelling behavior
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that we see, and that's the positive levere that this open choice model a
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ford. So we actually saw five hundred dollars average same day cash higher in
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the group that was actively using the system as designed. The last part,
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which was the most counterintuitive to most people on this call, is that the
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conversion rate was actually higher for the group that was using interest. That does
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not mean that consumers prefer to pay interest versus not interest. What it means
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is practices intuitively know that if they turn off interest, there is now no
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disincentive for a patient to pick the longest possible plan. So they either shortened
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the plan months available because they want to avoid that, or they control the
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slider where they are not really allowing the patient to openly choose. They are
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suggesting the options which were back to the old way, and it sort of
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like neuters. The magic of the open choice, which is that consumer behavior
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that the millennial wants of having that power to choose. So that was super
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interesting analysis that validated what we're doing. I want to talk a little bit
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because I've got a lot of startup docs on and I know some of them
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are going, whoa, whoa, whoh, Jill, this is not what
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you told us. Like, I know that you talk pretty heavily about we
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have to have some safety nets in place in a startup practice. One of
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the things that I'm always encouraging my startup docs is, even though we need
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flexible financing, which I agree with one hundred percent, there is and a
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thing that Oliver hasn't said that I don't agree with. I do think that
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there are different stages in a practice where we can turn these levers on more
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and where we maybe need to keep some governors on a little bit. And
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probably one of the things that you know I'm always talking to my startup docs
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about is if we are looking at going from zero to maybe our four hundred
19:53
thousand in our first year production goals, we have to be managing our cash
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flow because we have we have no ar we have no existing money coming in.
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We have to be careful that we aren't setting it so we are taking
20:06
no money down and we're taking our payments out over sixty four months or you
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know, something crazy like that, because you do have to get a foundation
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under you. And I'm wondering if you can talk to us a little bit
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about how you guys help especially younger practices, you know, still stay safe
20:25
within some of the things that we're talking about. I mean, the first
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thing I will say is, it's always fantastic to work with somebody like you
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with a practice in tandem right where we can design a program together, right
20:37
where it's not orthified trying to push at philosophy or agenda, and you know,
20:41
like that's the best right if we can triangulate, you know, with
20:45
the practice and build a plan that we're all you know, comfortable with and
20:48
we do that, you know, we do that all the time, and
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we love doing that. That's the first thing I'll say is that's you know,
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that's really helpful in general. I mean, philosophically, everything I said
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earlier about open choice delivering balance is true. The reason why I think what
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you say is accurate about a startup practice is the more time you let it
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go, the more healthy the cash flow is going to be. Because you're
21:14
going to have all these different dots on the plot chart map that are going
21:17
to blend to something you know, great. So once they get to a
21:19
certain size where they're doing fifteen starts a month, twenty starts a month plus,
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there are enough dots that even if they have somebody pick a low down,
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they're going to have somebody pick a high down and it's going to balance
21:33
out enough to where on a month to month basis we see very little variability
21:37
in same day cash I think where a startup is unique. Where I think
21:41
you have the right idea is that in a startup, you know when they're
21:45
doing maybe three to four starts a month, and you know, as they
21:49
get going, everyone choice is much more weighted. So if they if two
21:56
out of the three picked a very low down, that is a very big
22:00
variants in cash flow versus like they're going to have a good month where they
22:03
luck out and they have three painfuls. But that kind of inconsistent variability is
22:10
hard for a startup practice to weather. So there are things that we can
22:14
do with the configuration. We can set up more conservative you know, minimum
22:18
downs and things to start out with. What we love to do is have
22:22
a goal where once we get up to a certain volume, we change the
22:26
configuration so we're all working towards the same goal. Because it is a little
22:30
bit of a disadvantage, right if you're neutering the growth benefit. We want
22:36
to try to minimize the amount of time you live in the gully of minimizing
22:38
the growth benefits. So if we're all on the same plan, that's great,
22:41
But there are other things we can do. We can slightly change the
22:45
incentive for painfull, we can make that a little bit more. We can
22:51
sometimes we typically add incentives for fifty seventy five percent and painfull at differing discount
22:56
levels. For some startup practices, we sometime recommend or encourage adding a twenty
23:03
five percent alternative right where it's a little bit less percent discount but even more
23:07
care and stick. So there are things that we can do to gently nudge
23:11
the consumer and also protect the floor. Always in that plan of how do
23:17
we get to where we want to get to where we have growth, and
23:21
it is a little bit of a leap of faith. I mean, there
23:22
are some doctors that they want to trust their ability to grow. We just
23:26
had a doctor this week, you know, go live. He started four
23:30
patients in the first week and he's thrilled. But there's lots of ways that
23:34
we can can work with practices that are starting up. So when it comes
23:40
down to I want you to talk a little bit about the data in what
23:45
you guys are seeing with our start outcomes, and especially because I think this
23:52
has been a big thing, the difference in what we're seeing with adults starts
23:56
versus maybe i'll call them our bread and butter butter starts, you know,
24:00
our kids. It's something I'm talking a lot about because we need to shine
24:03
a light on this mainly because I do believe some of the impact that we're
24:08
seeing in the last you know, eighteen to twenty four months is market related.
24:14
There is certainly an economy or the perception consumer perception of an economy with
24:19
inflation, all this stuff that is creating a different dynamic with adult patients.
24:26
You know, for everyone out there, adult patients are very different consumer They
24:30
need to be treated and courted and persuaded and persuaded very differently. So if
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you have the same playbook for everybody, please go and think through that.
24:40
But they're different mainly because their decision to start treatment was whimsical. They likely
24:47
had the idea a week or two ago. They were inspired to do it.
24:51
It's not like they didn't know they had a malaclusion, but they were
24:53
inspired to actually do something about it a little time ago. So they've not
24:56
been saving, they've not been planning. So the whole idea of like how
25:00
much they have to pay down is very different. And there's even an article
25:04
that just came out at MSNBC just this week saying the average American has less
25:10
than five hundred dollars to put towards an unplanned expense. I would tell you
25:15
that, unlike for kids, this qualifies a lot of times as an unplanned
25:21
expense. So I'm giving you all that to wind back up to what the
25:26
data is actually showing, and that is that you know, last year we
25:30
had starts down if you look at Gauge three and a half percent. If
25:33
you look at Orthify, about one and a half percent, but a little
25:37
down, and we're not used to that as an industry. We've been steady
25:41
at ey three to four percent a year or higher, which is great.
25:45
So it's a little new for us to have to deal with these things.
25:47
But back to your thing. If you look at child starts, they were
25:51
flatter up. If you look at adult exams, which I think is a
25:56
window into actual consumer demand, right, those were down about four percent.
26:00
Similarly, adult fixed appliance starts we're down four percent, so four percent fewer
26:07
calls into the practice to make an appointment, four percent fewer fixed appliants that
26:11
track, So that's okay. The outlying part was that adult aligner starts were
26:17
down by eleven percent, and so in my opinion, there's only one reason
26:22
for that, and that is that the one outlying thing that we do with
26:26
our liner starts is that we require people to pay the lab bill upfront,
26:32
or at least in many many practices. We try to keep our ortho practices
26:37
our practices not to do that. Some of them have adopted that we can't
26:41
be there every time. But it is the fact that we are requiring patients
26:45
to put down thirteen, fifteen or more hundred dollars to get started. After
26:51
what I just told you about the consumer and the affordability, we're practicing some
26:56
amount of self inflicted sales prevention. Now back to what you were saying,
27:00
Jill about like the startup practice, you know, they have less wiggle room
27:07
to be able to dive into what I'm saying philosophically, and so what I'm
27:12
super happy about is not only do I feel good that we have a system
27:17
that can help counter some of that stuff, but we're also trying to partner
27:22
with companies in this case and visline, and so we're really excited about a
27:26
program that is not quite launched yet, but I want everyone to look out
27:30
for it, and that is what's called FPT ten so four ORTHI five practices.
27:37
Exclusively, our customers are going to be able to if they want to
27:41
be able to split their lab bill across ten months starting thirty days after they
27:48
accept the case. So if you go back to a startup practice that is
27:52
likely, you know, working on sixty day net terms. You know,
27:56
in sixty days after they go they're going to have to pay the whole lab
28:00
built. Well, naturally, that's going to affect how they present fees and
28:03
how they present minimum downs. But once you have this program, there really
28:08
is no reason to do that anymore. And all of a sudden, now
28:11
the advantage comes right back into your court and you can play offense again.
28:18
And so that's the best way that we can counter this because there's no question
28:23
that that's seven percent delta of demand and actual conversion rate. It accounted for
28:33
two points out of the three and a half point drop last year, and
28:37
that was self inflicted. Hey dox, let's talk about smile Sweet because it's
28:41
not just another scheduling system. It's a game changer in the world of new
28:47
patient management, and as a proud Smile Suite partner, I've witnessed the incredible
28:52
impact it has on practices of all sizes. Smile Suite means your new patient
28:56
calls and web leads are expertly handled seven days a week, even during nights
29:02
and weekends, and they offer top notch customizable presentation software and seamless post consultation
29:08
follow up. It's like having a secret weapon for your practice's success. Curious,
29:14
dive into the revolution at getsmilesuite dot com and don't forget to mention heydos
29:19
to unlock some extra goodies. Elevate your practice with smile Sweet, because every
29:26
smile deserves a suite of excellence. Hey docs, let's talk about consumer experience
29:34
for a minute, specifically the kind of experience where you purchase an item or
29:38
a service that you've been excited about, only to be let down or disappointed
29:42
by the actual product or experience. Not a good way to start a relationship.
29:48
That's why relationships are so highly valued at GC Orthodonics because they are truly
29:53
dedicated to the orthodonics specialty. GC ORTHODONICX is a leading provider of homey orthodonic
30:00
appliances, quality products that have serviced the orthodonic community for well over fifty years.
30:07
They are focused on providing total solutions that include both digital and analog orthodonic
30:12
treatment modalities like brackets and direct bonding and clear aligners. It's time to build
30:18
a long term relationship with a company that is dedicated to delivering total solutions to
30:25
your practice. Visit GC Orthodonics at www dot gcamerica dot com, forward slash
30:33
Jill Allen and see why countless leading clinics have made the switch. And I
30:41
know it sounds trite, there's a deeper financial reason for what I'm saying that
30:45
we don't have time for today, but just remember that it's always better to
30:49
get the start than to not get the start. And the reason why I
30:52
say that, And it sounds like silly to say, but for practices that
30:56
have a set fixed expense line whenever you grow those extra cases that you can
31:03
reach out and get by having some different policies or different campaigns or different things,
31:08
anything you can do to add to what your prior total was. All
31:12
of those cases are actually more profitable than the cases that you currently are treating
31:18
are. And that's because seventy percent of practices cost typically are fixed expense.
31:23
So when you go out and maybe get a little bit more aggressive with the
31:29
minimum down with a vizline, you're able to get more starts. All those
31:33
extra starts did not require more rent, more utilities, more water, more
31:37
team, more any of the fixed expenses. They just ask for the additional
31:41
material costs. So those actually come in at a seventy to eighty percent variable
31:48
margin, which then makes your whole business more profitable. So you know,
31:52
so that you know that kind of goes back into that transactional thinking of like
31:59
I I need to get what I need to get to make this particular case
32:02
profitable, versus expanding the way you think about your business, which is in
32:07
the book and we talk about this transactional versus aggregate thinking is thinking about your
32:14
business as a blend of different transactions that are healthy and as long as your
32:19
blend is healthy, you should keep playing offense, right. So that's in
32:22
the end why I always say these are such profitable business models. Everyone out
32:28
there is just a lucky son of a gun that you have this profitable business
32:32
model. So lean into it and leverage it and do everything you can to
32:37
drive growth because it will actually make you more profitable by doing that. So,
32:40
as we are starting to wrap up here, I know you've given us
32:44
a lot of data so far, but any other data tidbits or interesting pieces
32:49
of advice that you think that listeners need to know as they're heading into this
32:53
next year. Yeah. So one thing that I stumbled upon that I think
32:59
was pretty interesting and I would love, you know, everyone to go back
33:02
and ask all the right questions and look at their numbers is I think that
33:07
with the economy with coming off of stimulus, I think everyone intuitively understood that,
33:13
you know, there were some patients that came into our practices and started
33:16
with us that probably wouldn't have otherwise financially right, that you know, had
33:22
stimulus and nowhere to spend, and they committed this thing. So I think
33:24
everyone started waiting for the other shoot to drop in terms of their AR performance,
33:29
and there certainly has been a little bit of a change, a little
33:30
bit of an erosion, not as much as everyone feared. So it wasn't
33:35
quite the you know, it wasn't quite the doomsday thing. But we've been
33:38
monitoring it very closely to make sure that it doesn't go there. And so
33:43
in that monitoring there's one thing that I really came upon, and that is
33:47
what we are seeing both in our numbers and gauges, you know, national
33:52
average stuff. There is a lot of past do AR that is sitting in
33:58
the wrong bucket. There is a lot of past to insurance are that is
34:02
not really insurance. They are the claim is stopped paying the patient, change
34:09
jobs or whatever. And because in a lot of practices there's one person managing
34:15
it and it's just AR, so it doesn't matter what bucket it's in,
34:19
they don't necessarily take the time and effort to transfer it to the patient ledger
34:24
and therefore reach out. So many bad things can happen from doing that.
34:28
A you may not even try to reach out right, you may actually forget
34:31
about it, let it go, and then all of a sudden you've got
34:34
uncollectible funds. But then also even from like an accurate understanding and reporting of
34:39
how you are performing. If it's really patient AR, you should know that
34:45
it's really patient AR and not insurance AR. And so when you look at
34:50
the gauge, you know, average, like the total AR is about five
34:53
point eight five point nine percent of total R as delinquent, and the split
34:59
is actually fairly even. Right, we're seeing about you know, two point
35:04
four percent sitting in patient and about two point four two point five sitting in
35:08
insurance and three point four to three point five sitting in patient. Right.
35:13
You know, at Orthofi, we can't not allocate it correctly because we have
35:17
different teams that go after these amounts. So as soon as we know that
35:21
this is no longer insurance, they are that it has to be moved over
35:23
to the patient ledger. We have to do it because it won't be worked
35:27
if it won't do that, so you won't see that there, which is
35:30
why you see a much bigger difference with Orthifi. It's about point six percent
35:37
past due on insurance and we see about three point three percent on patient,
35:42
right, so similar so in the end it's about three point nine versus you
35:45
know, five point nine. But my point is what I did analysis on
35:51
is to figure out what percentage would have stayed in the insurance bucket had we
35:55
not moved it, and it was a whole one point five percent of totally
36:00
are Wow, it's a big number. So if you look at that and
36:04
you go back to if you're a Nonworthify customer, you look at if you're
36:07
on gauge or you're looking at it, if you see anything like the average,
36:10
if you see two point five percent insurance and three point four is percent
36:17
patient, you probably are looking at a reality where it's actually more like one
36:22
percent insurance and more like five percent patient. I think if anyone looked at
36:29
their gauge numbers and saw that, I think they would feel differently and they
36:34
would act very differently. So I think overall, I don't think consumer behavior
36:38
is changing all that much. But I see what's happening is it's getting noisy
36:44
because we're not doing the right allocation. So we're not telling ourselves the right
36:49
story. You know. That's something I advocate all the time for with my
36:52
clients is we have got to keep clean books, clean ledgers. We have
36:58
to be paying attention to our reports, have to be working. I love
37:00
this point, because I don't think we talk about it enough. We need
37:04
to be moving money into the right bucket. Then we either know that it's
37:08
uncollectible money that needs to be written off, or it's collectible and we need
37:13
to get on that with the patient sooner than later. You know, two
37:15
years down the road, when you figure that out and now you think you're
37:19
going to go back and ask that patient to pay that, you're probably going
37:22
to get a bad review and good luck getting that money, you know.
37:27
So we just need to be on top of that. So if somebody wants
37:30
to get a hold of you, what's the best way that they can reach
37:34
out. First of all, I love to hear from individual practices, so
37:37
I am totally open. If you ever want to email me personally with any
37:40
questions or insights, you know, you can email me at Oliver dot Gellis
37:45
G E. L. L. E. S at Orthofi dot com.
37:47
If you want a copy of the book, it is on Amazon. You
37:51
can go and put in level the curve and you can purchase it on Amazon.
37:54
Of course, i'd love to hear feedback if you do. But if
37:58
you're interested in the orth device solution, the best place to start is startmore
38:01
smiles dot com. We also have tons of education material, including a really
38:07
great webinar we're having with you, Jill. You know it's about education.
38:12
We love to give back with good insights and education, so if nothing else,
38:15
it's a good resource for you. But you can go to startmore smiles
38:19
dot com for that well, Oliver. As you know, I like to
38:22
finish up my Haydock's episodes with the speed Round. So are you ready to
38:27
accept the speed Round challenge challenge? I know you would be all right.
38:32
Describe your style in one word? Oh, snarky, I love that.
38:39
What are you listening to or watching? Oh? I just put together a
38:45
playlist. I went old school. I still love the whole, like making
38:49
mixtapes, but now I'm into making playlists. And the best track I just
38:52
put on was a track called Woman by Mumford and Sons. Ah. I
38:57
love Mumford and Sons. That's my goal is to go see them in concert,
39:00
just one time. All right? What do you do just for you?
39:06
Oh? I have gotten into yoga in a big way, partially because
39:08
I had a two year about with sciatica. But it's not only settling my
39:14
body. It's a good way for me to zero out my mind. So
39:17
I love that any hidden talents you want to share with us. I have
39:22
a crazy addiction to movie quotes, so many people know that I actually speak
39:27
in movie quotes. And I was born in Italy, so I actually speak
39:32
a few different languages. I speak four languages, so I can bore people
39:37
in a lot of different ways or make them laugh in a lot of different
39:40
languages. And then the last one, what's your big Harry audacious cool?
39:46
I would like to see us lick this whole fear of direct consumer. I
39:55
think you know, even things like limited treatment. I think that we can
40:00
change our trajectory and protect ourselves from any future threat. I know what we're
40:05
all happy about. Smile direct club. I'm going under, but trust me,
40:08
there will be another and we have this time to get our act together
40:13
and so that the next time we have somebody come in and try to take
40:16
our stuff, we can be a lot more ready for it. That's my
40:21
audacious goal for myself and everyone on this call. I love that and completely
40:24
agree with you. If anything, it showed us that there is a market
40:29
out there. We just have to be able to find a way to conquer
40:31
that so well again. Thank you so much for being on Haydocks. It's
40:37
always a pleasure. I know you and I always have great discussions, but
40:39
I'm glad that the listener's got to be a fly on the wall with this
40:43
one great information. Thank you, Thanks chillun till next time. Are you
40:46
ready to start a practice of your own, need a new fresh set of
40:50
eyes or some advice on your existing practice. If so, reach out to
40:53
me Jill Allen at www dot practice results dot com. If you like what
41:00
we're doing here on Haydocks and want to hear more of this awesome content,
41:04
be sure and give us a five star rating on your preferred listening platform and
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subscribe to our show so you never miss an episode. Remember, new episodes
41:14
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