If you’re moving from the NHS to private practice, how to charge for children’s oral healthcare can be a sensitive subject. Practice Plan sales support manager, Michelle Hardy, outlines some of the options available to practices making the move.
There are a number of ways of addressing how to charge for children. How you go about this will depend on whether your practice will transition fully to private practice or whether it will be mixed with an NHS contract retained for some of your patients.
If you are keeping an NHS contract, then ideally all children would be treated under that. If, however, you are becoming a wholly private practice, then there are a number of options open to you when it comes to setting up a plan for children.
The first option is the one most frequently chosen by practices. This is to introduce an age banded system of plans. In these circumstances, most practices would offer care up to the ages of five or six years of age free of charge. They choose to do this because these patients are not not likely to be having many, if any invasive treatments, so they’re really not much of a drain on practice resources.
Older children would usually be split into two age bands: perhaps ages six to 12 and then 13 up to their eighteenth birthday. That usually feels like a good fit, as often people find setting prices for teenagers the most difficult, because in reality, they probably take up as much chair time as adult patients, so, some consideration needs to be given to that.
Tailored plans
To summarise, if you’re going to choose the age banding option then children aged nought to six would be free, ages six to 12 would be charged a nominal fee, as low as possible and then for teenagers, the monthly charge will depend on what a practice chooses to include in their plan.
One option is to base the cost on examinations with a fee being charged for any treatments. Another would be to include some hygiene support with the examinations. These are the kinds of choices that can be discussed with your regional support manger, as they will have a bearing on the plan price.
A second option to set up your children’s plans is to charge based on clinical need. This could have several levels with the lowest simply including routine examinations. You may choose to include hygiene or oral health education if you wish. And there is always the option to include treatments.
With the right plan provider, these plans can be tailored to your specification. Some practices do choose to include full care for their children’s plans, where all treatments are included. Whereas others are more specific and only include simple fillings and extractions for children.
It’s your practice’s plan, so the choice of what is included or not, really is up to you.
Added benefit
If keeping prices to the absolute minimum is a priority, I have advised basing plan pricing on the UDA value you would have received for children historically plus the admin fee. It’s also worth remembering that children on a membership plan with Practice Plan will have access to our assistance scheme.
So, should they have an accident and need treatment, they may be eligible to request funding to help towards the cost of that. This is an added benefit to any children on a plan. If you’d like to know more about your options for children’s plans, you can speak to one of our team of 25 regional support managers.
If you’d like to arrange a conversation about your options away from the NHS and are looking for a provider who will help you through the process of change, why not give Practice Plan a call on 01691 684165 or go to practiceplan.co.uk/nhsvirtual today to book your one-to-one NHS to private call.
For more information visit the Practice Plan website www.practiceplan.co.uk/nhs
