Zoe Close explains why Practice Plan is a smart choice for dental groups with 30 years’ experience of tailor-made plan provision.
With a field team boasting a total of more than 300 years’ dental experience, we have a lot to offer our customers. We understand the challenges groups and corporates face and appreciate that a one-size fits all approach, by definition, doesn’t work in many cases. This is why we provide a flexible, personalised offering designed to meet the needs of whichever group with which we’re working.
We have the flexibility to be able to tailor our plans to suit a group’s specific needs. Whether their primary focus is on keeping the costs of administering dental plans low or a comprehensive support package, we can ensure our plans suit a group’s specific needs. And as the experts in NHS conversions we can help ensure any practices introducing private dentistry for the first time get all the support they need to make the move a success.
Whether your group needs a basic, bread and butter membership-only plan or full capitation, we can design the type of plan that fits your particular bill. We can price membership plans at practice level or, if it’s better for you, we can adopt a regional pricing approach. This depends on whether you wish to work towards a uniform pricing structure or to keep it bespoke to each practice. What you charge your patients for membership plans is determined by you and can be reviewed and changed once every 12 months.
Size isn’t everything
We appreciate that large corporate groups may require different types of support and guidance from smaller independently owned ones depending on their business aims. Increasing the number of practices in a smaller group will require different support from a larger group looking simply to increase plan patient numbers.
As a plan provider of nearly 30 years’ standing, we’re able to draw on the broad ranging skills and experience of our team and industry leading consultants with whom we work to provide the expertise needed to offer the appropriate help, regardless of the size of the group.
Dedicated team
At Practice Plan, we have group relationship managers and regional support managers who work alongside a head-office based relationship support advisor team. This combined field and centrally based team is responsible for overseeing the successful launch, consolidation and rollout of your membership across the group.
With their wealth of experience and dental backgrounds, they are well placed to help you take your practices where you want them to go. They’ll be available for business review meetings, for planning and reviewing progress and are always on-hand to identify any areas for future growth and increased practice revenue. If you need any support at any time, they are only ever a phone call away.
Business support
An area where practices, and groups, could fall foul is incorrect pricing. Plans need to be priced in such a way that they offer a viable alternative for the patient to pay-as-you-go pricing, while still offering a benefit to the practice. To ensure this is the case, we can offer support to help determine whether your current membership plans are both value for money to your patients and viable for the group. This can include guidance with pricing for your private diagnostic and treatment fees as well as fee reviews in subsequent years.
If you have one, we’ll work with your group marketing team to ensure we retain the integrity of your brand to enable us to provide branded membership plan collateral. This includes leaflets, posters, plan versus private fee comparisons, slides for the TV in the waiting room area and posts for your social media platforms. For smaller groups without this type of resource, our in-house design and marketing team can help you ensure your brand is as strong as it can be with a refresh, if necessary.
However, the support extends wider than just marketing. As group relationship manager Lynne Womersley explains: ‘We find we are providing increasing levels of management information to our group customers as they become more data driven. They want to understand exactly what’s happening within the business and what it looks like,’ she says. ‘We provide them with the information to be able to produce their own Power BI reports, and so on.
‘In addition, we have helped with data for the purposes of benchmarking against other groups with fee increases. Because we deal with so many groups, we’re able to supply them with information, in an anonymised format, on things such as joiners and leavers, to allow groups to benchmark themselves against other similar size groups. By doing this, we’re not revealing any commercially sensitive information, just giving them a benchmark as to where they stand.’
Part of a wider group
As Practice Plan is part of the Wesleyan Group of Companies working with us would also give you access to a broader range of support services. We can put you in touch with dental specialist financial advisers who can offer bespoke financial planning and guidance to suit both your professional and personal needs.
You can also take advantage of the team at Wesleyan General Insurance who will take the legwork out of finding the right deal for your group from a large panel of providers. They’ll also help keep track of your policies and remove a lot of the hassle from the renewal process.
If you need patient finance to help your patients say ‘yes’ to treatment then our sister company Medenta can help with that. Once again, you’ll find a supportive team at the end of the phone ready to help you with any queries and to help you stay on top of any regulatory obligations you may have.
There’s a lot to be gained by working with Practice Plan, so why not get in touch to see how we can help your group thrive.
In 2025 Practice Plan celebrates 30 years of welcoming practice groups into the family, helping them to grow profitable businesses through the introduction of practice-branded membership plans.
If you’re looking for a provider that has that family feel but knows a thing or two about dentistry… Be Practice Plan and get in touch. Call 01691 684165 or visit www.practiceplan.co.uk/be-practice-plan.
This article is sponsored by Practice Plan.
