Episode #372: Mastering Financial Conversations, The Key to Reducing Insurance Dependence with Linda Anderson

Naren Arulrajah: This is the Less Insurance Dependence podcast show with my good friend Gary Takacs and myself, Naren Arulrajah.

Narrator: We appreciate your listenership, your time, and most of all, we appreciate your intention to reduce insurance dependence in your practice. Our goal is to provide information that will help you successfully reduce insurance dependence and convert your practice into a thriving and profitable dental practice that provides you with personal, professional, and financial satisfaction.

Lester De Alwis: Welcome to another episode of The Less Insurance Dependence Podcast, your trusted source for insights, strategies, and expert advice to help dental professionals take control of their practices and careers. I’m your co-host Lester De Alwis, and today we’re exploring one of the most essential, yet often overlooked skills for building an independent dental practice — having effective financial conversations with patients.

Joining me is Linda Anderson, an experienced dental consultant and practice coach who has spent years helping dental teams improve communication, case acceptance, and profitability by mastering the art of transparent, patient-centered financial discussions.

In this episode titled Mastering Financial Conversations: The Key to Reducing Insurance Dependence, Linda will share how dentists can empower their teams to discuss value confidently, reduce their reliance on insurance, and build stronger relationships with their patients.

But before we jump in, a quick message from our sponsor. Echo Marketing is offering a complimentary marketing strategy meeting.

Lester De Alwis: In this meeting, their experts will help you attract high-quality new patients, rank one in Google locally, and grow your patient flow organically. So if you ever wonder if you want to look at your online visibility, or you want to track how well you’re doing on Google search engine, you can just visit lessinsurancedependence.com/marketing-strategy-meeting to book your complimentary session.

And if you’re looking for mentorship and if you’re ready to create a thriving people-service practice, schedule a complimentary coaching strategy meeting with Gary Takacs at thrivingdentist.com/csm.

Now, let’s get started. Linda, we’re excited to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us.

Linda Anderson: Thank you for having me.

Lester De Alwis: So what inspired your belief that having effective financial conversation is one of the keys to reducing insurance dependence in dentistry?

Linda Anderson: Oh my gosh, lots of things. First of all, dentists deserve to be paid. There’s always that misconception that, you know, they should be discounting and things, but dentists deserve to be paid. And every day in dental practices, patients walk out the door without paying. And sometimes it’s within no fault of the business office. It’s just because they weren’t trained, they didn’t know they were supposed to collect, they had no policies in place, they didn’t have the abilities, the confidence to collect the fee — whether it’s the full fee or the partial fee. So there’s many things that take place in that.

Also, it’s very sad — the average practice has about 42 to 49% case acceptance. That means there’s tons of dentistry sitting in charts — disease, blood, pus, infection — right? Sitting in charts, not doing, and we really have to sit down.

Linda Anderson: Dentists need to be sitting down thinking, okay, what’s the difference between medical case acceptance and dental case acceptance? We tend not to put the value to it. We ourselves, as an industry, say things like, "Forget," "Think about it," "Let us know when you’re ready." And so oftentimes I also see the administrative team struggle when a patient says they don’t want to pay, and they don’t know what to say, and so the patient walks out without paying.

So it’s a lot of things, but it is a very important part of practice management. Dentists really like to take courses on clinical services and how to get their fillings better, but taking off that hat and putting on their business hat, they really need to get comfortable with asking for money and understanding the financial aspects of their business.

Lester De Alwis: Exactly. I mean, and that’s such a strong foundation, understanding the why behind these conversations. Yeah. Now, let’s talk about how. Why do you think so many dental teams struggle when it comes to discussing treatment costs confidently with patients?

Linda Anderson: Well, I really think there’s a lack of confidence — fear, even — that the patient’s gonna say no and leave the practice, right? In a lot of cases, when they’re struggling to keep a patient base. But it’s also, they don’t have knowledge. Is there a policy in the practice that they’re supposed to collect? What do we offer? Like, what’s our bucket or toolbox of things that we can offer patients so that they can pay?

And there’s no system in place or a financial component because they’ve never taken a course. How many people — how many dentists or even administrative team — have gone to a course on how to collect or how to sell something? And that’s the other thing: the word sell. Everybody’s so afraid that they have to sell something — how terrible it is.

But can I just read you a quick definition of the word selling?

Lester De Alwis: Of—

Linda Anderson: Of course, because it’s not a bad word. Selling is a process of identifying and filling people’s wants or needs that creates mutual value for customers — and in your case, patients — salespeople, and their organizations. So, you know, what we really want to do is find out what the patient wants, and then it’s very easy to actually sell it to them.

Lester De Alwis: Exactly. Basically, it’s not what we need. It’s about what the patient needs.

Linda Anderson: Exactly.

Lester De Alwis: We need to stop doing—

Linda Anderson: Yeah.

Lester De Alwis: Exactly. That’s a great point. And what strategies can dentists and their teams use to shift from a transactional, insurance-based mindset to a more value-driven patient conversation?

Linda Anderson: Well, I think first of all, they need to sit down on the weekend with a cup of coffee or whatever and decide what their financial policy is going to be in their practice. Are they fee-for-service? Are they going to—what credit cards are they going to take? Things like that. But they need to also get comfortable with showing the patient the problems that they have before they offer them the solutions.

What tends to happen in case presentation is a dentist walks in and says to the patient, "You need a filling," "You need a crown." Well, why would I want to? That would be like the auto repair guy saying to me, "You need to replace the cabin filter." It’s not until they show me the cabin filter that I decide to replace it, right? So showing the patient the disease, or showing them the infection, or showing them the broken tooth, and then pausing and waiting for the patient to say, "Well, can you fix it?" is going to be their best thing.

And asking patients, "Do I have your permission to share with you everything I see today?" Because I know there are things that aren’t bothering you — because for the most part, dental disease is silent, right?

So those kinds of things. They need to get better at case presentation. All they’re doing is throwing solutions at patients, and that’s not working. They also need to educate the patients a little more on: "We’re treating your oral health today. I understand insurance is important to you. However, I’m going to be giving you a treatment plan based on your oral health, not your insurance policy. We can talk about insurance later when it comes to how you’re going to pay for it. But let’s first of all talk about what’s going on," right?

Interviewing the patient even before they see them clinically is also a really good idea to get the patient—find out what the patient actually wants. Do they want to keep their teeth? Do they want a beautiful smile for their son’s wedding? Do they want to be able to eat steak, right? Chew a bun — whatever it happens to be. So they need to determine that financial policy as well and have the patient sign it.

Lester De Alwis: Yeah. I think it all comes to that one point — communication. You need to communicate things clearly to the patient.

Linda Anderson: Yeah. Well, and everyone knows that most people are not good communicators. Nine out of ten times, people—I’ll ask a team, "Okay, what’s going on in here?" and they’ll go, "Oh, we don’t communicate. There’s no communication."

Lester De Alwis: That’s the elephant in the room.

Linda Anderson: Yeah, absolutely.

Lester De Alwis: Yeah. So how can training and team alignment help build confidence in having transparent financial discussions that improve case acceptance?

Linda Anderson: Well, training — and that’s what I do, that’s been my day job for a long, long time. Training is only good if people understand how to get through change, right? So they need to understand why we need to collect this money.

For a dentist to share a little bit about the operating costs — there’s nothing wrong with that. Team members see every single day the production, but they need to understand what’s collected is what pays the bills, what pays them, what pays for the supplies, what pays for future reinvestment, continuing education, their raises and bonuses — which is a big issue in a lot of practices right now.

So involving the team in that conversation around why our financial policy is the way it is has never backfired on me. Teams are more than happy — they want to work for a successful practice, and they’re more than happy to put things in place that’ll make it work for the owners. They want bonuses, and they want raises, right?

So explaining the operating costs — a lot of dentists are afraid of that. They shouldn’t be. They don’t have to give them the nitty-gritty of what they take home and how much their Maserati was, but they do need to explain, you know, the cost of turning a room around, for example. It’s very expensive.

And I’ve been around long enough to know — insurance started in 1974. And in 1974, people had $1,500 maximums. Fast forward to 2025 — that’s what they still have.

Lester De Alwis: Mm-hmm.

Linda Anderson: In 1982, when I started working in dentistry, a crown was $250, and a hygiene visit was $25. So people got dentistry for their $1,500. And we’re trying to do 2025 dentistry in $1,500. It’s just not gonna work. And it’s not gonna get better.

So the more comfortable we get with talking about fees and treatments and things, it’s only gonna improve their practices.

Lester De Alwis: Amazing. That’s powerful insights. To anyone listening in, I think this is gonna be very good. Now, next thing is about trust, which is a recurring theme. What role does patient education and trust play in helping practices successfully transition towards a fee-for-service model?

Linda Anderson: Trust is the most important. Patient education — not as much. And everybody gets mad at me for that, but one of my favorite presenters of all time, Dr. Paul Ley, always said, "Education is not the key. If it was, no one would smoke."

Lester De Alwis: Right? That’s a good one.

Linda Anderson: No one would smoke — or eat Kentucky Fried Chicken, for that matter. But we do. So yes, we have to educate, but for the most part, if we involve the patient in the disease process and we’re selling them or presenting something to them that they want…

Patients don’t want treatment. No one ever says, “Well, I’m going to the dental office. I can’t wait to see what treatment I need.” What they want is a solution to a problem they own. Right? Like, when I take my car to get fixed, I want a solution to why it’s making a funny noise. So they need to own their problem, and if education helps that, great.

But we need to use the education tools. Patients are not auditory learners. They need visual. They need to see, they need to hold it in their hands, they need to read. And so there are many ways to educate patients. Not as—you know, like, who’s an auditory learner? Nobody. Most people can’t even learn from just watching a PowerPoint.

Lester De Alwis: Exactly. Exactly. Now, I mean, you shared some such great strategies and some great examples. I think anyone listening in who wants to take action right away should actually be taking action by listening to this episode.

Now, for a dentist who wants to start improving financial communication right away, what are the three actionable steps they can take this week to get started?

Linda Anderson: Well, I think they need to, like I said, sit down and figure out what their financial policy for their practice is going to be. Are they assignment of benefits — yes or no? Are they taking primary insurance for the patient, or are they going to also do secondaries? You know, they don’t have to do both.

It depends — if you are in a relationship with an insurance company, that’s totally different. But if you have a choice and you can opt out, great. Many of my practices take primary benefits only and let the patient collect their own secondaries.

What credit cards are we gonna take? That should also be listed. And are we going to take cash? Are we going to take patients’ personal checks?

After that, then we need to make sure in our policy — after how many days are you ever going to charge the patient interest? And if so, when will that be and how much?

The next thing — you want to make sure that if you are taking personal checks and there’s going to be a bounced check or something like that, is there going to be a fee? It should all be very clearly outlined in your financial policy.

You also want to put in there that — when a patient signs to send their claims electronically to insurance companies, they are basically telling the insurance company, “I trust you’re gonna pay your portion and I am gonna pay my portion.” So you want to make sure that your patients are acknowledging that electronic claims — that’s what it means.

And then — when are you and how often will you send predeterminations for treatments for the patients? Because you don’t want to be just throwing predeterminations to the wind either. It’s a lot of paperwork, sometimes for no benefits.

Once you have your financial policy in place, sit down with your team and go through it with them. Then you’re gonna make it as a document that is as important as your medical history. So your patient signs their medical history — they’re also gonna sign your financial policy.

And if you have someone who does the new patient experience in your practice, they could actually go through it with the patient and explain everything if you want — have the patient sign it. And that sets you up for informing before you perform. You should never put an anesthetic in a patient if you don’t know that they know how much it’s going to cost.

Lester De Alwis: Exactly.

Linda Anderson: The next thing you need to do is get comfortable with fees. Practice in front of the mirror — “Your treatment plan’s going to be $5,000. How would you like to take care of it?” “Your treatment plan’s going to be $10,000. How would you like to take care of it?”

Because sometimes we go, “Uh…” — you know, we use these negative words like, “Oh, your insurance is only gonna pay…” Well, insurance is a benefit to help you offset the cost. It’s like a coupon.

So why don’t we say, “Hey, your insurance is gonna pay 50% — that’s fantastic! Start the car. When do we want to get this going?” Be the positive. And you’ll find when you use positive language like that, your patient becomes more positive versus, “Oh yeah, you’re right, my insurance is terrible.”

And then you might want to read a book like Integrity Selling or something like that. It’s a good little book.

Lester De Alwis: Exactly.

Linda Anderson: Got nothing to do with dentistry, but there’s some great tips in it. Take a course, read a book — because selling is not a bad thing. And you sell yourself to your patients every single day.

So I think those are three things you need to do:

1. Get your policy.
2. Meet with your team around it. Have everyone understand. Have your new patients, for sure, sign your financial policy. And you can do that with your existing patients as well by saying, “Hey, we’ve updated some policies. We’d like to go through this with you — just like we update medical histories, we’re updating our financial policy.”
3. And then get at it — and you will do more dentistry that you love.

Lester De Alwis: So finally, before we wrap up — to anyone listening in, if they want to reach out to you, get some advice from you or even, you know, talk to you…

Linda Anderson: Absolutely. I love talking about this stuff. So, my email is linda@heapsanddoyle.com.
My cell phone — do you want that live on air?

Lester De Alwis: I think, um, your website — if you have a website, yeah, you can—

Linda Anderson: Reach out to me — it’s www.heapsanddoyle.com. And my email is linda@heapsanddoyle.com. So yes, I’d love to hear from you, whether you agree with me or not.

Lester De Alwis: Exactly. Linda, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your wisdom on how financial conversations can transform a dental practice.

Linda Anderson: Oh, thank you for having me.

Lester De Alwis: The key takeaway — open, confident, and value-based communication about finances helps both patients and the practice. When the team builds trust and presents care clearly, insurance becomes less of a barrier and independence becomes more attainable.

As always, this podcast is about taking action. First of all, if you are looking to redefine your online visibility or do a health checkup, schedule a complimentary marketing strategy meeting with Ekwa Marketing at lessinsurancedependence.com/marketing-strategy-meeting to attract more high-value, fee-for-service patients.

And secondly, if you are looking for mentorship, book a complimentary coaching strategy meeting with Gary Takacs at thrivingdentist.com/csm for personalized guidance on building a thriving, independent practice.

Now, thank you again, Linda, for being part of today’s conversation, and thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in.

Until next time — keep moving forward, a thriving independent practice.