Insurance Lists

Who to sign up with

This is typically the main channel of obtaining new patients, especially for new and developing offices. By listing yourself in as many insurance company lists as possible, you are exposing yourself to numerous potential patients. As you all know, the decision to join an insurance company is not always easy, especially with HMOs and the new lower fee schedules that many PPO plans offer these days.

These decisions must be made on a case-by-case basis. I believe that the newer your office is, the more you have to rely on insurance listings for referrals. however, there are a few things you need to consider:

First, let's talk about the HMO plans. What we recommend is to try to keep HMO patients' production under 25% of your practice's overall production to avoid what we call the "HMO trap" (click to review). I would strongly advise against having more than half of your patients referred to you from HMO companies. Keeping the percentage this low will guarantee a smoother transition once you decide to stop seeing HMO patients, which is the goal of most practices.

As far as PPO and other discount plans are concerned, you are the one who should decide if you are able to accept their fees. I think if you have empty chair time, it is worth trying to fill them up with discounted patients, rather than HMO patients.

The way you are listed

The second thing about insurance listing is the way you are listed. When patients go through insurance lists to choose a doctor, they look at only two things:

1- Your location and
2- Your name

This is why you want to have an easy address, and to be listed under a name that is easy to understand and remember. If you have a long name that is hard to pronounce, the odds of a patient selecting your name from the list are not in your favor.

What you may want to do is either get a fictitious name or a DBA (doing business as); or, if you prefer, change your legal name. Put yourself in your patient’s shoes. You are looking at a long list of names and addresses, and have no other information to go by in selecting a practitioner - wouldn't you take the name and address you feel most comfortable with?

Another method that you can use to increase the number of patients you get through your insurance listing is to list all the doctors in the practice separately. This concept is thoroughly explained in the "Overhead" section, but the general idea is that by having different contracts for each doctor you enjoy two major advantages:

First of all, the independent contractor concept is easier to implement; this in itself has its own tax and liability advantages.

More importantly, you will appear on the insurance list more than once, depending on how many doctors you have in your office. Instead of listing everybody under one group name, list each practitioner individually. This way you significantly increase the probability of being picked from insurance lists. It's like having more than one entry into a drawing!

After signing the contract with insurance companies, it is crucial to check the way you are listed. Often times your name, address or phone number can be wrong; you will not know this unless you check the listings yourself (the easiest way to do this is online). If there is something wrong with your information, you can easily lose patients. So, update your listing profile periodically.