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What's up! Kyle here.
Picture that December week at your front desk. The phone won't stop. Everyone suddenly remembered the crown they've been putting off since March, everyone wants in before the 31st and your hygiene schedule has been booked solid since Thanksgiving. You're turning away production in December while January sits wide open.
Every practice lives some version of that week. Here's the number behind it.
According to the National Association of Dental Plans, fewer than 5% of insured patients reach their annual maximum in a given year. That's the insurance industry's own data. Flip it around. 95% of your insured patients will leave benefit money on the table this year. On a $1,500 maximum, that's real treatment they already paid for through premiums, evaporating at midnight on December 31.
Most practices respond with a use-it-or-lose-it blast in November. Nothing wrong with the message. Everything wrong with the timing. By November every practice in your market is sending the same reminder, your schedule is already tightening and any treatment that takes more than one visit is racing the calendar. A crown prepped in mid-December doesn't seat until January, and January means a fresh deductible.
Right now is different. The kids just went back to school. Family calendars reset this month, parents are already in appointment mode for their kids and there's a quiet window in your schedule before the holiday chaos hits. September is when the year-end campaign actually works. Here's how I'd structure it.
Step 1: Pull The List This Week. Every active patient with unscheduled treatment, plus everyone who hasn't used their hygiene visits this year. Your practice management software can cross-reference outstanding treatment plans with insurance on file. That list is your Q4.
Step 2: Lead With Their Number. A generic "Use your benefits!" blast is wallpaper. A specific number gets read: "Hey [first name], quick heads up from our office. You have an estimated $1,100 in dental benefits that expire December 31. If you want to put them toward the treatment we talked about, we've got openings over the next few weeks while the schedule's still calm." Personal, specific, zero pressure.
Step 3: Run It As Drumbeat, Not Blast. September touch. The heads up. October touch? "The schedule's starting to fill." Early November touch? Last comfortable call for anything multi-visit. Three messages over ten weeks beats one panicked one in November, and each round catches people the last one missed.
Step 4: Protect The Big Cases. If someone needs staged treatment, crowns, implants, anything with lab time, get them started in September and October so the finish lands before the 31st. That's the difference between capturing their maximum this year and hoping they still say yes in the spring.
The practices that run this quietly every fall walk into December full and calm while everyone else's front desk is doing triage. Which one you are in December gets decided in the next three weeks.
Quick Question: What does the last week of December usually look like at your practice, chaos, crickets or dialed in? Hit reply and tell me, I read every single one.
Talk next week!
— Kyle / Founder, Search-To-Seat™
