How to build a dental membership plan patients actually stay on.
A membership plan is not a discount scheme. Done properly it gives you a base of patients who attend on a defined interval, a smoother cash position, and a recall system that runs whether or not anyone remembers to chase.
Most plans fail for the same four reasons.
Plans rarely fail because patients do not want one. They fail because of how the plan was set up, and all four causes are visible from the outside.
- It was priced as a discount. The fee was set below what the included care actually costs to deliver, so every new member makes the arithmetic slightly worse.
- There is no recall system behind it. Patients pay monthly and are never contacted. A membership scheme without working recall is a direct debit with a leaflet.
- Nobody knows how to offer it. The plan exists, but whether a patient hears about it depends on which team member is on that day and how confident they feel.
- The admin was never designed. Joining, changing, pausing and leaving all happen by email to whoever picks it up, and the reconciliation quietly becomes somebody's evening job.
Each of these is fixable, and none of them requires starting again if you already have a plan running.
What the work covers.
Whether you are starting from nothing or repairing a plan that has drifted, the same components have to work.
What is included, and what it costs you
The care in the plan, costed against your own time and materials, so the monthly fee reflects what you are actually committing to deliver. This is the decision everything else rests on.
Tiers and pricing
How many tiers, what separates them, and where the fees sit relative to your area. Simple enough that a patient understands it at the desk without a brochure.
Recall built into the plan
The interval defined, the appointments booked ahead, and a named owner for the list. This is the part that determines whether the plan holds after year one.
The joining conversation
What the team says, when they say it, and to whom. Written down and practised, so it stops depending on who is on reception.
The administration
Joining, amending, pausing, leaving and reconciling — designed as a process rather than accumulating as a habit. Whether you run it in house or through a plan provider, someone has to own each step.
The numbers you watch
Members joined, members lost, average tenure, attendance against interval. Four figures, reviewed monthly, that tell you whether the plan is working long before the annual accounts do.
Built once, then run by your team.
The diagnostic
Half a day at the practice. If a plan already exists, I look at how it is priced, who is on it, and whether recall is genuinely running. If there is no plan, I look at whether one is the right answer for your patient base — sometimes it is not, and it is cheaper to find that out now.
The build
Tiers costed and priced, recall designed, the joining conversation written and practised with the team, and the administration defined end to end. Staged so you can see it taking shape rather than waiting for a reveal.
Handover
Documented and handed to the team who will run it, with the monthly numbers set up so you can see it working. The measure of success is that it keeps running without me.
Two ways to start.
Priced plainly, because you should know the shape of the cost before you have a conversation.
The diagnostic — £950
Half a day on site. An honest answer on whether a plan is right, and what it should look like.
- Half a day on site
- A written set of findings
- Costed recommendations on tiers and fees
- Yours to act on with or without me
The build — scoped and priced at the diagnostic
The plan designed, built, documented and handed over. Defined start, defined end.
- Everything in the diagnostic
- Tiers costed, priced and written up
- Recall and joining process built and tested
- Team trained, full handover at the end
I am not a plan provider and I do not take commission from one. If a provider is the right route for you, I will say so.
Take the free audit first.
Twelve questions, five minutes, and a score across the six places practices lose control. You will know which section is weakest before you speak to anyone — including me.
No charge. Your total appears on screen straight away, and the six-section breakdown is emailed to you.