Playbook, dental clinic
A patient wants to stop paying the monthly plan
This looks like the cancellation question every business gets and behaves nothing like it, because the thing being cancelled has already bought appointments. Somebody who has had two examinations and three hygienist visits this year and now wants to stop is asking a question with arithmetic inside it, and the answer depends on who administers the plan.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for cancellations holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The plan is a contract with a notice period and a direct debit behind it, and it is frequently administered by a plan provider rather than by the practice, so cancelling it may not be something the practice can do at all.
- The patient has usually consumed part of the year's benefit already, so an honest answer covers what happens to appointments taken ahead of the payments meant to fund them.
- Leaving the plan does not mean leaving the practice, and the two are constantly conflated: most people want to stop a payment, not to find a new dentist, and material that treats them as one thing loses patients needlessly.
- Rejoining later often means a fresh assessment or a joining fee, which is the fact that most often changes somebody's mind and is almost never published anywhere.
How it arrives
- how do i cancel my dental plan
- how much notice do i have to give to stop the plan
- if i cancel the plan am i still a patient here
- can i pause the plan for a few months
- i cancelled the direct debit at the bank is that enough
- can i rejoin the plan later
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The plan terms, including notice and who has to be told | The notice period, whether notice goes to the practice or to the plan administrator, and in what form. A patient who stops the direct debit at the bank and tells nobody is the commonest version of this, and it ends badly for them. |
|---|---|
| What happens to benefit already taken | Whether appointments used ahead of the payments funding them are charged for on leaving, and at what rate. This is the figure the patient is really asking about even when they never mention it. |
| What changes about being a patient | Whether they stay registered, what they pay per appointment afterwards, and whether the recall continues. Answering this keeps the people who were only ever trying to cancel a payment. |
| The position on rejoining | Any joining fee, assessment or qualifying period on coming back. Publish it, because it is the fact that reframes the decision more often than any retention offer would. |
The reply
The plan has a notice period, and the plan terms say who the notice has to go to, which is not always the practice [1]. Cancelling the direct debit at your bank is not notice on its own and can leave a balance owing, so it is worth doing these in the right order. You would still be a patient here, paying per appointment at the fees on our price list [2]. I cannot cancel anything, so give me your name and an email and I will pass the request to reception.
It leads with the notice and where it goes, because the plan may not be the practice's to end. The warning about the bank is there because that is what people actually do, and it is the version that creates a debt. Then it separates leaving the plan from leaving the practice, which is the confusion that costs a patient nobody needed to lose.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor says they want to cancel, gives a date they want it to end, or says they have already stopped the payment.
Nothing I do here ends the plan. Leave me your name and an email and reception will confirm the notice and what happens next. The plan runs until they confirm it, not until this conversation finishes.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say a plan has been cancelled, paused or stopped, because nothing here reaches the plan or the direct debit.
- Never offer a discount, a pause or a lower tier to keep somebody, since that is a commercial decision for the practice.
- Never say that stopping the payment means somebody is no longer a patient, or the reverse, unless your terms say exactly that.
- Never quote what a leaver will be charged for treatment already had, because it depends on their account.
Questions
- Should we answer plan cancellation questions plainly?
- The alternative is a patient who cancels at the bank, runs up a balance, and turns a retention problem into a debt and then a complaint. Publishing the notice route is cheaper than that every time.
- Our plan is run by an administrator. Does that change the answer?
- It changes the whole answer, and it is the fact patients least expect. The material has to say who receives notice, or the assistant will send everybody to reception for something reception cannot do.
- Can it check whether somebody is on the plan?
- No. It cannot look anybody up or see a payment. It states the terms and takes a message, which is the whole of what it can honestly do here.
Keep reading
- Everything for a dental clinicThe questions a dental practice actually gets, the ones that must reach a clinician, and the documents worth indexing first.
- Handling cancellations in generalCancellation content is hard to find on purpose. What it costs to answer plainly, how notice periods work, and what happens to data on the way out.
- A patient wants their money back on a fillingA crown that failed is a clinical dispute, not a returns question. Why it has to be routed and the treatment never discussed.
- Can you see all four of us at the same time?Four people, one dentist and one chair. What can be explained about consecutive slots and the school holiday rush.
- A dental visitor wants an appointment. What should happen?What to say when a dental visitor asks for an appointment, given the assistant cannot see the diary or hold a slot.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.