Free tool
What should your membership plan actually cost?
Most in-house plans are priced by copying a number off a flyer from a conference. Price it off what the included visits cost you to deliver instead, and you'll know it works before the first patient signs up.
Price the plan off your own cost
Starts with example numbers · nothing is sent anywhereYour full (UCR) fee for a cleaning, not what any insurance plan pays.
Wage plus benefits and payroll taxes: the loaded number, same as you'd use anywhere else.
Rent, front desk, software, utilities and the rest, spread over the practice's clinical hours. Monthly overhead minus hygienist wages, divided by total chair hours, is the honest number; the example is a placeholder.
The only labor this model bills to the plan, alongside the chair's overhead below. The doctor's exam time is not billed here (most practices treat it as the cost of keeping the patient, not a service to price), so the real cost of the plan likely runs higher than this, not lower.
Gloves, prophy paste, fluoride, barriers: charged for every included visit, not just the cleanings.
What members get off major work. This is the incentive that sells the plan. It plays no part in the price below, which only covers the included preventive visits.
What you want to keep after delivering the included visits, before the 10%-savings cap below is applied.
The number that matters
Price it at $302 a year ($25 a month). A member saves $153 against your full fee, and you keep $78 per member on top of your cost, before a single dollar of the 15% treatment discount, which is a separate decision made at the chair.
A membership plan is not insurance, and should never be described as one to a patient. Some states regulate in-house discount plans, so check yours before you launch one. The treatment discount above is the practice's choice on the day of treatment; it is not part of the price math.
How to read it
Cost first, discount second.
A membership plan only works long-term if the math works before you ever print a brochure. Add up what the included cleanings, exams and x-rays are worth at your full fee, work out what they actually cost you to deliver: hygiene chair time plus supplies, and price the plan at a margin over that cost. That is the whole model. Everything else is marketing.
The discount you offer on crowns, fillings and other treatment is a different decision entirely, made at the chair, and it stays out of this math on purpose. A plan built this way is also the honest answer to the fear that keeps dentists trapped in bad PPO contracts: patients who value a predictable payment structure now have somewhere else to put that loyalty besides an insurance card.
Keep the framing straight with your team and your patients: this is a discount arrangement you run in-house, not insurance, and a handful of states have rules about how discount plans are sold. Check yours, price it off your own numbers, and you have something you can actually stand behind.
Questions
Before you act on it.
Is a membership plan the same thing as dental insurance?
No, and your paperwork and your team's script should say so clearly. It is an in-house discount arrangement between you and the patient, not an insurance product. Some states regulate discount medical or dental plans, so check your state's rules before you launch one.
Why does the price come out lower than I expected?
Because this model never bills the plan for the doctor's exam time, only the hygienist's chair time for the cleanings counts as labor. Most practices treat the included exam as the cost of keeping the relationship, not a service to price at cost-plus, which is why the number here should read as a floor, not a ceiling.
Where does the treatment discount fit in?
It doesn't, on purpose. The discount on major work is a separate lever you pull at the chair to make a case easier to say yes to. Baking it into the annual price would mean pricing the plan against treatment you may or may not ever deliver to that member.
What stops me from just pricing this at my target margin?
The 10%-savings cap. If your margin slider would push the price above 90% of what the included visits are worth at full fee, the calculator pulls the price back down. A plan a patient can't tell is saving them anything is not a plan worth joining.
What does Ryan's own plan cost?
About $300 a year for the cleanings and exams, with a discount on major work, as he describes in his membership plan article. Price yours off your own numbers here, then compare: if this tool lands far below that, your overhead-per-hour input is probably too low.
Membership plan design is one module of six in the course.
Related reading
- Going Out of Network: The 90-Day Plan, the Patient Letter and the Front-Desk Scripts9 min
- How to Build an In-House Membership Plan That Replaces the Insurance Conversation8 min
- How to Ask a PPO for a Fee Increase (and What to Do When They Say No)8 min
- Which PPO Should You Drop First? A Ranking Framework7 min