How To Champion Dental Innovation

How To Champion Dental Innovation

Key takeaways

• Dental insurers and providers can embrace technology to shift towards innovation.
• Direct marketing to both consumers and to brokers can elevate dental care from a nice to have to a need to have. 
• New plan design and benefits demand new communications approaches.

When you think about innovation, chances are you think about A.I. or Silicon Valley not the dentist’s office. Yet innovation is just as much about re-seeing the old as it is the new. And dentistry is rife for disruption.

Encourage innovation and technology adoption

Dental insurers can encourage providers to be more innovative as a whole. To start, insurers could cover teledentistry services and encourage providers to adopt these services if they haven’t already. Dental providers and payers can’t afford to ignore this healthcare trend that will likely expand into new specialities. 

This can also give providers an opportuntity to rethink their service delivery methods. Robots could provide routine cleanings. Smart toothbrushes could provide 3-D scans. Insurers could shift away from a typical fee-for-service model to one that rewards innovation, much like medical insurance has done with value-based care.

Advocate for marketing

Dental insurers remain at the center of three key stakeholders: providers, brokers and members. As such, they have an incredible opportunity to not only leverage marketing but make it work for everyone. Insurers can be strategic with their marketing budgets with an eye on conversions, sales and returns in addition to long-term sustainability. 

Insurers could heavily promote innovations like teledentistry to brokers and members through an integrated marketing campaign of email, paid media and direct mail. Such a campaign could promote the ease and convenience of teledentistry while raising awareness of it. 

Additionally, insurers could be encouraging good oral health habits through newsletters and social media. Insurers can encourage those with dental emergencies to seek dental providers rather than treatment in emergency rooms or urgent care, which may be more costly, through a friendly text message or push notification. 

Brokers need help communicating the value of plans and oral health with easy-to-use materials created for a digital world. Insurers can help brokers understand and overcome consumer objections and barriers with conversation guides and sales materials created for a digital-first world. 

Oral health can become synonymous with whole-person health. Consumers need to see dental health—and by extension dental insurance—as an essential not a luxury, especially during periods of perceived or actual economic uncertainty. 

Communicating plan innovation

According to Deloitte, “In the future of health, health insurance companies likely will not exist as they do now.” Wellness organizations focused on social services, care coordination and smart device distribution and education will take the place of insurers. Visionary insurers understand the need to not just react to market changes but also anticipate them through innovative plan offerings and benefits. 

Additionally, they understand the importance of communicating these innovations to brokers, members and prospects to maximize usage and adoption. 

• If an insurer provides free dental coverage to children, for example, they could develop an integrated campaign targeting young families. 
• They could provide a free smart toothbrush to those over 65, who may struggle more with proper dental care due to medication side effects or mobility issues, with every plan. They could marry paid digital media with a content plan aimed at lead generation. 

Whatever the innovation, communicating its benefits remain paramount. 

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