When general dentistry practices place implants, it creates tremendous opportunities, especially for those who excel in prequalifying dental implant leads. Those practices move from drilling and filling to life-changing dentistry. Even better, the practices made more money while performing life-changing dentistry. That gave them the freedom to work fewer hours without sacrificing profits. But all that opportunity wasn’t without its challenges. And the biggest challenge practices faced was lead quality.

Implants patients are different from other patients. They require more education. They often need financing to afford their care. And they can take a longer time to be ready to move forward. So, although practices loved what placing dental implants did for them and their patients, vetting leads became a point of frustration.

What is a qualified lead?

Patients who meet the following criteria:

• They are ready to be scheduled. If they are not ready, they shouldn’t be scheduled.
• They are motivated. Qualified leads have a dental need they’re interested in addressing right now or in the future.
• They are educated. Qualified implant leads have a reasonable understanding of the treatment they need.
• They have the ability to pay. They have the means to finance or fit the treatment into their budget.

In 2020, Driven Dental Implant Marketing introduced the first Virtual Patient Advocate, or VPA, program to the market. We staffed the VPA program with a team of highly trained and experienced dental professional veterans across the United States. Immediately, the practices that outsourced lead prequalification to the VPA program experienced a tremendous sense of relief. With the VPA program prequalifying patients, they only received prescreened and prequalified dental implant patients. For offices looking to grow an implant practice, here are five reasons to outsource lead prequalification.

1. Expand your practice without having to expand your team.

Outsourcing lead prequalification to a highly trained team of industry professionals is like expanding a team without having to hire an additional team member. In fact, if you outsource to a team of professionals, like the VPA program, it’s like having consistent, professional, empathetic team members on call to nurture relationships with high-value implant patient leads.

Before leads make it to the practice, a VPA will have prescreened and prequalified them. Even better, because all the VPAs do is prescreen implant patient leads, they will be much more experienced with implant patients than most practice professionals. They will have spoken with hundreds or even thousands of implant leads. They understand the objections. And they know how to help patients overcome those objections.

By appointing a VPA team member to take on the role of outsourcing prequalified dental implant leads, it will create one less task for the rest of the team.

2. Only spend your valuable chair time with prescreened patients.

One of the most common pieces of feedback we received on the VPA program was how freeing it was for practices to no longer have to communicate with leads all day. Practices are busy. Staff has a lot to do all day with patient care. Communicating with leads who might never move forward with treatment is distracting.

Outsourcing to a professional team of industry professionals lets practice owners and staff get back to what they do best: taking care of patients. Only patients who are ready to move forward with financing in place get referred directly to the practice.

3. Achieve greater consistency with your messaging.

Having one person whose only job is to connect with and educate prospective patients results in more consistent messaging and ultimately higher lead conversion to new patients.

When a practice outsources to a team of professional treatment coordinators, the team is trained to deliver consistent information in a professional and empathetic manner. Whenever a lead calls they will be immediately connected to someone who understands both the practice and dental implants.

When a practice outsources lead prequalification to the VPA program, a team of industry veterans from across the United States will be at their service. This means leads get connected with someone representing the practice well right away.

4. Increase lead contact rate by increasing your availability.

The VPA team works all hours, not just during the day; it’s also staffed nights or weekends when prospective patients are often researching dental implants. That means your practice is available to respond to inquiries no matter when they call. It also means you can have meaningful conversations when patients are more motivated to discuss possible treatment options.

When you outsource this lead prequalification effort, your team stops being “on-call” or tethered to an office mobile phone. You’ll have an entire team of industry veterans dedicated to prescreening and prequalifying. And that means no more interrupted evenings or lost leads for you and your team.

5. Nurture relationships with leads without taking up practice resources.

Dental implant patients can take a long time to move forward. So, while some high-quality leads will be at the end of that timeline, others will be at the beginning. The most successful implant practices nurture relationships with high-quality leads who are at the beginning of the buying process, too. 

Nurturing relationships with high-quality leads at the beginning of the buying process takes time. Outsourcing lead prequalification can transfer this time-consuming process away from the practice without losing those leads.

The VPA program has helped a number of practices free up practice time while generating a steady stream of prequalified dental implant leads. To learn more about how the VPA program works, book a strategy call with Driven Dental Implant Marketing today.