Insurance isn’t getting easier for dental practices, and it isn’t getting easier for patients either. Reimbursements keep shrinking, claims are still denied for reasons that often have little to do with the quality of care, and patients walk in unsure what their plan will or won’t cover. It’s the same conversation happening in offices everywhere.
Kelly Schwartz has coached dental practices across the U.S. and Canada for three decades, and when he asked Smile Advantage CEO Ryan Corby to sit down and talk membership dentistry, the conversation felt less like a pitch and more like two people comparing notes from years of seeing membership plans succeed in real practices.
Insurance Isn’t Unlimited. Your Plan Can Be.
Most patients assume their insurance means unrestricted access to care. In practice, it means access to whatever that plan happens to allow this year, and Ryan’s take is that this gap is exactly where membership dentistry earns its keep.
Rather than treating a lapsed insurance plan as bad news, Ryan’s team trains front desk and treatment coordinators to flip the frame: no insurance doesn’t mean no options, it means the patient is now free of the restrictions insurance would have placed on their care.
“Insurance has trained patients to think there’s only one way to access care. A membership plan lets the practice step outside those restrictions and recommend treatment based on what the patient needs, not what a plan happens to cover.”
Ryan Corby, CEO, Smile Advantage
Retention Starts With Two Visits a Year
Kelly’s own membership work goes back to a Michigan practice whose patients, mostly autoworkers, lost their dental benefits when their union cut coverage. The in-house plan he and the doctor built became the strongest retention tool in the practice, because it locked in the two hygiene visits a year that keep a patient connected and keep small problems from becoming big ones.
Ryan sees the same pattern across Smile Advantage’s client base: once a patient has committed to a plan for the year, the relationship changes from transactional to ongoing. That ongoing relationship becomes the foundation for better case acceptance, more referrals, and stronger lifetime value.
Annual Plans Sell Loyalty. Monthly Plans Sell Convenience.
Kelly is direct about where he lands on payment structure: annual, for the majority of practices. His view is that annual plans tend to attract patients who are ready to commit to preventive care for the year, which often makes them a stronger fit for a sustainable membership program.
Ryan agrees with the annual-first approach, but his recommendation leaves room for what works in the real world. Smile Advantage supports both annual and monthly billing, and the guidance to every client is the same regardless of which one they choose to offer:
The framing that matters: sell the plan as an annual membership, always. If a practice wants to offer monthly payments, position it as a convenience on top of that annual commitment, not a subscription a patient can start and cancel on a whim. A surcharge and small enrollment fee on the monthly option protects the practice if a patient pays once, gets their cleaning, and disappears.
It’s not a rigid rule. Smile Advantage has clients running 800+ patients on monthly billing in areas where annual, upfront payment simply isn’t realistic, and the platform is built to handle that volume of recurring transactions without the manual tracking and spreadsheet chaos that often come with recurring payments. What matters most is that the plan is always sold, and felt, as a real commitment.
Better Case Acceptance, Without the Insurance Filter
When a patient isn’t asking “what will my insurance cover,” the conversation shifts to what’s clinically best for their health. Membership plans create room for that shift, and a savings benefit on treatment gives patients a reason to move forward instead of waiting.
The financial math works for the practice too. Even at a discount off standard fees, a dentist working outside insurance reimbursement structures often takes home more per procedure than they would through a typical insurance write-down. The patient gets a clear path forward, and the practice isn’t forced into insurance-level reimbursement.
Make It Feel Like a Benefit, Not a Discount Card
The foundation of any plan is simple: cleanings, exams, x-rays, priced a modest step below standard fees. Many practices structure adult plans in the $400-$600 range, depending on their fees, market, and included benefits. But Ryan is clear that the real value comes from what’s layered on top, the perks.
- Reserved parking: Kelly’s team once reserved a front-row spot with the member’s name on a sign, a small touch that sparked conversations with every other patient in the lot.
- Complimentary extras: Free oral cancer screenings, whitening, or a cosmetic consultation add benefits patients can immediately understand, at little to no cost to the practice.
- Local partnerships: A free coffee or ice cream next door, tied to plan membership, turns the plan into something patients want to talk about.
- Branded, not generic: Every plan is white-labeled to the practice, whether that’s a VIP plan, a concierge plan, or another name that fits the brand, never a third-party badge.
The goal is a plan that reads as $1,000+ in value for a $400-$500 fee, without piling on so many extras that it feels cluttered. A few well-chosen perks, clearly communicated, do more than a long list ever will.
What Sets Smile Advantage Apart
Ryan’s partners, Dr. Jeff Sindelar and Dr. Matt Kraner, are practicing dentists in the St. Louis area, and the platform was built around the workflows, objections, and patient conversations they see in practice every day. That’s the lens the whole product runs through.
For practices comparing membership platforms, the differences usually show up in four places: pricing, branding, plan design, and ongoing support.
| What Practices Usually Get | What Smile Advantage Does Instead |
|---|---|
| Per-patient or percentage-of-revenue fees that grow as the plan succeeds | Flat, fixed fee regardless of patient count |
| A generic third-party-branded plan | Fully white-labeled with the practice’s own name, logo, and identity |
| A one-size-fits-all plan structure | Custom-built plans matched to the practice’s fees, patients, and goals |
| Marketing left entirely to the practice | Complimentary branded brochures, postcards, email templates, and reprints every renewal year |
The Whole Team Sells the Plan, Not Just One Coordinator
Ryan’s observation, echoed by Kelly, is one of the clearest signals of which practices consistently grow their membership program: the ones where the front desk, the hygienists, the assistants, and the doctor are all talking about the plan naturally, at every touchpoint, rather than leaving it to a single treatment coordinator’s job description.
That’s why every Smile Advantage client gets access to the Advantage Academy, with live Zoom training, scripts, and conversation starters built for every role in the office, not just the person responsible for enrollment.
Beyond the Practice
Membership plans travel outside the office too. Several Smile Advantage clients have taken branded plans directly to local small businesses and salons, offering teams a dental benefit split between employer and employee, and bringing new patients in already connected to the plan before they ever set foot in the chair.
