About Smile Advantage
Smile Advantage has been an industry leader in customized dental membership plans since 2014. Their services help dental practices attract fee for service patients, increase treatment acceptance, reactivate unengaged patients, and increase recurring revenue.
In partnership with Rectangle Health, Smile Advantage also helps practices utilize best-in-class payment and automation solutions to increase cash flow and improve office efficiencies.
“Smile Advantage is what we call a subscription dentistry platform. Or in the world of dentistry, we work with private practices and some DSO practices. Dental offices that want to offer their patients an alternative to traditional insurance. Some offices refer to that as an in-house or savings plan; that concept has morphed over the last couple of years into more of a membership sort of model.”
Can you talk about your organization’s needs, specifically, what were you looking to address when it came to running the day-to-day, centralizing systems, data, and payments?
“Smile Advantage initially started helping other practices learn what membership is, how to set up your fee structures, how to set fees for patients, and how to manage and grow a membership program. The concept of Smile Advantage started with more coaching and consulting on activities and processes.
As my partner continued to grow the business, technology kept advancing, and more technology got involved; we saw the need. I saw the need to start utilizing those systems and processes and automating things to help [practices] be successful. And the number one thing was to automate payments and automate a payment plan or recurring subscription. Setting up recurring payments for the end user, in this case, the patient, was a key part of the future Smile Advantage was going for.
My [business] partner came across Rectangle Health and said, “Hey, there’s some technology here to sort of help promote that.” That’s how we ended up navigating towards working with Rectangle Health and seeing those automated systems and being able to vault credit cards and store them securely. For example, PCI-compliant storage for credit card information and setting up recurring payments for our patients or our clients and their patients. That was a key part of what we needed to do to centralize those systems and manage the patient’s data. [Our clients] need the ability to charge patients’ credit cards within a supportive and secure platform.”
When you started looking for a healthcare-specific technology company to work with, what were the must-haves for functionality? What elements of Rectangle Health’s solution stood out most to you?
“There are a lot of different credit card processing companies and gateways, but one thing we have really liked about working with Rectangle Health and the team at Rectangle Health is just being that industry niche-specific partner. Rectangle Health is in the dental space and several other medical spaces. We feel like there’s a lot of collaboration and helpful information working with a partner familiar with our industry. We work with Rectangle Health representatives that are in dental practices every single day, and they see the need for our platform and see the value in our partnering together. And so having a big organization, aside from the technology perspective of their solutions, having the team and [them] understanding what we do, helps support growing our business.
Also, the cross-collaboration of teams in different spaces. We know that Rectangle Health representatives will reach out to us when they’re at a dental conference and bring us together. I think the commonality of being in the same industry and niche is beneficial to us.
Some of the other partners said, “No, we’re not going to do that, or we’re not going to customize that, or that’s not an option with us, you know, it’s a one-size-fits-all sort of thing.” And that just really wasn’t going to work with us. Smile Advantage’s real advantage has been that we help practices customize. We always say this is your membership program powered by Smile Advantage, with payments powered by Rectangle Health. And while the dentistry industry is similar in many ways, every practice is different. That’s why every single practice has a different DNA and community and culture, and the way that they do their dental memberships needs to reflect that and so again, some of the other technology partners that we started to work with just were very stiff and rigid and did not allow that flexibility for us. So that was an important part of looking for somebody to power the payments, store payment information, and automate those payments.
That’s why we’ve continued moving forward with Rectangle Health.”
When we think about front-office staff, the end users, how has their day-to-day changed since these feature sets were made available?
“These sets, these feature sets, are so critical, and the front office team, which is then the whole team, can offer a patient experience that exceeds expectations. It’s five-star customer service.”
When you get in the weeds of managing things on your own, worrying about PCI compliance, HIPAA compliance, and the accounting side, it’s a lot to handle as a front-office team. And in today’s culture, with a lot of turnovers, having that taken off of our plates and having features provided by Rectangle Health and Smile Advantage makes their every day easier. And optimizing their every day is crucial. It gives them the ability to put their energy in places that the patients will appreciate…to be able to provide a great experience to their patients. That’s because they know they have trusted partners that they can rely on to handle these day-to-day [tasks] that can be automated and are set up in systems best for the practice by experienced companies like Rectangle Health and Smile Advantage.”
What is the greatest positive impact for Smile Advantage in working with Rectangle Health?
“For us, there are things that we are great at, things that we excel at, and things that we want to do, but then there are things that we don’t want to do or is something that we have to provide for our clients that we don’t know anything about [like] the technical side of managing and facilitating payments and credit card payments.
There’s so much stuff in there, let alone the legal liabilities for stuff that we would have no clue about or even know where to start. Having that on Rectangle Health’s plate in our partnership has been a huge positive thing that, again, is why we initially were seeking out a partner to help assist in that area, which is a very critical and crucial part of our business. To have a partner we can rely on and lean on for managing the technical, scary stuff, like PCI compliance, vaulting credit cards, and payment liability. All that stuff has greatly benefited us in our partnership with Rectangle Health.”
What has that experience been like when you contact Ryan Chambers, your practice solutions consultant, to share what Smile Advantage’s office managers are looking for and how we can help?
“There’s just this awesome partnership and communication between the two of us. The ease of it. He makes himself so available not only to me but to our entire team. And even more importantly, to our clients. I can count on Ryan chambers; it is just a matter of reaching out. And half the time, I don’t even have to. He anticipates things, so he’s very experienced in what he’s doing, but to be able to do a handoff to him and know that I can 110% trust the fact that he is going to follow through and serve our clients at the level that I serve our clients is a huge sigh of relief. He comes at things with a very solutions-based thought process. He’s very innovative and can pivot and collaborate with me, my team, and our clients to get optimal results. Five stars, for sure.
Let Rectangle Health help you get more done.
As a leader in healthcare technology solutions, we understand the friction points in your administrative processes that drain valuable time from each day. We’ve designed our innovative work and cash flow platform, Practice Management Bridge®, with ease and efficiency in mind.
By modernizing and simplifying practice operations, our system saves your staff time while helping you achieve faster payments, higher revenues, and improved patient engagement. Contactless payments, Text to Pay, online payments, and Card on File (CoF) give patients the payment options they want while eliminating the need for issuing checks and paper statements. Other features include digital registration forms, customizable text messages, automated payment posting, streamlined workflows, and an effortless user experience for staff and patients.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.