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AI Diagnosis in Dentistry: Case Acceptance Tool or Expensive Second Opinion? dental technology insurance & ppo practice operations Sep 15, 2026

The same software reading your X-rays chairside may be reading them again at the insurance company.

Straight answer first. Chairside dental AI (Overjet, Pearl, VideaHealth and a growing list of others) typically runs about $250 to $500 a month per location for a standard practice, based on publishe...

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The 2026 Fiscal Squeeze: Why Your Revenue Grew and Your Real Profit Didn't dental economy insurance & ppo practice finance Aug 10, 2026

Every quarter the ADA publishes two index numbers side by side and every quarter the industry press reprints them without doing the arithmetic. The Q2 2026 report is no exception.

Here they are. Since January 2021, prices for dental equipment and supplies rose 23%. Hourly earnings for dental office...

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Dentistry Is Losing the Health Care Wallet, and It Has Been for a Decade dental economy insurance & ppo practice finance Aug 09, 2026

Most of what gets written about the dental economy is cyclical. Good quarter, bad quarter, confidence up, confidence down. The ADA's Q2 2026 report contains one chart that isn't cyclical at all, and it's the one I'd put in front of anybody making a ten-year decision about this industry.

Over the de...

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Dentists Said They'd Drop Insurance in 2026. Most of Them Didn't. dental economy insurance & ppo practice finance Aug 08, 2026

There's a slide in the ADA's Q2 2026 report that almost nobody is writing about, and it's the most revealing page in the deck.

In Q4 of 2025, the Health Policy Institute asked owner dentists what they planned to do in 2026. Then, six months later, they asked the same group what they'd actually done...

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The ADA's Q2 2026 Dental Economy Report: What the Numbers Actually Say dental economy insurance & ppo practice finance Aug 05, 2026

The ADA Health Policy Institute released its Q2 2026 update on the state of the U.S. dental economy in July. Forty-seven slides, four core sections, plus a new section on AI usage in dental practices.

Most of the coverage has focused on two numbers: dentist confidence is up, and 43% of dentists now...

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Insurance vs. Fee-for-Service: The Math and the Ethics, Kept Separate insurance & ppo practice finance Aug 04, 2026

Direct answer: the insurance versus fee-for-service question is a math problem with an ethics problem sitting on top of it. Run the write-off analysis plan by plan to find your effective hourly rate on each one. Then, separately and never in the same conversation, make sure nobody on your team is le...

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Reimbursement Rates Ticked Up. Don't Celebrate Yet. dental economy insurance & ppo Jul 28, 2026

The ADA's Q1 2026 data shows dental reimbursement rates rose slightly in February. I know how that headline reads — like good news, finally, after years of owners feeling squeezed from every direction. Read past the first line, though, and the long-term picture is a lot less flattering. Rates still ...

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Where Dental Loss Ratio Stands in 2026: A State-by-State Look at the Fastest-Moving Fight in Dental Insurance insurance & ppo regulation & compliance Jul 03, 2026

Twenty-five states have filed some version of a dental loss ratio bill since 2023, by my count. Two of them have actually gotten a mandatory minimum across the finish line. Sit with that gap for a second — that's the whole story of where this fight stands in 2026, more than any single headline could...

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Dental Loss Ratio and Your Practice: What the 2026 Legislative Wave Actually Means for Reimbursement insurance & ppo regulation & compliance Jul 01, 2026

If you caught our first post on dental loss ratio, you already know the mechanics — DLR sets a floor on how much of every premium dollar an insurer has to spend on patient care. What that post skipped over is the question every practice owner and DSO operator actually cares about, which is whether a...

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What Is Dental Loss Ratio? The 83% Rule Every Dental Office Should Understand insurance & ppo regulation & compliance Jun 29, 2026

Ask ten dentists what "dental loss ratio" means and you'll get eight blank stares, one wild guess about lost patients, and one office manager who read something on the ADA site last month and has been waiting for an excuse to bring it up at lunch. Fair. It's not a phrase that rolls off the tongue in...

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What Is a Good PPO Write-Off Rate? Dental Benchmark Data and the Drop-Plan Analysis insurance & ppo practice operations Jun 19, 2026

Most dentists know their PPO write-off rate is high. Few know exactly which plans are the worst offenders, what it's actually costing them in annual dollars, and what would realistically happen to their revenue if they dropped one.

That's not a knowledge problem — it's a data problem. The analysis ...

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What the One Big Beautiful Bill Actually Does to Your Dental Practice — A Plain-English Breakdown insurance & ppo regulation & compliance Jun 09, 2026

By Dental Strategy Institute | June 2026 | 8-Minute Read


President Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" has received extensive coverage for its immigration and tax provisions. Its impact on dental practices has received comparatively little — which is a problem, because the implications for pract...

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