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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
The conversation usually starts the same way. A practice owner has just run the numbers on their PPO contracts — or they've been handed a 4% fee reduction notice from a major plan — and they're thinking, seriously this time, about whether there's a way out.
Going insurance-free is one of those idea...
I've had this conversation a hundred times. A practice owner tells me they're "pretty sure" they're making money on their PPO contracts. They're staying busy, the schedule is full, and the collection numbers look reasonable. Everything seems fine.
Then we sit down and actually run the numbers. And ...
The math on PPO participation gets worse every year. Write-offs that once felt manageable now consume 35 to 45 percent of production in many markets. Fee schedules that haven't moved in a decade are being applied to a cost structure that has. And yet the conventional wisdom — that you can't exit PPO...