Dr. Allen Nazeri advises dental practices to charge patients separately for PPE during COVID-19. Before the outbreak, surgical PPE cost about $10-$12 per batch and was absorbed by the practice. A full PPE set now runs around $25 per patient, though prices keep shifting.
Questions this video answers
March 4, 2020.
Dr. Allen Nazeri, DDS, MBA (Dr. Allen Dental Consulting).
About $10–$12 per batch.
About $25 per patient (estimated).
Chapters
Morning. This is Dr. Allen with Dr. Allen Dental Consulting. I had a couple of questions coming in the last couple of days regarding the ppe, or protective personal equipment that is used to protect both the employees as well as the patients in a dental practice. Now, as you know, as dentists or doctors, you're supposed to follow the universal precaution guidelines, meaning that anyone coming to your practice should be treated as if they're already infected. Okay, so. But because of the coronavirus outbreak right now, many practices are struggling to find personal protective equipment. And also typically most practices, they have been absorbing the cost of these treatments over time. So what we need to do is we need to discuss how you can actually start charging separately for these items, because this is absolutely important. As an employer, you are responsible both for protection of your employees as well as your patients. So one of the things you need to do is obviously you need to create a separate line item or a charge line that includes the protective personal equipment gear that is, you know, safety glasses.
Your masks, your head, cover your shoe, cover your gown for yourself and for the patient. Now, things like glasses obviously are not disposable, and you can certainly disinfect it, but you have to take that into the consideration. So my recommendation is to charge a fee that is reasonable, that covers the cost of buying the equipment as well as the time that it takes to order it, bring it in the shipping and everything else. In a typical practice when we do not have an outbreak, I used to do all of my surgical PPEs for about, I think was $12 a batch, which.
I used to get it from the Carl Mich Institute or actually an affiliated company with Carl Misch Institute for implants. And it was 10 to $12 a batch, and we would actually absorb that cost. But obviously with what's happening in the world today and the prices are going to the roof, you need to have a separate line item and you need to announce that immediately to the patients because the patients want to know that you are taking good care of them and you are using high quality protective materials and they're willing to pay for it. And I would recommend certainly to keep that charge going.
As something separate. I know most practices, they don't do that. Another way you could possibly label that charge is the infection control fee. Okay, So I hope this video helps to give you some idea of how to deal with this issue. I cannot give you any recommendation regarding the pricing because the pricing is changing so much so rapidly. But because these are commodities and pretty much anywhere in the world, the prices are pretty much about the same. I would probably think you are probably looking at a complete set of protective, personal protective equipment of about $25 per patient that would include also.
The gown and the mask for your dentists and employees. And this is considering that you're actually changing mask between employees, between patients, because some practices, they just use one mask, which is absolutely incorrect. Okay. And so forth. So anyway, if there are any questions or concerns, please reach out to me. My name is Dr. Allen. I help dentists and doctors to develop, scale and exit from their practices successfully. Thank you very much. If you like this video, if you have any comment, please go ahead and comment, subscribe and share. Thank you.
