From 35% to 60%: lifting treatment-plan acceptance with financing + follow-up

Industry baseline for treatment-plan acceptance — measured as plans presented vs. plans where the patient agrees to treatment within 90 days — sits at 35%. Practices doing it well land 55-65%. The 30-point gap is worth $200-400k/year for a typical general practice.

Two things drive that gap: friction at the moment of yes, and absence of follow-up if the patient says "let me think."

The moment of yes: financing

80% of patients who decline a plan over $1,000 say cost is the reason. About half of those would have accepted with financing. CareCredit is the dental-vertical default and the one Cadence wires up: ~65% applicant approval rate, accepted at ~80% of practices already, and a soft credit pull that doesn't affect the patient's score until they accept the line.

Operational tip: don't leave the financing offer at treatment presentation alone. SMS the financing link the same afternoon if the patient says "I need to talk to my spouse" — they'll click it that night and apply before the conversation moves on.

Operational tip: don't leave the financing offer at treatment presentation alone. SMS the financing link the same afternoon if the patient says "I need to talk to my spouse" — they'll click it that night and apply before the conversation moves on.

The follow-up sequence

Patients who don't accept on the day go cold fast. The decay curve:

• Week 1: 80% will still accept if you reach out.
• Week 4: 35% will still accept.
• Week 12: 8% will still accept.

The 7-30-90 follow-up cadence captures most of the recoverable revenue:

1. Day 7: SMS from the practice with the financing link + a one-line nudge ("Hey {name}, wanted to make sure you saw the financing options for the plan we discussed").
2. Day 30: Phone call from the front desk or AI agent. Not a sales call — just "checking in to see if you have any questions." About 15% accept on this touch.
3. Day 90: Email with the plan PDF + a financing link, framed as "our records show you have a treatment plan we presented; here's the financing options if it's still on your mind."

What it looks like in numbers

A general dentistry practice presenting 10 plans per week at $1,800 average:

• At 35% acceptance: $6,300/week, $327,600/year.
• At 60% acceptance: $10,800/week, $561,600/year.

That's a $234,000 annual delta from getting the financing-plus-follow-up motion right, on a single-doctor practice. Multi-doctor practices and ortho practices see proportionally larger lifts because their average plan value is higher.

What Cadence ships in this stack

Cadence customers get:

• One-click financing offers via Maya — pick the vendor based on the plan amount + patient profile, send the SMS.
• Automated 7/30/90 follow-up sequence per plan, opt-out per patient.
• Treatment-plan acceptance dashboard (/dashboard/insights) — see your current rate + the plan-value-accepted dollar figure refresh on every page load.

Roughly the same amount of work as the front desk does today; better outcomes because the sequence runs even when the front desk is on a 90-second hold with insurance.