The most important things in brief
- A treatment plan is a structured overview of all planned services, appointments and costs of dental treatment.
- 50 to 70 percent All treatment plans are never implemented and thus cost practices up to 20 percent in turnover with existing patients.
- With digital creation, understandable patient communication and automatic tracking, the implementation rate can be significantly increased.
A patient leaves her practice with a multi-page treatment plan under her arm. She nods politely, says, “I'll think about it” — and doesn't answer back.
In the meantime, there are further unprocessed plans in your practice. No one has an overview of which of them are open, which have been signed and which have long been forgotten. Every practice is familiar with this situation — and this is exactly where one of the biggest unused revenue levers in everyday practice lies.
What is a treatment plan in a dental office?
A treatment plan is a structured overview of all planned services, appointments and costs of dental treatment. It forms the basis for patients to be able to make an informed decision — and at the same time provides legal protection for their practice.
Important for differentiation: “treatment plan” is the generic term. The Treatment and Cost Plan (ICP) is a specific, legally prescribed form of treatment plan — namely when benefits are to be settled with the statutory health insurance company.
A treatment plan can therefore be an ICP, but it doesn't have to be. Pure private services such as implants, bleaching or aligners are also included in treatment plans.
Treatment plans fulfill two functions at the same time in your practice. Legally, they are the written documentation of your obligation to provide information in accordance with Section 630e BGB and protect you from liability risks. Economically, they are the basis for the patient's decision-making: No signature without a clear plan, no signature no start of treatment, no turnover without a start of treatment.
What types of treatment plans are there?
In dental practice, you will encounter several types of plans, which differ in form and purpose:
- Health and Cost Plan (HKP): Standardised form for legally insured patients, especially for dentures, orthodontics and periodontal treatment. Must be approved by health insurance before treatment starts.
- Treatment plan for private services: Customizable plan for purely private services such as implants, bleaching or aligners. There are no cash requirements here, but there are usually higher budget values.
- Orthodontic treatment plan: Specific form for orthodontic treatments, which often last several years and therefore require long-term planning.
What is often overlooked in practice: A treatment plan rarely consists of a single document.
For more complex treatments, several documents quickly come together — the actual ICP, an additional cost agreement (MKV) for private services above the health insurance level and a laboratory cost estimate for dental services.
For the patient, it's a pile of paper. The challenge for your practice is to manage all documents as a coherent package. This is where most problems in everyday life start.
What does a complete treatment plan consist of?
In order for a treatment plan to be legally secure and understood by the patient, it should include the following components:
- Patient master data: Name, date of birth, insurance status and contact details.
- Diagnose: Accurate findings with tooth numbers and clinical evaluation as the basis for planned treatment.
- Planned services: Individual treatment steps with the associated BEMA and GOZ numbers.
- Cost breakdown: Clear separation between cash benefit, fixed contribution, personal contribution and purely private benefits.
- Treatment dates: Number of scheduled appointments, expected duration and order.
- Additional cost agreement: Show separately for private services above the cash level.
- Laboratory cost estimate: For dental services with a breakdown of material and laboratory costs.
- Clarification and signature: Patient signature with date as treatment approval and documentation of the information.
The more completely and transparently you prepare these points, the higher is the probability that your patient will actually accept the plan. However, it is just as important that the patient also understands the plan — because only those who can understand what is being planned and why will want to implement the treatment in the end.
How do you create a treatment plan? Step-by-step checklist
The following eight steps describe the ideal process from diagnosis to follow-up:
- Complete diagnosis and findings: Clean clinical diagnostics precede every plan. Record all findings with tooth numbers, X-rays and, if necessary, photos.
- Discuss treatment options with the patient: Present various treatment options — standard care, similar and different care — and explain the respective advantages and disadvantages.
- Create a plan in PVS: Record the planned services with the correct BEMA and GOZ numbers in your practice management system.
- Breakdown costs transparently: Make a clear distinction between cash benefit, fixed contribution, personal contribution and private benefit. Avoid collective positions that are incomprehensible to patients.
- Ensure that the documents are complete: Check whether all relevant documents are available — such as ICP, additional cost agreement and laboratory cost estimate.
- Explain in a patient-friendly way: Translate technical terms and billing codes into understandable language. What you take for granted is often a hurdle for medical laymen.
- Handing over the plan to patients — ideally digitally: A printed plan that goes home with you is forgotten in many cases. A digital plan remains visible and can be accessed again at any time.
- Ensure follow-up: Define clear reminder intervals and responsibilities within the team. Without systematic follow-up, the high-priced plans in particular are stalled.
Steps 5 to 8 can now be fully digitally mapped. The Nelly KI Plan Agent automates exactly this part of the process, from shipping to patient-friendly preparation to follow-up. Read more about how this works below.
Why are so many treatment plans not being implemented?
50 to 70 percent of all treatment plans in Germany are never implemented. For your practice, this means that up to 20 percent of potential turnover with existing patients remains behind.
This is about patients who have already been there, have already received advice and to whom you have already presented a plan. They have therefore already acquired the patients, but not yet the full range of services. The causes can be grouped in three patterns.
Patients don't understand the plans
A typical treatment plan is full of BEMA and GOZ figures, fixed allowance tables and technical terms. For you as a dentist, these are routine vocables. For your patients, it is a document in technical language that they can neither classify nor question.
Without understanding, however, no decision is made — and without a decision, no signature.
Practice Lacks an Overview
In most practices, all documents end up unsorted in PVS or in folders at reception. A medical history sheet, an uploaded data protection PDF and a 20,000-euro treatment plan have the same visibility there.
Which plan is open? Which signed? Which has the highest score and should be prioritized? These questions simply cannot be answered without a structured overview — even though high-priced plans in particular have the greatest leverage.
No one is systematically following up
Even when plans are recorded, follow-up fails in everyday life. Your team doesn't have time to follow up on all open plans — and when they do, that time is missing in the dental chair.
Generic reminders that look the same for all documents have little effect. Patients who are distracted rarely come back on their own without an active reminder. Hope is not a strategy here.
Digital solutions such as the Nelly KI Plan Agent address precisely these three weak points.
How the Nelly KI Plan Agent automatically tracks your treatment plans
The Nelly KI Plan Agent Is a new solution that digitally accompanies treatment plans from creation to implementation. The aim is to significantly increase the conversion of your plans — and thus to realize revenue that has already been created in your practice but has not yet been retrieved.
“I was absolutely impressed by the Nelly KI Plan Agent: It makes everyday work noticeably easier, saves an enormous amount of time and provides a significantly better overview for both the practice and the patients. I am particularly impressed by how quickly and easily everything works. An all-round successful digital solution! “Stefanie Plogmann, dental administrative assistant
Create directly from your PVS
Plans are transferred directly from common practice management systems and automatically appear in the Nelly portal — clearly assigned to the right patient.
AI summary in patient-friendly language
When uploaded, the AI automatically creates a clear title and an understandable summary of the plan. It therefore translates billing codes and technical terms into a language that patients understand without prior knowledge.
You retain full control and can adjust the title and summary yourself at any time. Patients can thus see at a glance what is planned, why it is necessary and what it costs.
Smart overview with status, type and planned value
In the Nelly Portal, you can see all your practice plans at a glance: What type they are, what status they are in and what value they represent for your practice. A 20,000-euro plan is therefore no longer next to a data protection PDF.
You immediately recognize where your sales potential lies. High-priced plans are automatically prioritized so your team knows which issues deserve attention first.
Automatic reminders and follow-up
As soon as a plan is sent out, the AI takes care of the follow-up. Patients are reminded at intervals that you configure yourself — context-related to the respective plan, not with generic collective emails. Communication takes place via the channels that your patients use anyway: WhatsApp, SMS or e-mail.
If there is no response, your team can follow up manually, and all actions can be viewed in the history. Plans without an agreed follow-up appointment are automatically visible — a gap that remains completely under the radar in many practices today. This ensures that every signature actually becomes a treatment.
In the next few months, additional functions will be added, including direct appointment booking by the patient. This makes the Plan Agent a continuous workflow orchestrator from the first dispatch to the agreed follow-up date.
Learn more about the Nelly KI Plan Agent here: https://www.getnelly.de/produkte/ki-plan-agent
Conclusion: Treatment plans are not an administrative issue, but a revenue lever
Anyone who regards treatment plans as a mere administrative task is giving away turnover that is already available in practice. Anyone who sees it as a conversion task — communicating in an understandable way, managing it in a structured way and systematically following it up — is using one of the biggest unused levers in dental practice. The step to digitize this process is no longer a topic of the future, but a concrete decision that has a direct effect on practical results.
Find out now free of charge: Find out in a Non-binding conversationHow the Nelly KI Plan Agent automatically tracks your treatment plans and significantly increases your implementation rate.
FAQs about the treatment plan in the dental office
What is the difference between treatment plan and treatment and cost plan?
The treatment plan is the generic term for a structured overview of all planned services, appointments and costs of treatment. The Treatment and Cost Plan (ICP) is a specific form of treatment plan — namely when benefits are to be settled with the statutory health insurance fund. So every ICP is a treatment plan, but not every treatment plan is an ICP.
How long is a treatment plan valid?
An approved treatment and cost plan from the statutory health insurance company is generally valid for six months from approval. There is no legal validity period for purely private services, but you should set clear deadlines internally for updating cost estimates, as material and laboratory costs may change.
How can I increase the implementation rate of my treatment plans?
The most important levers are understandable patient communication, structured overview in practice and systematic follow-up. Anyone who prepares plans in patient-friendly language, bundles all associated documents, prioritizes high-priced plans and uses automatic reminders significantly increases the implementation rate — and thus generates revenue that has remained unchanged so far.
