How does internet dental price shopping create a downward discounting spiral that practices should avoid? Patients now routinely search procedure-plus-price online before calling any practice. They find pages of cheaper quotes from practices that have decided to compete on price alone. A practice that quotes a number on the phone enters that comparison immediately, almost always at the higher end, and almost always loses. Worse, the practice has now joined a game it cannot win, because there will always be a cheaper competitor somewhere. Economists fear deflation more than almost any other economic condition because deflation is discounting that is not [...]

How does internet dental price shopping create a downward discounting spiral that practices should avoid? Patients now routinely search procedure-plus-price online before calling any practice. They find pages of cheaper quotes from practices that have decided to compete on price alone. A practice that quotes a number on the phone enters that comparison immediately, almost always at the higher end, and almost always loses. Worse, the practice has now joined a game it cannot win, because there will always be a cheaper competitor somewhere. Economists fear deflation more than almost any other economic condition because deflation is discounting that is not [...]

How does internet dental price shopping create a downward discounting spiral that practices should avoid? Patients now routinely search procedure-plus-price online before calling any practice. They find pages of cheaper quotes from practices that have decided to compete on price alone. A practice that quotes a number on the phone enters that comparison immediately, almost always at the higher end, and almost always loses. Worse, the practice has now joined a game it cannot win, because there will always be a cheaper competitor somewhere. Economists fear deflation more than almost any other economic condition because deflation is discounting that is not [...]