Free calculator

PPO Write-Off Calculator

How much of your production disappears into PPO fee schedules — and what would one more fee cut cost you?

Every PPO contract binds you to the plan's fee schedule. The difference between your office fee and what the plan pays is written off — and across a practice it adds up to thirty to fifty percent of gross production, the biggest leak a practice can have.

This calculator shows the write-off in dollars — a year, a day, five years — from three numbers you know: annual collections, the share that comes from insured patients, and your average write-off. Then it answers the question that arrives with every renewal letter: what does it cost you when one plan cuts its fees?

The numbers already filled in belong to an example practice — $1,150,000 in annual collections · 75% of collections from insured patients · a 35% average write-off · 60% overhead · a 5% fee cut to model. They are there so you can see the calculator work before you type anything; they are not benchmarks. Replace them with your own.

Everything is calculated in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent to us or stored.

Your write-offs, in dollars

Change any number and press Calculate. Reset brings the example practice back.

Your numbers

$

What the practice actually collected in the last twelve months.

%

The portion of collections that came from patients on PPO plans — a share of the money, not of the patients.

%

The gap between your office fee and what your plans pay, as a share of production. Across a practice it runs 30–50%.

%

Total practice costs as a share of collections. Used only in the fee-cut scenario.

%

The next reduction of a fee schedule, applied to all your insured collections — the second result below.

What your plans are writing off

At a % write-off, your PPO plans are writing off about a year.
Collections from insured patients
Collections from everyone else
Production those insured patients represented, at your office fees
Written off each year
Written off each day
Over five years, at today's numbers

If your plans cut their fees

A % fee cut would cost you a year in net income.
Net income today
Insured collections after the cut
Total collections after the cut
Net income after the cut
Lost net income each year
As a share of today's net income
Lost each day
Over five years, at today's numbers

See which of your plans is doing the damage

PPO Inspector shows the write-off per code, per plan, from your own fee schedules — and what leaving the worst of them would do. Free for your first hundred days, with the other six tools.

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What fixes this

PPO Inspector, Step 7 of the 100 Day Profit Reset Protocol, shows the write-off on every procedure code of every plan you take, ranks the plans by profitability, and runs the what-if for leaving the worst of them — so the decision to renegotiate or drop a plan is made with numbers, not nerves.

In the first practice on Profit Smiles, monthly production was up $20,000 six months after dropping unprofitable insurance plans.

Results shown are from one practice following this protocol. Individual results may vary.

What PPO Inspector does →

How this is calculated

  • Collections from insured patients = annual collections × the insured share of collections.
  • Gross production from those patients = insured collections ÷ (1 − write-off %). What was written off = that production − what was collected. At a 35% write-off, every $65 collected began as $100 of production.
  • The fee-cut scenario holds overhead flat in dollars — a fee cut lowers what you collect, not what the practice costs to run — so the whole reduction comes out of net income.
  • Write-offs take 30–50% of gross production — the range used across Profit Smiles. The example practice uses 35%; enter your own.
  • Daily figures divide the annual figure by 365. The five-year line multiplies by five at today's numbers — no growth, no inflation, no change assumed.

This is arithmetic on the numbers you enter — an estimate, not a forecast, and not advice about your practice.

The other calculators: Out-of-network break-even · Treatment acceptance · Membership plan revenue · Patient attrition · Supply costs — or all of them.

See the same numbers on your own dashboard — free for a hundred days.

The protocol records your practice's baseline on day one, and every tool shows its dollar impact against it. No credit card, nothing to cancel.

Start the 100 Day Protocol Free

Free for 100 days · No credit card · Built by a practicing dentist