Top Strategies to Simplify Your Dental Billing Process

James V. Anderson, DMD, CEO eAssist Dental Solutions/Dental Billing

Many dentists caught in the crossfires of looking for the “perfect” office manager lament: “If I just had someone who was an expert at our billing, I would feel financially secure.”

Many dentists want to avoid any part of the billing process, but they want to be in charge of hiring someone who is. So, how exactly do you hire an expert to help understand your billing process?

Let’s start with what not to do. Leaving your practice's most critical business decisions up to one person can be a recipe for disaster. By disaster, I refer to the fact that the American Dental Association’s Council on Dental Practice recently released the results of a survey showing that dental practice embezzlement is increasing.

While this is a reason to vet carefully and screen applicants, it doesn't protect you from those who will steal for the first time or for those who have never been caught. One person in charge of the practice bank is like inviting a fox into the henhouse.

Indeed, there are honest, dedicated, and skilled office managers, though they are hard to find. Even the best report needing help managing the accounts receivables.

Get involved in your daily revenue cycle management and know your numbers

The most important way to develop a sound and theft-proof practice billing system is to be involved and monitor it daily. There may be time involved, but due to the importance of knowing your numbers, it's time well spent.

Dental revenue cycle management (RCM) is a comprehensive process that encompasses the financial management of your dental care services. These include patient registration, insurance data entry, insurance verification, benefits breakdowns, appointment scheduling, clinical charting, correct coding, claim submission, follow-up and appeals, and more.

It sounds like a lot because several parts must align to achieve proper billing and reimbursement in an achievable and stress-free manner.

In today’s world of newer technology that improves dental practice systems, we can streamline old systems by simplifying dental billing procedures for more transparency and ease of operation. For dentists, this means better organization of data and retrieving the data quickly.

Take, for example, eServices from Henry Schein One. By digitizing your practice and getting away from paper, you can have much more control of the numbers and see the results quickly.

Have firm, clearly defined, and written collection policies for patients in their computer charts, and access them before patient arrival

Dental billing starts with consistent messaging. Establishing firm and flexible collection policies helps to eliminate future time-consuming work. The more collected, the less will show on the accounts receivables (AR) (monies owed to the practice). The higher the AR, the more person-hours are necessary to collect revenue. A domino effect occurs when more time is spent chasing money than producing income. In many practices, this looming and ever-growing AR is like a behemoth threatening the life of the practice.

Most dental practices have written financial options and agreements for patients. These agreements are written in your computer software and stored in the account for easy access to reference before the patient's arrival.  Unless there are people who can consistently monitor these accounts, what was agreed to is often cast aside.

For example, Patient "A" agrees to pay for the crown, ½ down at prep, and balance before seating. The patient pays the ½ down but doesn't pay at the seat because no one asked for the balance.

Solo and small group practices often need consistent staffing to monitor collections.

For example, Patient "B" has agreed to pay the co-insurance at the crown prep. The insurance is supposed to pay the remainder. However, no one checked insurance verification and benefits for this patient. The insurance denied payment due to non-eligibility status.

Support your team with training and communication in collections and insurance claim coding and creation

Turnover in trained staff members and a staffing shortage (pre and post-COVID-19) in dentistry has led to poor revenue cycle management and cash flow shortages.

If you have untrained people making collections, you have to make the rules easy to follow, such as:

Three rules to cash flow:  ASK FOR PAYMENT -

• Payment at the date of service: Cash or charge or outside funding; discount dental plans
• Payment of co-insurance and deductibles at the date of service (insurance verified)
• Payment in full for all lab-produced prosthetics at the date of final impressions

Get help from outsourced billing professionals and coding experts to avoid a dangerous backlog of unpaid claims and patient accounts

The most practical strategy for simplifying your dental billing process is to outsource dental billing, including insurance verification, insurance data entry, clean billing claims that are paid promptly, insurance claims follow-up and appeals, posting insurance checks, and daily monitoring of the health of your AR. Let trained, highly skilled insurance billing specialists put your AR in the black. Through outsourcing, you won’t need to worry about staffing shortages that cause interruptions in your cash flow because your remote extended billing team is always there to manage the flow steadily.

Additionally, an outsourced team eliminates the possibility of embezzlement. The best dental billing companies are paid on a percentage of collections, so you pay them only when they help you collect.

In summary, these strategies will help you streamline your dental billing processes and collect more for the work you do.

1. Get involved in your daily revenue cycle management and know your numbers.
2. Have firm, clearly defined, and written collection policies for patients in their computer charts and access before patient arrival.
3. Support your team with training and communication in collections and insurance claim coding and creation.
4. Get help from outsourced billing professionals and coding experts and avoid a dangerous backlog of unpaid claims and patient accounts.