Billing and insurance is a decidedly vital aspect of dental practice management. It is essential to your practice’s financial stability and to your patient satisfaction ratings. If you are struggling with this side of your practice, try these seven dental billing tips.
The specialists at Dental Practice Enhancement can also offer more personalized guidance. We can evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your practice. By helping you to build on what’s working, we can streamline your billing process and ensure that you are receiving more of your well-deserved income. We also offer virtual administrative services to take the pressure off of your team.
To learn more about our services or to schedule training, contact Dental Practice Enhancement today.
1. Always Verify Benefits Before Treatment
Always submit a pre-authorization to your patient’s insurance company prior to treatment. That way, your patients will know up front if their insurance company will cover the procedure or if there may be a higher-than-expected deductible.
2. Collect Payment at the Time of Service
Whenever possible, collect co-pays on the day of your patient’s treatment. Note that there are some insurance companies that may not allow this, and in these cases, your only option is to bill the patient later.
3. Offer Multiple Payment Options
Gone are the days when people regularly carried cash or checkbooks in their pockets. Provide multiple easy payment options, including credit card, autopay, an online portal, pay-by-phone, and text-to-pay.
4. Regularly Follow Up on Accounts Receivable
26% of medical groups audit their patient payments monthly, while 24% report that they never do so. Yet routine auditing is essential for a financially successful practice. If your team struggles to follow up with non-paying patients, we can help! We can provide training, write scripts for collections calls, and help you set up options like autopay.
5. Submit Insurance Claims Quickly
You may have anywhere from 30 days to 12 months to submit an insurance claim. But we recommend doing so within 24 hours of service. This will reduce the chances of paperwork being lost or mislaid. It will also make it easier to follow up if a claim is denied. And your patients will be much happier, knowing that all loose ends of their treatment have been tied up.
6. Frequently Work Your Insurance Aging Report
In addition to calling non-paying patients regularly, you should also call insurance companies to inquire about unpaid claims. Don’t just resubmit a claim. Actually get on the phone to find out if a claim has been denied, if they need more information, or if there is a mistake on the claim submission. We recommend doing this at least once a week.
7. Don’t Be Afraid to Outsource
Putting these dental billing tips into practice takes time. A lot of time. We understand that a lot of dental administrators simply don’t have the resources to take all these steps. That’s why we offer remote billing and insurance services. We can focus on billing while your in-house team takes care of day-to-day operations and patient services.
Contact Us for More Dental Billing Tips
For more dental billing tips or to get information about training and outsourcing, contact Dental Practice Enhancement today.
Send us an online message or call us at (833) DPE – FOR – U.
