Introduction
Dental RCM might the single most important aspect of a medical practice that has to be fully optimized in order for a medical practice to secure a healthy financial stature. However, dental practices often find themselves in a state of shock to see their revenue collection decrease and the number of claim denials increase with time. This is why we have gathered some of the most effective dental RCM strategies to improve practice for your dental practice.
Explanation of Dental RCM and its importance in maximizing revenue for dental practices
Before delving into the strategies for dental RCM optimization, let’s first discuss the basics of Dental RCM along with its benefits in terms of increasing revenue collection for dental practice management.
Let’s take the example of a dental practice that provides oral care to patients in the United States. As the entire system is insurance-backed, dental practices have to carefully resolve the breakdown of benefits and follow a complete medical billing and coding process to file for claim reimbursements.
General Overview of the Blog
This blog is an effort to provide dental practices with some cost-effective strategies to improve Dental Practice Revenue. It will highlight important revenue cycle steps that improve a dental practice’s overall revenue collections and contribute to the financial independence of the practice. This is why this blog will be of maximum utility to dental practices in the United States and contribute to a highly effective revenue cycle.
Streamlining the Front Office Processes
Among the Strategies to Improve Dental Practice Revenue, the first and foremost is to streamline the front-office processes and manage eligibility verification. Yes, that’s right! You’ll be surprised to see how big of a difference that will have in terms of improving your overall Dental Practice Revenue and decreasing your account receivables. Therefore, let’s dive into some of the most important ways through which you can easily streamline your front office processes and end up with better Dental Practice Revenue with time.
Importance of accurate patient registration and eligibility verification
Patient registration and eligibility verification are considered the initial but crucial steps in revenue cycle management. Studies show that a strong eligibility verification system provides dental practices with the necessary wherewithal to increase revenue collection and control A/R.
This is primarily because over 50% of the claim denials faced by a dental billing company occur mainly because of errors and mistakes in the eligibility verification and breakdown of benefits, and there are studies that support that as well. Therefore, this is why physicians should ensure a healthy environment for the front office, and contribute to their own financial security.
Tips for ensuring accurate patient registration and eligibility verification
We’ve talked about the importance of eligibility verification, but let’s look at some of the ways we can ensure accurate patient registration for dental practices. Well, first of all, a dental practice has to invest in professional and experienced front desk operators in order to ensure that this part of the revenue cycle management is taken care of. Once that is done, you’ll see a rise in your overall Dental Practice Revenue and it will result in better financial independence for your medical practice.
Secondly, another important way to ensure patient registration is to outsource your revenue cycle, especially eligibility verification and breakdown of benefits. After that, you’ll see your breakdown of benefits being optimized and resulting in lower account receivables with time. This option is highly cost-effective as there are numerous dental billing and revenue cycle management companies in the United States offering these services.
Importance of effective appointment scheduling and reminders
When we talk about eligibility verification and the breakdown of benefits, it all boils down to the effectiveness of scheduling appointments and putting in those necessary reminders. This is why the primary focus of dental practices should be to keep an eye on the overall schedules and appointments being made on a daily basis. Once this supervision is ensured, the entire revenue cycle breathes a sigh of relief and things start moving in the right direction all of a sudden. Hence, it is necessary that the appointments are scheduled at least 72 hours before the visit, and reminders are dispatched to patients on a regular basis.
Insurance Claims Processing and Follow-Up
Amongst the other Strategies to Improve Dental Practice Revenue, an effective one is to ensure accurate claims processing and follow-ups. Just by maintaining proper claim submissions, and implementing a cost-effective strategy for the purpose, one can easily improve the overall claims processing time, reduce billing errors, and enhance Dental Practice Revenue with time. Let’s dive into the realm of claims processing and understand its importance along with the benefits of outsourcing insurance claims processing and follow-ups.
Importance of efficient insurance claims processing and follow-up
To be precise, the entire revenue cycle system has insurance claims processing at its center as it is the major part of the medical billing ecosystem. This is why it is important for insurance claims processing to be up-to-the-mark, as it has a massive impact on the overall claim reimbursement rate. Hence, with a strong insurance claims processing system, a dental practice is likely to have better Dental Practice Revenue.
So, the most important aspect of a dental practice is to ensure a cost-effective yet efficient insurance claims processing system. This includes regular follow-ups and supervision of the entire system that results in strong optimization and enhancement of the overall Dental Practice Revenue, leading to better financial independence and stability.
How to Improve insurance claims processing and follow-up?
The best way to improve insurance claims processing and follow-ups are to invest in the latest software, technology, and manpower. This is how one can easily improve insurance claims processing and follow-ups, and ensure a smooth workflow for their dental practice. Thus, a healthy workflow backed up with quality resources is highly important for an efficient insurance claims processing system to be established.
Secondly, another major way to improve your insurance claims system is to hire a professional dental billing company that can assist dental practices with their dental billing RCM and overall insurance claims processing and follow-ups as well. The idea is to outsource the core part of your dental practice to professional insurance claims processing companies in order to increase efficiency and maintain a healthy follow-up rate as well.
Benefits of outsourcing insurance claims processing and follow-up
Here are some of the major benefits of outsourcing your insurance claims processing and follow-ups to a professional dental billing company in the United States.
- The first and foremost benefit is that dental practices can easily focus on their bottom line and provide better patient care without worrying about their financial independence.
- In addition to this, a dental practice can save time and money by outsourcing its insurance claims processing system.
- Outsourcing your claims processing is much more cost-effective as compared to an in-house team that consumes higher resources and ends up with limited productivity in the end.
Technology in Dental RCM
Revenue Cycle Management has always been a hard nut to crack for dental practices in the United States, considering the higher levels of complexity associated with the entire process. This is why it is important for dental practices to utilize the latest technology and software to manage their revenue collection and maintain a healthy claim reimbursement rate. This is where the role of EHR software and the latest updated technology for revenue cycle management becomes necessary.
Explanation of how technology can improve dental RCM
Well, Dental RCM can be considered just as complex if not more than the revenue cycle of medical practices in the United States. Studies suggest that people are becoming much more aware of their oral health, and trying to keep themselves safe from oral diseases, some of which were unheard of in the past few years.
As a result, the patient influx is expected to increase, and a smooth workflow and revenue cycle management for dental practices has become absolutely necessary. This is where technology and the latest software can be used to fill those gaps and provide a better platform for dental practices to scale their operations and make their practice perform better in the long run.
Examples of technology tools such as Chat GPT
With the rise of Artificial Intelligence, I’m witnessing its use in numerous industries to improve productivity and add to overall marketing strategies. The newly introduced Chat GPT is no different, and dental practices can utilize this tool for marketing purposes as well as patient registration, appointment scheduling, insurance claims processing, and patient collections. Here are some of those areas where technology and artificial intelligence such as Chat GPT can add value to the overall working of dental practices in the United States:
- Creating Customized Marketing Messages
- Creating Leads
- Accurate Dental Billing and Coding
- Enhancing Client Services
- Increasing Persuasiveness in Communication
- Improving Patient Education
Staff Training and Communication
Another important strategy to improve Dental Practice Revenue is to invest more in the training and communication capacity of people in the practice. This can’t be stressed enough, and it is the backbone that provides practices with an edge in the industry. As a result, the Dental Practice Revenue can be improved, and a high claim reimbursement rate can be ensured. This is a tried and tested strategy that improves the quality of work being done by your office staff and contributes to a positive workflow for dental practices in the industry.
Importance of staff training and communication in dental RCM
Well, Dental RCM is considered to be a highly intricate and complex task with new coding and billing guidelines being introduced on a consistent basis. As a result, dental billers and coders have to stay updated with the changes and make sure that there are no mistakes in the process. This is why investing in the staff training and communication of your dental billing staff is probably the best decision you can make in your practice.
Outsourcing Dental RCM
Lastly, and probably among the most popular strategies to improve Dental Practice Revenue is the idea of outsourcing dental rcm to a professional dental billing company such as Dental Revenue Group. By doing this, you can easily make sure that your Dental Practice Revenue collection is higher and account receivables are lower. Once that is ensured, your focus will automatically shift toward your bottom line, and you can be in a better position to provide better patient care as compared to a compromised situation where you’re having to look at problems with your revenue cycle as well as attend to patients as well—A strategy for disaster in the healthcare sector.
The ways how outsourcing can help dental practices maximize revenue
Outsourcing can help maximize revenue in the following way:
- Provide better revenue cycle management strategies by professionals in the industry.
- Ensure prompt claim submission and processing.
- Provide practices with better opportunities for patient care
- Reduce claim denials and control account receivables/
Pros and cons of outsourcing dental RCM
- The only con for outsourcing dental RCM could be the small price that a practice has to pay as a proportion of the claims.
- The pros for outsourcing dental RCM are numerous including:
Better workflow for practices
2. A smooth cash flow.
3. Higher claim reimbursement rates.
4. Lower denials and A/R management.
How to Choose a Dental Billing Company for Dental RCM?
We all know that there are numerous Dental Billing Companies out there, all trying to sell their services to medical practices across the United States. However, many providers often ask for the best ways to choose a dental billing company for their needs.
Well, we hate to inform you that choosing a dental billing company for your billing needs is actually an intricate and risky venture that we all should learn about. The only obstruction is the lack of information available on this endeavor online.
Hence, here are some of the best ways you can choose a dental billing company in 2023:
Check for the Company’s Reputation and Track Record
The first and most important point is to check a dental billing company’s overall reputation in the industry. You can search for its history or talk to its clients to see whether the company has a good track record in the industry. Such a check will allow you to gauge your outsourcing decision and end up with a quality dental billing firm that will provide good value for money.
Check for Compliance and Data Protection
We all know that patient data is highly sensitive and needs to be protected at all costs. Therefore, before outsourcing your dental RCM, you have to check whether the company is fully HIPAA Compliant or not. In this way, you will not have to compromise the safety of your patient’s oral care information.
Check for Quality Customer Care and Communication
Lastly, a company with quality customer care services can take your medical practice a long way. dental billing companies that invest in the communication skills, as well as critical thinking of their employees, end us with a workforce that provides maximum value to practices in terms of their dental RCM and real-time denial management as well.
Conclusion
To sum it up, dental practices in the United States have multiple strategies to improve their dental practice revenue including the usage of technology, training, capacity building, and even outsourcing their revenue cycle management as well. In all of these strategies, dental practices can invest proportionately in all or either one of these in order to achieve the best results. The idea is to improve the dental RCM and contribute to a better workflow that will in turn ensure a higher practice revenue for dental practices in the United States.
To know more about these strategies, you can contact our customer service representatives anytime and we will provide you with the initial guidelines to boost your revenue and elevate your claim reimbursement rate.
