Are you a dentist who is struggling to increase his/her ROI? We know how difficult it is to provide quality dental care to patients while also looking to increase your revenue. Dental billing strategies primarily determine the financial performance of a dental practice. The more effectively you interact with insurance companies, the faster your reimbursements will be, having contributed to your ROI.
If enhancing your dental billing service is not currently on your list of 2022 goals, you should consider making it a priority. Faulty or inadequate billing systems significantly reduce patient collections, resulting in lower dental practice revenues. Although redesigning your current billing service may appear daunting, you can create numerous improvements simultaneously! Discovering ways to increase your company’s profit margins can be difficult, but with some imagination, you might be able to shift the needle significantly. If you’re curious about how to develop the best ways to handle your dental billing and boost ROI, this blog post will help you cover specific information.
Tips To Enhance Your Dental Billing Strategies and ROI
Get inspired by these fantastic tips for improving your dental billing strategies!
Verify Patient Eligibility
Insurance verification is a lengthy process that begins with scheduling appointments and gathering insurance information ahead of time. In that case, the office can verify the information before seeing the patient. Recognizing the patient’s financial responsibility beforehand is crucial because the bill may be higher than the patient expectation. If you genuinely want to see an increase in your ROI, you must verify your patient’s eligibility ahead of time. When a patient schedules an appointment at your clinic, you must confirm their eligibility and go over their dental coverage and active advantages at the time. If an existing patient has planned an appointment with you, you must verify whether they still have the same insurance plan or if it has been changed. Even if they are still using the same old plan, you should check to see what advantages they still have under the coverage. You must repeat the whole dental insurance verification process if they have a new plan. Verifying your patients’ eligibility can help you avoid situations where you’ve sent out a dental billing claim to the insurance company, and they’ve returned it, indicating that the service isn’t covered for the patient.
Analyze Your Contracted Fee Schedules
It is critical to examine the cost of dental treatments you provide. According to the most recent ADA guidelines, the cost of preventing infection and using personal protective equipment will likely rise soon. That necessitates a severe review of dental professionals’ contracted fee schedules. Even a slight increase in the cost of a few dental procedures can significantly and positively impact your ROI.
Create An Effective Dental Billing Approach
Effective dental billing is essential for generating revenue. No matter how good the dental care solutions you provide to patients or how large the turnout at your clinic is, you will not be able to achieve financial benefits unless you properly manage the billing. An effective dental billing strategy can assist you in collecting everything you owe while minimizing the cost of processes and the effort and time you’ve put in. Create a clear and thorough collection strategy. The best way to achieve this is to create a step-by-step collection and billing process flow chart. Each stakeholder must be given specific instructions. Your patients are included in this. Your dental revenue cycle significantly changes when your patients recognize their duties. Patients should be aware of their co-pays and have them collected in advance. If patients’ bills are overdue or their accounts are due for collections, they should be given a letter. Finally, ensure what payment alternatives are available and what payment methods they can use to improve the dental billing collection process.
Patient Outreach
Patient outreach includes engaging patients before, during, and after their visit. Rising patient outreach improves your healthcare ROI by better informing your patients on all aspects of their care, providing them with essential communication tools, and keeping them updated on your practice’s occurrences. By raising patient engagement, you can boost the number of visits your patients complete, the number of billable services they receive, and the level of follow-up care they receive. Investing in tools that enable you better reach your patients is an excellent way to boost your healthcare ROI.
Maintain A Record Of Dental Billing Claims
The traction of your claims is essential to your overall dental billing approach. Because your dental clinic’s overall financial growth depends on insurance company reimbursements, you must keep track of them. You cannot simply file a claim and walk away from the situation. Instead, you must keep track of the claims and send notifications to the insurance companies until they are processed.
Occasionally, claims are denied. In such cases, you must review them, identify the issues, and then file an appeal with the insurance companies after making the necessary changes. If you do not do so promptly, you are more liable to lose the reimbursement for that claim.
Provide Patients With Simple Payment Options
Most practices do not recognize this as a crucial component, but it can play a significant role in enhancing your dental billing strategies and contribute significantly to your ROI. Because you’ve already verified the patient’s eligibility, you’ll know which services are covered, which involve a co-payment from the patient, and which are not covered at all by the insurance company. With this data in hand, you must always notify your patients of the co-pays or total payments they will be required to make. It would help if you also implemented transparent initiatives, such as instructing patients to pay their fees during service.
Make sure your patients receive clear, readable declarations that assist them in keeping track of when their payments are due. It cannot be easy to collect payment if the billed amount is not accumulated at the time of service, which usually necessitates several phone calls and emails. Accepting various payment methods, such as cash, checks, credit, and debit cards, increase the chances of capturing the balance at check-in. Payments can also be made more accessible by incorporating an e-payment option into your patient portal. Integrating technology into your procedures is one way to improve your front desk’s efficiency. Start replacing traditional forms with tablets that patients can quickly fill out their needs. Technology allows you to avoid mistakes caused by poor writing skills or misplaced documents.
Assign Appropriate Codes
The codes you assign are essential to your dental billing claim. The ADA has provided dental professionals with a list of codes for each process, which they constantly update. The correct method to assign valid dental codes to each claim is to stay up to date with the most recent list of codes.
If you have devoted personnel who are creating and submitting dental billing claims at your clinic, you must instruct them thoroughly. They must always be up to date on the most recent dental codes and understand how to generate and submit insurance claims properly. If you cannot assign correct codes, the insurance company will most likely deny your claim, delaying or eliminating your chances of being reimbursed.
Outsourcing Dental Billing To Boost Your ROI
The above-mentioned tips are vital for enhancing your dental billing strategies and even contributing to maximizing your ROI. But hold on! Do you have enough time to provide quality dental care while implementing these suggestions at your dental clinic? Probably not.
Suppose you’re ready to plunge in and start using medical billing for dental procedures in your office. DRG offers the most sophisticated dental billing services to help alleviate the situation. We are a top-tier dental billing company that employs only certified, industry experts. They’re all experts with years of experience helping dentists to improve their dental billing services and generate more revenue. We have a wide range of plans to meet your requirements and budget. We have efficient billing and collection methodologies for dental clinics and professionals.
Join us today and see your dental practice grow in unexpected ways! Make an appointment for your consultation. We can help you with your billing issues and provide excellent service!
