Many dentists offer free or discounted dentistry to family, friends and other professionals or do a few “no charge” free visits every week because they feel guilty about their fees. It is nice to be charitable when you can and help out your employees but too many “courtesy adjustments” can hurt the bottom line of the business.
Chasing after patients who owe you money can be time consuming for the business staff and not the most pleasant activity. Many offices forego making collection calls and write-off the balances. Once it is written off the accounts receivables takes a big sigh of relief but the adjustment numbers take a jump.
Bad debt and collection adjustments should not be more than 2% of gross production. If these adjustments are more than 2% it could mean a problem with your system of presenting financial arrangements, collecting at the time of service and estimating insurance co-payments.
If PPO insurance adjustments are not done correctly money that you have earned and have title to are being adjusted off in favor of the patient balance. Taking the time to speak to insurance representatives, if you do not understand the write off, will save you money. Learning if treatment that is not a covered benefit of the policy can be collected from the patient has saved many a practice quite a bit of money.
Thousands of dollars annually are written off because your staff doesn’t have the time to chase after the money or research the insurance to see what they can collect.
eAssist can help with insurance posting and appealing and with patient collections on the phone and with collections letters. Collect what you earn with eAssist’s team of billing specialists.
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