You may be among the majority of dental practices that are struggling to find knowledgeable dental billers to add to your practice. Even if your practice doesn’t participate with multiple dental insurances, a working knowledge of the dental billing processes is crucial to the success of your dental practice. Applicants either seem to possess the dental billing knowledge needed, but are demanding a higher than expected salary, or they don’t have the knowledge at all. So this lends the question, is dental billing hard? Let’s explore this question, and expand on why — even if it’s hard — you need it.

For an explanation of what dental billing encompasses, CLICK HERE.

Is dental billing hard?

The dental billing processes encompass just about every aspect of your dental practice revenue cycle. A dental billing specialist needs a high level of knowledge to streamline these processes and keep your practice on the path to success.This begins with successful dental practice credentialing — or uncredentialing — and ends with retaining your current patients for life. But there is a long list of steps in between, and if even one of those steps is missed it can result in revenue disruptions.

A determining factor in assessing the knowledge of a new, or current, employee is that many dental administrators have either been self-taught or trained by a previous Office Manager. Until recently, this was the primary form of “training,” which usually included practices that worked for a specific office but aren’t universally applicable best practices.

To read all of the 22 dental billing processes, CLICK HERE.

To expand your dental billing knowledge, CLICK HERE.

Why is dental billing crucial?

Research tells us that nearly 65% of dental practices are participating with dental insurance — due to 50.2% of the adult population in the United States utilizing private dental insurance. This means that dental billing is crucial to your dental practice’s revenue cycle.

Annually, the average dental practice loses 9% of collectible revenue to missed dental billing processes, which can add up quickly regardless of the size of the practice.

Here’s an example:

Dental practice monthly production: $100,000

Dental practice monthly collections: $91,000

Uncollected revenue each month: $9,000

Uncollected revenue over 12 months: $108,000

Uncollected revenue over 30 years: $3,240,000

And this example is only if your dental practice were to stay at a consistent monthly production for 30 years. But you may have goals for growth — adding a hygienist or associate, doubling your new patient volume, etc. Which means your uncollected revenue is in danger of being even higher.

The benefits of having specialists on your team

This is why it is important to have specialists on your team, that are extremely knowledgeable in all of the dental billing processes and best practices. eAssist Dental Solutions is the nation’s leading platform for dental billing services and has specialists that know the dental billing processes forwards, backward, and upside down. They also have access to industry experts and an expansive knowledge base.

All of this adds up to increased cash flow, more time for patient care, and no more revenue cycle disruptions for your dental practice.

Email LearnMore@eassist.me, call (844) 327-7478, or click below to start your enrollment.