Running a profitable dental practice is challenging enough without the constant worry over complex insurance processes, rejected claims, and other issues that prevent you from getting paid for what you produce. Have you evaluated your dental claims process? Here’s a tip: clean dental claims out, cash flow in. Research indicates that 65% of dental practices are insurance driven, so reviewing your dental claims for accuracy is crucial to revenue cycle management. Keep reading to learn what constitutes a clean claim, why they are crucial to your dental practice revenue, and how you can optimize your processes to create the patient-focused dental practice you have always dreamed of.

Clean dental claims are crucial to your revenue cycle

Sending clean dental claims daily helps solidify steady cash flow for your practice. But what is a “clean claim?” A clean claim is a claim that meets the following criteria:

Claim submitted on the most current ADA format
Correct CDT codes listed for procedures completed
Correct patient and insurance plan information
Claim submitted under the correct rendering provider
All documentation attached per insurance plan requirements

You don’t have to wait for a denial to correct a mistake. If you catch a claim that has been submitted with incorrect information, you should resubmit it immediately. Make sure to include “Corrected claim” and the original claim number in the Remarks section of the dental claim form to prevent your clearinghouse from denying it as a duplicate claim.

Identify the holes in your dental billing processes

According to dental coding expert, Dr. Charles Blair, approximately 33% of denied dental claims are appealed. This could be because the dental biller doesn’t have the time to appeal every denial, or they may not know when an appeal is warranted. Identifying the types of dental claim denials you see regularly will give insight into where the holes in your dental billing processes may be.

Have you considered dental billing outsourcing? You get dental billing specialists on your team that completely focus on consistent dental claim follow-up, getting claims paid, and all of the other processes that streamline dental practice revenue. This opens up the in-office team to focus on what matters: maximizing their important role in the office. So when a $100 claim comes back denied, the Office Manager that you pay $20-30 doesn’t have to shift focus from patient care for 3 hours to get it paid — which is losing you money.

Optimize your clean dental claims process

There are over 20 dental billing processes and missing even one can cause unnecessary delays in reimbursement for treatment rendered. These delays put a strain on your dental practice financially, but also on the relationship with your patients. This means that the dental billing processes are just as much customer service and patient satisfaction processes as they are operational processes.

eAssist Dental Solutions is here to help. As the nation’s leading platform for remote dental billing services, eAssist hosts a professional network of dental billing specialists to streamline the areas in your practice that are causing gaps in your dental practice revenue. While your eAssist team is optimizing your clean dental claims process and streamlining your dental billing, your Office Manager and front desk team are scheduling new and existing patients, facilitating community involvement logistics, delivering excellent patient care, increasing treatment plan acceptance, and a long list of other tasks that make your practice successful. The extra, knowledgeable eyes on your dental practice revenue cycle help keep you profitable and your staff focused on what matters: the patients.