The promise of a new year often inspires new plans, new goals, and possibly new processes. For example, dental billing can be an unnecessary burden for a perpetually busy and hardworking office manager in a growing practice. When you have patient experiences to manage in-office, you run out of time to devote hours to revenue cycle mangement. This is why we have created a plan to support your office manager AND get your revenue cycle robust and healthy before the new year — and beyond!
Find patient billing peace of mind
Patient billing is complex on multiple fronts. For one, it requires detailed records management, managing financial arrangements, and copay collection — on top of billing insurance claims. Patient billing A/R is the product of “too much of a good thing”, meaning that if you’re seeing the same patients or getting new ones consistently, your office might be falling behind on collecting 100% of what you’re rightfully owed.
To dos:
- Collect full estimated patient copayment at the time of treatment to streamline cash flow
- Complete a ledger audit before sending a statement
- Have a dedicated phone line for patient billing questions
- Clean bad debt from your insurance aging report and start fresh
Commit to a Pre-Appointment Readiness Plan
Committing to a Pre-Appointment Readiness Plan means planning out the treatment process from A-Z. This includes everything that happens before your patient even walks in the door. Do you know the important details of their insurance policy? Does the patient? No insurance policy is the same, even from the same insurer, and financial discussions and treatment plan presentation are much easier with a Pre-Appointment Readiness Plan.
To dos:
- Create a plan for verifying new and existing patient benefits to keep information accurate in the practice management software
- Verify patient insurance policy benefits 48-72 hours before appointments
- Keep the insurance card and policy information in the practice management software
Improve patient retention
The average dental practice patient retention rate is 41%, which means that only 4 out of every 10 patients returns to the dental practice for follow-up care. The ideal patient retention rate is 85%. So what can be done to improve patient retention?
To dos:
Balance the books
Your Office Manager wears multiple hats, but there’s a good chance that one of those hats is not a dental bookkeeper. Especially if you accept EFTs, you deserve the peace of mind of knowing the payments in your bank account match what is in your practice management software.
To dos:
- Reconcile deposits with your bank and practice management software daily
- Balance your checkbook monthly (bookkeeping service only) by the 15th day of the following month
- Categorize all of your expenses and deposits daily
Streamline your revenue cycle management
To dos:
- Execute a Pre-Appointment Readiness Plan
- Submit clean claims for payment within 1 business day
- Collect 100% of what’s rightfully owed
- Track EFT payments and make sure none fall through the cracks
- Post all payments to patient ledgers within 1 business day
- Reconcile your dental software & merchant statements with your bank and with QuickBooks
- Consistently remind patients to pay overdue balances
- Get patients back on your schedule
- Access to industry-leading coding support
If this dental practice success to-do list looks like a bit too much work on top of your daily office tasks, you’re in luck. All you have to do is CLICK HERE to start the process of streamlining your revenue cycle management with eAssist Dental Solutions. Then, you can finally relax for the weekend knowing that your practice is in good hands because eAssist can help knock out your weekly to-do list by managing your patient and insurance accounts, recare scheduling, insurance verification, EFT reconciliation, and more.
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