In today’s challenging dental care landscape, billing and claims are critical components for the success of a dental practice. Using patient billing services has become a popular option for many healthcare organizations, including dental practices and groups. To achieve the highest returns, one must understand how patient revenues can be maximized.
Verify Patient Eligibility
Insurance verification is a laborious process that consumes a lot of time. It commences with fixing appointments and collating insurance data beforehand. The team can verify the information prior to meeting any patient because identifying the financial responsibility is vital and many patients may receive a bill amount higher than expected.
It is critical to confirm patient eligibility and evaluate the dental coverage and active advantages at that time. Existing patient data must be verified if the insurance plan is active or changed. An existing plan must also be evaluated for what benefits are still covered.
Create An Effective Dental Billing Approach
An effective dental billing approach helps in boosting the revenue for the practice. While the dental care solutions the practice offers can attract patients, proper management of the billing process is critical for retaining clients.
A well-planned billing strategy can aid in collections while lowering the cost of effort, resources, and processes. All players involved in the process must be briefed accordingly and this includes patients.
Patients need to be made aware of the co-pay amount and they should be collected in advance. The teams must also identify what payment alternatives are offered and what payment options can be used to improve the dental billing collection process.
Patient Engagement
Patient engagement includes interacting with patients at all stages of the treatment. An enhanced patient experience starts even prior to treatment and continues after the treatment helps improve the ROI. This results in boosting the number of visits that the patient makes; the number of billable services received as well as the standard of follow-up care they receive.
Cordial relationships with the dental service provider
A collaborative relationship leads to more productive outcomes between the practice and the outsourced billing partner. The partner must also understand the specific requirements, procedures, or, policies that will lead to a better alignment of common goals. It can also guide the business with best practices that lead to smoother and faster documentation processes and operations.
Records of Claims
The command and control over the claims and reimbursements are pivotal to the overall financial growth of the dental practice. Beyond just filing claims, keeping track of reimbursements is critical. It is important to send reminders and notifications to the insurance companies until all claims are successfully processed. Rejected must be reviewed, analyzed, and filed with the insurance companies post rectifying all issues.
Provide Patients with Simple Payment Options
For any practice, a gamut of payment options can considerably contribute to boosting the ROI. Post verification of the patient’s eligibility, the practice staff are aware of all the services that are covered, wherever co-payment from the patient is needed, or the services that are not covered by the insurance company.
Patients need to receive simple and clear instructions that can aid them in tracking all due payments. Offering multiple payment modes that include cheques, cash, or cards improves the possibility of receiving payments from patients. Investing and integrating technology can speed up existing processes and procedures while avoiding errors that result from badly written or misplaced documents.
Assign Appropriate Codes
Codes that are assigned by the practice are crucial to billing claims. Dental professionals are provided with a set of codes for each process that are dynamic and constantly updated. The best way to assign appropriate dental codes to the claims is by keeping abreast of the recent list of codes.
The practice can assign dedicated personnel for drafting and submitting dental billing claims who need to be properly trained and instructed on these processes. Incorrectly assigned codes or wrongly filed claims will always lead to rejection thus leading to a delay in reimbursements.
Friendly yet persistent Follow-Up
Bringing the value of the accounts receivables down is imperative for profitability and cash flows. Practices need to invest resources in collections while patients can get annoyed when chased for money which could eventually turn the patient-practice relationship a bit sour.
A change in approach against the existing process can create a superior experience for patients. Achieving the precise balance between empathy and persistence is the pivotal factor for successfully handling a challenge.
One needs to understand the situation while keeping a firm follow-up on the outstanding. Collecting advance amounts on a continual basis during the treatment process will make it easier for the patient to pay the required dues.
