10 Challenges faced by Dentists in the United States
Dentistry is a profession which requires a high level of precision with optimal skills and a heightened sense of empathy towards the patients. The market is shrinking by the day as there is an ever increasing influx of freshly graduated dentists in the already saturated market. With the changing dynamics of the industry, it becomes even more challenging for a dentist, to sustain in the market and to smoothly run his practice. This article tries to touch upon some of the major challenges that dentists face in the country.
1. Getting new patients
The primary objective of a dentist is to provide quality services to his patients and to acquire new patients through the goodwill he has created in the market. In a highly competitive market, it gets difficult for any dentist to retain the flow of patients into his office. It gets critical for him to take time out from his office routine and market his services on his own. This leaves him with little time for the practice itself which, over time, affects the quality of the service.
2. Raising the revenue
Over time, the overhead costs at the dental office shoot up and that calls for efforts to raise the revenue. In order to increase profits, the number of patients should increase and that requires money to be spent in the marketing of the services. With increasing footfalls, the quality of service deteriorates as the dentist is left with less time to give to each patient, which results in customer dissatisfaction. So, it’s a challenge for any dentist to manage his time between the optimum time he wishes to give to each patient and the time he uses for marketing.
3. Third party payment organizations
This topic received the highest ranking in an extensive survey on the perception of Dental practitioners on the challenges facing the Profession, published by Dr. Gordon J. Christensen, founder and director of Practical Clinical Courses(PCC) in Utah. The limitations for fee settings which are determined by the third party payment companies, creates frustration within the dentist community. Third party payment companies providing benefits for services is not an issue, but the area of concern for the dentists is, them setting and dictating fees for the services for which they don't offer benefits. This gets tricky and challenging at the same time for dentists as sometimes it gets difficult for them to generate revenue at current costs.
4. Hiring the right dental staff
The ever changing standards of dentistry require a dentist to focus on honing his skills with the changing dynamics of the industry and this requires the support of the right staff at his dental office to take care of the day-to-day operations. The services of a right staff makes work easier for the dentist. It is a challenge for dentists to find the right dental staff who would be reliable and efficient enough to run the practice smoothly.
5. Upgrading to the latest equipment
Advances in technology have greatly transformed our lives in every sphere and dentistry is no exception. The well-informed patients of modern times want to be expansively treated with the latest technology and equipment. Most dentists do not have enough funding to regularly upgrade their offices with the latest equipment and this results in less number of patients visiting them for treatment.
6. Corporate dentistry firms providing services
Studying dentistry is so expensive in the country that newly qualified dentists are forced to start their practice with corporate dentistry firms to pay off the high student loans. These firms are like super stores which provide all the services under one roof. In recent times, such firms have made inroads even in smaller towns which makes it difficult for private dentists to run their own practice.
7. Aging population of the U.S.
The American population is aging. It is expected that over the next 40 years the number of Americans aged 65 and above will more than double to nearly 80 million by 2040. In old age, the condition of teeth deteriorates and the structure of jaw gets complex. The nerves in the teeth also become smaller making the teeth less sensitive to cavities and other dental problems. Dentists need to be updated in their skill set to deal with cases involving such complexities in dental problems and with more patients with such dental problems coming to them for treatment, it becomes challenging for them to give adequate time to deal with the complexities of their dental problems while managing other hectic affairs of the office.
8. The changing demographics
The United States has the largest immigrant population in the world with more than 45 million foreign born people living in the country. The population of the U.S. is very diverse with almost all the ethnicities of the world represented among U.S. immigrants. Studies have shown that dental characteristics differ in all ethnicities. With the number of immigrants to U.S. increasing every year it gets challenging for the dentists to constantly update their skill set so as to be able to take care of the dental problems of the patients of all the ethnicities who come to them for treatment.
9. Insurance billing management
The whole process of getting the patient to the office and performing the required dental procedures along with managing the billing operation of every patient leaves little scope for the dentist to handle insurance billing management. Billing management requires ample time and a dedicated staff for filing claims. Improper filing of claims results in a high number of claim denials and an overall loss for the dentist. There are many billing companies offering their services to take care of billing management for the dentist. It is a challenge for dentists to find a credible dental billing and collection company to associate with.
10. Lack of support for dentists
Young dentists find it hard to establish their practice in the market. One of the reasons for this is lack of support from established practitioners to guide them in running the practice efficiently. Without proper guidance, they find it hard to manage the cash flow and earn regular profits.
The challenges discussed in this article are some of the major challenges that dentists in the country have to face but there might be so many of their concerns that might not have been touched upon.These challenges need to be addressed to stiffen the resolve of dentists and help them sustain their practices in the highly competitive market.
Do you ever wonder how a phone call can take your patient experience to the next level? Since patients are the lifeblood of your practice, it is your duly responsibility to handle them with ease. A phone call from your patient could be an ultimate source of revenue, if taken care of properly.
To make sure that a phone experience goes flawless, you need to extract out the trouble areas first. In a busy world where dental practices thrive, time is the key component. A patient call sheet is the only weapon you could make best use of. It has all the patient information and it also sets the base for simultaneously building a relationship with your patient.
If your practice is not using a call sheet, it’s time to create a customized one. The only major objective should be to build a new relationship with your patient and set the stage for case acceptance. Another way to use patient’s phone calls smartly is to use all of the information that you gather over the phone call.
One such example is a patient no show. To eliminate the problems causing patient no-shows, it is advisable to relay the information acquired. During a phone call, the first and last moments of an interaction are what patients remember. If your front desk staff acts annoyed at the patient, it can become difficult to recover. Similarly, not having follow up phone calls can also let them feel overlooked, so these are some important areas to be monitored.
There are many businesses that rely on the fact that customer is always right. The same goes for dental industry. There is no room for defensiveness or apathy when it comes to delivering a great customer experience. Instead the staff should sincerely empathize with the patient and try to solve their problems.
While interacting with the patients, your front office staff should always bring their A game at all times. This is important and calls the need to hire reliable, proficient and compassionate people.
Hiring like minded people with the right skills set can go a long way to move your dental practice and improve your patient satisfaction scores, thereby optimizing revenue and increasing efficiency
Accounts Receivable Aging Report is an asset to your dental practice. It helps you in understanding what’s going on in your practice. An efficient report system helps you in understanding whether your practice is making money or not. Out of the many reports that are sent on a monthly basis, Accounts Receivable Aging report helps in understanding how long insurance claims and patient balances have been outstanding. This is displayed both in dollar terms and as a percentage of 120 days. The lower the percentage, the better the results; which indicate that you are getting paid in a timely manner.
An aging report gives you an illustration of the money that is outstanding to your practice. It is segregated in such a way that you can review all accounts that are due and past due. You can also see which accounts are 30 days late, 60 days late and 90 days late. As the name suggests Accounts Receivable Aging report, includes the age of outstanding claims. The standard categories for this kind of report are:
The major objective of receivables report is to help the dental practice identify what receivables need urgent attention. If Account Receivables is not managed properly, it results in reduced cash flow and increased collection costs. The Accounts Receivables Aging Report breaks down the number of claims based on how long they have been outstanding, with the objective of getting them reimbursed within 45 days.
At Capline, our competent professionals review each claim in each payor to make sure proper reimbursement is done. Once the claims are analyzed, steps are initiated based on the following:
As a part of our dental billing services, we offer a variety of customized reports for your practice. Our reports are sent on a monthly basis. So, if you need help with analysis, schedule a call with us. Our experts will scrutinize your practice to identify the loopholes. We will get you the peace of mind by offering expert assistance and taking care of your entire billing process easily.
AR follow up is one of the most important tasks dental practices should take care of inorder to avoid significant loss of revenue. However, dental practices face a lot of challenges dealing with their AR follow up. Therefore, it is advisable for them to work on a structured process that removes undue stress.
Outsourcing the accounts receivable process is an ideal solution. By outsourcing, you will get professional help from experienced billers who can help you save on manpower and cost. At Capline, our objective is to reduce the time of AR follow up. For the same, we regularly follow up on pending claims. Our accounts receivable team strategizes the right approach by conducting an analysis of pending AR with regular follow up of insurance provider and patients. Our team proactively follows up with insurance companies on claims that are pending for more than 30 days. This helps us in settling the denials in a timely manner.
Why Claims Get Denied?
Below are some of the key reasons why claims gets denied:
We help practices avoid payment delays by:
There are many dental billing companies in the US that struggle with AR management. Therefore, it is good to outsource dental billing services to an experienced dental billing company in USA. Having multiple years of experience, Capline has been providing unmatched Accounts Receivable Management services to its clients. So, we are an expert team to trust when it comes to maintaining cash flow of your practice. Schedule a call and see how our experts can work to improve the revenue of your practice.
A study conducted by Capario reveals a shocking number of practices that do not check insurance coverage before the treatment. According to the study, there were some practices that didn’t check eligibility until the treatment whereas there were some who did not check eligibility at all. The results were quite disappointing and concerning too as failing to check eligibility can lead to a variety of issues related to the RCM. Listed below are some of the mistakes that you can avoid by checking patient eligibility before the treatment:
Inappropriate Billing
To ensure accurate billing, it is important to check patient insurance eligibility before the treatment. Not checking eligibility leads to issues in billing for both your practice and patients. For patients, not verifying eligibility could lead to a patient being overcharged for their treatment. Similarly, if your staff provides treatment without checking the coverage and eventually gets to know that the patient is not covered under the treatment, it results in your practice paying more than what the patient expected.
Similarly, without verifying the insurance info, your patient might end up paying higher or lower copay.
Reducing Denials
Providers who do not check coverage before providing treatment are likely to have their claims denied. Claim denials can be very difficult to resubmit, so checking coverage before the treatment can prevent claim denials and delayed payments.
If your dental practice offers treatment and submits a claim without checking the patient’s coverage and later discovers that the patient is not covered, the claim is likely to be denied. To prevent this, you must tell your staff to verify eligibility before submitting a claim. To prevent this from happening in the future, it is also important to investigate the cause of claim denial whenever it occurs.
Avoiding Duplicate Billing
When a claim is submitted more than once, there is an increased possibility of duplicate billing to occur. Sometimes a procedure is canceled but it is not removed from the patient account. This might even occur due to a simple human error.
There are many practices that are fined each year for processing duplicate bills. If a practice files inaccurate claims willingly, it's naturally considered a fraud. The best way to prevent such an error from happening again is by conducting an audit. Audit will help you analyze that all claims are billed accurately for the given procedure.
Many practices lack staff expertise and the right technology to manage denials effectively. Outsourcing revenue cycle management to an expert dental billing company like Capline could be a profitable alternative. We can help you extract the root cause of denial and multiply the revenue cycle. Contact us today to discuss how we can shape your practice’s bottomline.
The current age of Internet demands any business to have a flourishing web presence. The same goes for a dental practice too. If your practice’s website is not optimized properly, you might be losing patients and falling behind the competition. SEO gets organic traffic from search engines or you can say that it makes your website readable to popular search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. According to the research, 80% of customers use search engines to locate any dental practice.
Visitors on the web look for practice address, business hours, reviews and direction. There is a tough competition amongst practices to compete for businesses within a 10 mile radius of their location. To allow your practice sustain in this competitive web space, it is important to take care of some of the SEO basics that will bring in new patients and also let you stay connected with your current patients.
SEO Techniques to Optimize Your Website
SEO is an important element of a successful online reputation. It doesn’t happen overnight, however an ongoing investment will help you to bring more traffic and targeted visitors. Ultimately, a proper website experience might lead to an exponential increase in collections of your dental practice.
Front desk can have significant impact not only in patient experience but also revenue cycle management of your practice. Any patient coming to your practice judges its effectiveness by the way they are treated at the front-desk. So, your front-desk is an essential determinant of your practice’s revenue cycle management and should be taken care of properly. Nobody would want their front-desk to be the reason for patient disregarding your practice or expertise, right? Therefore, it is important for practices to ensure that their patients are pleased with their visit. Listed below are some problems that any front-desk staff usually face. We will help you identify them and manage tactfully.
Increased Number of Lengthy Calls
Dental practices receive large volume of calls throughout the day. There are times when the frequency of calls go high and it becomes cumbersome for the front office staff to answer them promptly. Calls also get intervene when patients decide not to stay over the phone for a longer time duration. The entire experience turns out to be even frustrating when patient care is compromised.
To prevent such issues from happening in the future, let us take care of your phone calls. At Capline Dental Services, we connect on your behalf to verify eligibility and benefits.
Reducing the Time Patients Spend in the Waiting Room
If patients are constantly checking their watches, spending their precious time in your waiting room, it is definitely a problem. It is important to remember that these situations can have a negative impact in your practice. Overcoming such issue is extremely important. For doing the same, it is important to educate your staff on handling administrative function properly. A follow-up conversation is important to keep patients comfortable. Therefore, you must inform the patients regarding longer wait times and schedule their appointment accordingly.
The day-to-day work at a dental practice is extremely important to its overall success as a business and keeping your front office in shape can make a significant impact on your bottom line.
Say No to Paperwork
How much time your staff takes to organize and update patient information? When you compare, you will find outsourcing as a better solution. Our billing experts can get it done right for you in a preferable amount of time. Our billing experts are informed at what they do and can offer your patients an error-free billing solution with minimum denials and maximum reimbursement for your practice.
These are some of the common mistakes your dental practice must avoid to improve the efficiency of your front office staff, while closely meeting patient’s needs.
As they say, first impression is the last impression. This turns out to be extremely true for a dental billing practice. If you want your billing and collection process to be quick, efficient and hassle-free, you must ensure that everything is streamlined. There are times when small tasks can fall through the cracks and huge tasks go wasted. However, if everyone is on the same page, each of the tasks can be handled easily and managed well. This eventually keeps your practice’s bottomline healthy.
In order to energize your billing and collection process, you must start with the front office staff. Here are some tips that can help you in delivering an outstanding patient experience.
Start the Process Even Before the Patient Enters the Door
It is extremely helpful and important to verify insurance, copay and deductible before the patient arrives at the office. You can also check to see if patients have paid the amount in full or left with an unmet deductible. So, any kind of billing and payment related queries can be taken care of properly. Staff should clearly inform the patient about what all they owe on the day of visit. Remember, the more clear information is conveyed, the more it helps in collecting payment from patients.
Verify Eligibility Beforehand
Despite being highly important, this is often overlooked. If eligibility verification is not planned in a proper way, chances are that your practice might lose both time and money. Imagine how difficult it becomes if your staff is occupied keeping track of returned claims, updating patient information, resubmitting claims and collecting payments. All this eventually leads to unsatisfied patient experience and loss in revenue. To make patient care and billing uncomplicated, billing experts are here to help. They keep a track whether the insurance information is updated and eligibility is verified beforehand. If everything is sorted, there would be no immediate surprises, delay in payment or unnecessary hassle.
Check Before Patients Leave
There are a lot of tasks remaining pending while your patient is ready to check out. Ask your staff to review the bill. Meanwhile, collect any additional payments, if pending from the patient. Besides, look for options that make it easier for patients to pay. You can also opt for online payment modes to eliminate the unnecessary hassle.
When your front office acts smart, you will automatically see an increase in revenue, meaning more income for your practice. You can also outsource us for your billing and collection needs to improve your front office efficiency and get maximum patients.
Preventing patient attrition is the foremost thing a practice must do to succeed. With more and more patients coming in, you end up with extra paperwork and less time during the day to spend with them. It is very important for a practice to strike a perfect balance between paperwork and patient care because losing any of them would turn out to be a no-win scenario.
So, the real answer to your need would be outsourcing dental billing work to us.
Delivering High-End Service Since Day 1
There are many practices that fail to perform when it comes to hiring a dedicated dental billing team. They end up asking their front office staff to fulfill both patient interaction and dental billing responsibilities. However, when the focus of your front office staff is split between these two tasks, neither of them would get full attention. This, in turn, leads to a front desk staff who is stressed and trying to rush through their patient interaction so that they can jump back to the paperwork. This leaves your patients feeling undervalued and cause them to never come back again to your office.
When the task of dental billing is outsourced, your front desk staff will be focusing only on one thing, i.e. patient care. They can take more time with patients and provide a higher level of patient care. In return, it will benefit the patient as the patient ends up feeling valued and cared for. This kind of treatment maximizes loyalty and lets your patients stick with you for years.
Longer Appointment Times
Patients in the US often complain of not being heard about their concerns since doctors are rushing through appointments and not taking time to talk to patients. For a practice to sustain, it is important to see a certain number of patients each day. However, if your front office staff is taking care of appointments and paperwork altogether, it becomes a little difficult and leaves patients feeling rushed. On the other hand, patients who are paying for their care would look for valuable treatment.
The only solution to get rid of such hassle is to outsource the paperwork to us. Let us handle all your paperwork so that you can focus strictly on patient care. It will also allow you to spend more time with each patient and building a rapport. This level of interaction leads to effective treatment and it is only possible if you outsource dental billing and insurance verification.
No More Errors in Billing
Any kind of error in billing can also have a major impact on how patients perceive about your office. Insurance and billing can be a complicated task to handle but your patients are depending on you to get it right. At Capline Dental Services, we have experienced dental billers who can get the job done correctly and efficiently by providing your patients with an accurate bill. Patients who know that you can do it right for them are going to be far more satisfied with the experience and are more likely to retain you as their dentist.
So, if your practice is losing patients and struggling to keep up with paperwork, connect with our billers today who will put the focus of your staff back to patient care, thereby delivering an improved level of patient satisfaction.
As a dental care provider, your priority is bonding with patients. However, it is often overlooked owing to administrative tasks like paperwork, billing and scheduling. To eliminate the stress related to paperwork, dental practices have started harnessing the power of practice management software (PMS). This is definitely a huge step towards the success of a dental practice. Since an efficient PMS has an important role to benefit your practice, it is therefore important for you to do some exercise before opting a particular one.
Here are the top features your PMS must have. Let’s walk through them:
Integration with EHR
EHR or Electronic Health Records must work together in coordination with the practice management software. It reduces the efforts of your billing staff. The data needs to be entered only once, thereby helping in speeding up the process. Further, the PMS will automatically pull the information from the EHR.
Integrating EHR and practice management systems multiplies revenue as having all the data at one place makes it easier to organize the claims and submit them to the payers. So, a lot of things get fixed along with errors by simply having a PMS that integrates with EHR.
Automation and Efficiency
Taking advantage of automated features, you can easily improve your practice’s bottom line. It helps your practice with day-to-day operations, like taking off the burden of your front office, allowing patients to request an appointment online and by verifying eligibility verification on a real-time basis.
All thanks to its billing and scheduling features that make it easier to update patient records. It is a system that best matches your practice’s needs and will play a huge role in your practice’s success.
Security
Security in the dental industry has become a major obstacle. Therefore, it is important to ensure that your PMS has a number of security features. To help your dental practice remain compliant with HIPPA, you must have a robust and secure system with the latest and tested security features.
Reporting
Reporting helps you understand where your practice stands financially. A PMS can help you design robust reports that give you an in-depth look at what’s happening with your practice. Reports can be created in less time. It also allows you to apply analytics to the data to offer a comprehensive look at key indicators.
Scheduling
Gone are the days when patients used to book appointments on paper. A PMS with an efficient scheduling system helps practices keep their schedule full and get patients in quickly. So, always go for a software that includes appointment scheduling feature. It makes easier to set follow-up sessions and reschedule patients when they call to cancel appointment at the last moment.
Right from scheduling all the organizational tasks to improve workflow and adding productivity, our PMS is meant for practices of all sizes. Practices that underestimate the importance of having a reliable PMS could be falling short of revenue and patient retention. Do not forget to look for these features when selecting a PMS for your practice. Not only it helps to streamline billing but also save time for patients and staff.
