It is essential to have transparency in every relationship, whether it be professional or personal. Likewise, when you outsource dental billing services to a company and consider working with them, it is vital to be transparent about their expectations, timing, and the entire scope of work.
Expectations can lead to disappointments if not communicated clearly at the beginning of the work between the dental team and the outsourced billing company. Since you will be paying the billing company for work, and they will, in turn, provide you with their services, it is essential to have clarity of expectations of both sides.
Moreover, dental teams sometimes seem to have false expectations from the billing companies; therefore, it becomes imperative to understand both sides in the initial stage itself.
However, understanding these expectations will help both parties to establish a healthy relationship with honest expectations, adjust and make working easy together, and see positive results.
Let us look at the false expectations and reality of dental billing.
Expectation Vs. Reality related to Dental Billing
Longevity of the plan:
It is essential to discuss the plan’s longevity beforehand, how long you want the billing company to serve you and how long they plan to work with you.
Some dental teams expect the billing company to work only for short-term collection cleanup. As a result, they want the billing company to get claims off the aging report and then go.
A dental billing company’s objective is to relieve you from the revenue pressures of insurance billing. However, without a prompt and competent replacement, the burden of lost money will soon return if you decide to leave your dental billing service.
You may control a sizable chunk of your revenue by using a dental billing service, which is the money from insurance claims. When the customized collection mechanism is terminated, insurance payments stop coming in.
Unless you promptly engage a skilled insurance coordinator, expect low returns to reappear if you cease using that system (which could be costly). And up until then, handling your claims by a less qualified team member would result in more labor to fix issues.
Additionally, you should inform the billing firm if you intend to use the services for a brief time. In this respect, they can assist you in making plans to deal with potential insurance billing difficulties after you leave the union.
Line of Communication:
Most people assume that the outsourced billing company would operate in the background and never need to interact with your administrative team.
If the dental team is unwilling to engage with the remote biller, working with a dental billing firm will not work. The point of contact for your practice should be accessible to your biller during business hours, if necessary, though they do not necessarily need to speak every day. They should also be able to respond to a brief email.
Whichever option you choose, texts, emails, video chats, or phone calls, by explaining this to your billing firm, the expectation is established, and the communication channel is made apparent.
Extension of the team:
Dental administrative teams frequently experience anxiety when their practitioner outsources the billing firm. They worry that the remote biller will run the administrative staff and take over all facets of billing.
The dental billing company wants to operate collaboratively rather than compete with the administrative staff. As a result, your internal staff will be better able to provide an outstanding patient experience, expedite the insurance verification process, and produce a more efficient patient billing procedure with an efficient claims process.
The better the dentist explains the billing company’s goals, the admin team is likely to feel less concerned.
Decision-maker:
Some dentists prefer to outsource their insurance billing completely. The performance of their administrative team, their outsourced biller, and their return on investment in the dental billing company, however, could be lost by dentists who do not believe they need to be involved in their billing.
The dentist needs to be updated on the internal team’s and remote biller’s statistics and efficiency. In addition, the administrative team should let the dentist know if they are experiencing problems with the dental billing company so that the dentist can speak with the primary point of contact. And vice-versa.
