Dental Support Specialties

As a small business owner, you wear a lot of hats: you manage the overall finances of the dental practice, lead your staff, continue your training as a dental expert, and perform outstanding care on patients, of course. However, you don’t have to get down into the weeds of each transaction with insurance companies or try constantly to find someone to do it for you in-house. In fact, for the reasons detailed below, you can outsource dental billing to an American company that specializes in this area of dentistry and maintaining the business you’ve worked so hard to build.

Two dental offices can offer similar services and be located in the same area but have completely different practices in terms of culture and success. A business strategy that works for one may not benefit the other. Outsourcing dental billing is an effective, smart idea for many dental practices but not all. Who might not need this service? Keep reading to find out!

Back when you decided to become a dentist, you probably felt proud and excited about building your own practice, but the pressures of opening and running a small business are extremely real. In fact, according to the Chamber of Commerce, 595,000 businesses close every year in the United States, and about 65 percent of businesses fail even 10 years after opening! Obviously, every penny matters to stay afloat.

Although outsourcing your dental billing may not be at the top of your list of methods to improve your practice’s efficiency, perhaps it should be! Worries about the cost may make you hesitate, but rates usually depend on how much revenue you collect from insurance monthly. With the following benefits of outsourcing dental billing, you’re bound to find it’s well worth the cost!

When you have a new patient come into your dental practice, they may find it annoying to have to sign a stack of paperwork, but this step of the process actually benefits both parties. One of those important documents is the dental consent form, which states that the patient gives your practice permission to treat them. This consent may seem implied and obvious, but addressing every detail in writing can protect you from being sued, fined, or worse and can make sure the patient knows what they need to know about treatment they are going to receive.

Overall, digital technology has greatly elevated modern life, helped reduce impact on the environment, and assisted in business efficiency. Simply put, it makes everything easier! When it comes to dental insurance verification, digital technology can also be useful to eliminate human error, both when criminally intentional and when innocently accidental, in many billing situations. Before learning how digital technology can improve dental insurance verification, you’ll need to know why verification matters and how it works.

Let’s face it—very few people like or even understand insurance. It can be complicated, have odd phrasing, and include many exceptions to coverage. However, if you own and operate a dental practice, working with insurance companies probably has a significant impact on your business’s revenue stream. However, sometimes, even though you do not represent the insurance company, you have to act as a resource for your patients regarding their benefits through dental insurance verification and billing.

For instance, many insurance plans include a missing tooth clause, which can affect your patient’s out-of-pocket costs and their attitude toward your practice. Keep reading to learn what this clause is and how it can impact your business if you don’t handle it gracefully.

You know a scam when you see one. You don’t fall for get-rich-quick schemes, and you certainly didn’t cheat your way through dental school to get where you are! However, perhaps after an appointment with a rude patient, it may sometimes be tempting to fudge the billing paperwork a bit, so you get a little extra money from the insurance company and the patient for their treatment.

However, this choice, called upcoding, is a huge mistake in dental billing! In this post, you’ll learn about upcoding, why you should take it seriously, and how to avoid it in your dental practice.

After years of formal training at dental school and tons of hours of continuing education coursework, you’ve learned just how complex dentistry can be clinically. Unfortunately, even the administrative logistics can be almost just as complicated. If you want to set your practice up with financial stability, you need to have a grasp on dental procedure codes, but don’t worry if you have plenty of questions. Here are only some examples of the most common questions about this topic and helpful answers.

When you were little, did you want to become an astronaut? A ballerina? A firefighter? In all honesty, not many kids grow up dreaming about having a successful career in dental billing, but like many other unconventional job paths, it can be rewarding. Filing and processing insurance claims not only can help your employer (and you) get paid on time, but also help your patients save as much as possible on out-of-pocket costs.

Just keep in mind that it’s not something you can just start doing without any prior familiarity. In fact, if you don’t handle dental billing correctly, you could cost your employer thousands of dollars and even face fraud charges. In other words, you need training! How do you get into dental billing, and what kind of training is available? Read on to find out!

It seems like almost every company is outsourcing these days. Larger corporations such as retailers and small businesses such as dental practices alike are turning to other entities to take on certain administrative tasks like chart auditing. While there are plenty of reasons to consider this decision, if you want to do it wisely and effectively for your dental practice, you need to follow at least these steps.