When you run your own business, you need to account for nearly every minute of the day. After all, the saying is time is money. You can’t waste time on tasks that aren’t worthwhile or aren’t going to help your dental practice thrive. And yet, you may have necessary tasks that require a decent amount of time and attention. For instance, dental chart auditing can be time consuming, but it serves an important purpose in your practice. How long does a chart audit take? Is there an easier way to get this done?
What Is Chart Auditing?
Dental chart auditing is a process of evaluating the quality of a patient’s records as well as noting whether they are active or up to date with their routine visits and any planned treatment. This knowledge is imperative to having a clearer understanding of your patient base, the accuracy of your charts, and the status of your practice’s finances.
After the chart audits are completed, you can reach out to inactive patients, which can bring in more revenue, and you can rest assured that your records can withstand scrutiny from insurance companies.
How Much Time Does a Chart Audit Take?
This process requires more than just checking numbers on a spreadsheet. Although several factors can influence how much time is required to complete one chart audit, an experienced professional will usually take anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes. More time may be needed if the records are inaccurate or insufficient.
When you add up all the patients you have and the number of audits you should perform, that’s a significant amount of time out of your staff’s day! In fact, you may have to dedicate several days or weeks to auditing.
How Can You Save Time on Chart Auditing?
If you’re thinking you don’t have the resources to devote this amount of time to chart auditing with your in-office staff, you have an alternative: you could outsource this task to a service company. Let a trusted third-party evaluate your charts and records and make sure that everything is in order. They can tell you how many active patients you have and bring errors to your attention while allowing your office to run as it usually does without the added stress of audits.
Chart auditing doesn’t have to consume your team’s time and energy. Entrust this important task to a team of experts, and you can get this invaluable information without interrupting your normal day-to-day schedule and office flow. That way, you can keep providing top-quality service and making your patients happy while conducting an audit behind the scenes.
About Dental Support Specialties
At Dental Support Specialties, we consider our team an extension of your own. We can work in basically any software suite and can perform chart audits as efficiently as possible. On top of this service, we also offer phone answering and scheduling and billing support. Are you interested in learning more about how we can assist your practice? Contact us for a consultation!