Over the last couple of weeks, practices and businesses have temporarily closed their doors because of the threat of COVID-19. However, unlike many stores or offices, your practice needs to still be available to help with dental emergencies. That means you must remain accessible to your patients for dental scheduling even though your team isn’t in the office. Fortunately, Dental Support Specialties is already set up to help your practice remotely, protecting everyone involved and allowing everyone to stay safe during these uncertain times.

Managing your patient dental benefits on all levels is crucial to keeping your cash flow moving. Being proactive in managing your patient dental benefits is just as important! (think obtaining patient benefits and clean claim submissions!)

What are some of the front desk and scheduling precautions you will be taking in your office?

Here are some that we are seeing: (follow your state, county and health department guidelines)

• Limited if any seating in the reception area and no family members allowed to wait (unless they are waiting in their car)
• Having patients call or text your office from the parking lot upon arrival – Do as MUCH check in and check out as you can via the phone including treatment/financial consults, payments and scheduling. Have staff member fully protected with appropriate PPE meet patient at their car to take temperature and to ask health screening questions.
• Keep office door locked – no walk in patients. Appointment only. Have a sign on your entrance displaying this.
• COVID prescreening appointment calls. ASK the questions. DOCUMENT the answers.

We at Dental Support Specialties hope you and your families have been staying safe and healthy! What a crazy time this has been. With all the uncertainty that lies before us, one thing we can control is our actions. Our responses. Our proactivity. Our plans for reopening and what our new normal might look like. Being prepared to accommodate appointments and patient needs and having solid plans ready for immediate execution.

Be Prepared. The time is now to start preparing for your reopening on all levels.

You can view and print out the Presidents Guidelines for opening up here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/03.16.20_coronavirus-guidance_8.5x11_315PM.pdf

In an ideal world, patients would pay for their dental treatment completely out of pocket without needing dental insurance, but we don’t live in an ideal world. In fact, for many practices, dental insurance is almost considered a necessary evil, a way that patients are able to afford basic services. Although this payment method adds several steps to the process, did you know that dental insurance doesn’t have to be such a hassle for you and your team? Read on to learn how you can get dental insurance support for your practice.

You’ve been practicing dentistry for many years now. Over that time, you’ve undergone countless hours of training, dealt with a myriad of different scenarios, and served thousands of patients. In other words, in your practice, experience matters. At Dental Support Specialties, we couldn’t agree more—experience in the dentistry field is priceless, especially when it comes to serving patients.

With 30 people on our team, we have approximately 400 years of total experience. That’s 400 years at your practice’s disposal to act as your dental answering service, schedule appointments, perform dental insurance verification, and represent your practice.

Over the last several weeks, concern about COVID-19 has continued to grow to the point that everyone has been instructed to shelter in place. Non-essential businesses have temporarily closed their doors until the order is lifted, including your dental practice. But that doesn’t mean that you need to sit around and wait for things to return to normal in order to have cash flow coming into your business. Here are three ways that you can make a plan today with Dental Support Specialties to ensure your practice is ready for tomorrow.

As a small business owner, you know that every dollar counts. In order to flourish, you need to bring in more than you spend, which is why you take every decision about your dental practice seriously. When you think about hiring a company for any kind of service, you naturally wonder how much it will cost you. However, while considering Dental Support Specialties to serve as your dental answering service, your first question should actually be: how much could these services save my business? Below you’ll find # ways that we can help your practice’s bottom line for a great return on investment.

During a consultation recently, your patient expresses interest in a complex smile makeover in the near future, and you put together a solid treatment plan. However, they say that they would like to consult their calendar before scheduling the work. Weeks, then months, pass by, and the treatment still has not been completed. Instead of passively waiting for your patient to call you, you can be proactive and follow up with them. But, let’s face it, it’s likely not practical for your limited team to reach out to every single patient. That’s where Dental Support Specialties can step in and lend a hand with dental scheduling.

At the end of a long day, you finish working with your last patient of the day. As you pass by the front desk, you notice that your team is still busily working on processing dental insurance claims and following up with companies on the phone long after the patient leaves. And you also see that they look burned out, stretched and taxed beyond their limits. You wonder—is there a better way to deal with dental insurance verification? In this blog post, you’ll learn why insurance verification is important to your practice and understand your options moving forward.