Where do you start with outsourcing your dental billing? In this Q & A, our experts answer 5 of the most common questions dental professionals have about dental revenue cycle management services.
You’ve come across dental revenue cycle management services, and you’ve got some questions about outsourcing such a large part of your administrative duties: How does outsourcing work? How much does it cost? Who will be in my practice management software and handling my insurance claims?
We get it! There are a lot of unknowns when working with a third party for your billing. But you’re in the right place to learn everything you need to know about partnering with a revenue cycle management (RCM) provider.
Of course, you could ask these questions during your initial consultation with DCS, but we do encourage research on these sorts of questions beforehand. That way, we can spend the majority of our 30-minute call getting into the nitty-gritty details of how our team will work with yours to support your earning goals.
Key takeaways from these 5 questions about outsourcing your dental RCM:
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- The RCM experts at DCS are not here to steal anyone’s job! They’re here to provide your team members with the time and confidence to focus on your patients and growing the dental business
- ROI (return on investment) is the most important factor when considering the cost of RCM services and solutions
- Automation doesn’t equate to lack of human touch —it actually encourages it
Question #1. What services can I expect?
So, what does a dental RCM company do? It’s probably your first question if you haven’t heard a lot about it, and it’s a great place to start. Each RCM provider offers various services and solutions, but for the sake of this article, we’ll focus on our own.
On a general level, the purpose of outsourcing your revenue cycle is to let experts and automation handle the more tedious, time-consuming, and complicated administrative tasks while your team focuses on the patient experience and growing the business.
Here are the services and digital solutions DCS offers:
- Credentialing and re-credentialing. We’ll ensure your dentists get credentialed with your in-network payers — and stay credentialed, so they can bill treatment correctly and receive proper reimbursement.
- Patient scheduling. Patients will easily schedule their treatment online using a system completely customized to your dental business branding and your busy schedule.
- Insurance verification. Our technology-assisted insurance verification confirms patients’ coverage at least 2 or 3 days in advance of their treatment.
- Insurance billing. Our RCM experts work daily to submit, follow-up, and appeal all of your insurance claims. They will also post claim payments to your patient management software (PMS) daily, and address claims on your insurance aging report every week.
- Patient billing. Our automated patient billing will move your patient payments online. This digital solution offers multiple payment options, automatic reminders, and customizable payment plans for your patients. It also offers direct deposit for you, and it’s entirely hands-free for your team.
Related: What is dental billing? An understanding of how dental billing works
Taking over tasks such as these will allow your in-house administrative team to focus on running the office and taking care of your patients as they come and go.
So while you can typically find a list of services on every billing company’s website, they might not discuss the time they give back to your team — an issue we’ll cover more deeply in Question #3.
Question #2. Who will be handling my dental revenue cycle?
When you onboard with DCS, you are assigned an Account Specialist who will be your point of contact, your go-to person, and the one who will ensure your selected services are providing proper results.
You’ll meet your Account Specialist via a Zoom call, so you can put a face to the name — in this increasingly automated world, it’s great to see that a real person is handling your revenue cycle. In this meeting, you will help your Account Specialist pinpoint your issues, and in turn, they will offer solutions to implement.
Your Account Specialists will understand your business challenges, as all of our specialists weredental professionals, so they are experienced with the administrative side of running a dental practice. Many of our Account Specialists have 10 to 20 years of experience managing a dental practice, so you can rest assured that your revenue cycle is in expert hands.
What sets us apart from other RCM providers is our DCS Knowledge Network. This network is our community of 150+ employees who turn to each other when someone is stuck, has a question, or needs another expert brain to collaborate with.
Read more: Plug into our DCS Knowledge Network, and you'll notice these 3 things [Free Guide]
When you partner with us, you’ll also have access to the DCS Knowledge Network through your assigned Account Specialist. So if you ever have a question or concern about dental billing or coding — or anything else related to dental RCM — your Account Specialist will have an answer. And if they don’t, they’ll turn to our Knowledge Network.
Question #3. How will my Account Specialist work with my dental administrative team?
The partnership between your team and your Account Specialist is exactly that — a partnership! With RCM services, your team will be able to spend their valuable time creating excellent patient experiences and growing your dental business instead of being burdened by routine paperwork and insurance appeals.
Specifically, they’ll have more time to deliver transparent, effective treatment presentations — increasing case acceptance and, in turn, overall revenue. 
While your DCS Account Specialist will ensure cumbersome billing tasks are taken off your team’s plate (depending on which services or solutions you use), your Specialist will still need to communicate with you.
Different services require different amounts of interaction, so when you meet your Account Specialist, you’ll agree upon your preferred method and frequency of communication. Some of our customers email or text their Account Specialist with questions, while others call their Account Specialist at the end of every work day during their commute home. It’s totally up to the two of you!
Your Account Specialist will work remotely, so while they are an extension of your in-house team, they’ll otherwise be out of everyone’s hair unless there’s a problem.
For example, if you’re using DCS Insurance Billing Services, you’ll likely communicate more frequently with your Account Specialist. This is because your team will create claims, then your Account Specialist will take it from there to ensure your claims get paid. But when something is unclear with a claim, your Specialist might need more documentation, have a question about the patient’s insurance information, etc. to ensure the claim is reimbursed promptly.
Question #4. When can I expect to see results?
The results we provide for you will be dependent on a few factors:
- Which services or digital solutions you signed up for
- How large your dental business is
- How long your aging report is
- How cooperative and efficient your in-house team is
For example, as we mentioned in #3, when using DCS Insurance Billing, your team will still be responsible for creating insurance claims, while your Account Specialist will take on responsibility for submitting and managing them.
The sooner your claims are submitted, the sooner they’ll be reimbursed. So, if you use our Insurance Billing Services, and your team creates claims several days after treatment, our team will be delayed in submitting these claims. The result is delayed cash flow.
For best results, we recommend that your team creates claims within 24 hours of treatment so that you can see your revenue ASAP.
As you know, receiving reimbursement from insurance claims takes more time than patient billing — usually 2 to 3 weeks, or longer if the claim is denied. Therefore, it takes at least a month or Insurance Billing Services’ results to show on your bottom line.
However, when you sign on for our Patient Billing solution, you’ll see patient payments arrive within a week of activation, as our other customers have. DCS Patient Billing is quickly set up and uses smart automation to create an easy, convenient way for your patients to pay their bills online from their phone, tablet, or laptop — it even sends out automatic payment reminders via text message and/or email.
Whichever DCS services or solutions you choose, your Account Specialist will monitor progress towards your goals, and of course, will be available to discuss said progress whenever you need to.
Question #5. What are the costs associated with outsourced dental billing?
Our most asked question: How much does this cost? 
Similar toQuestion #4, it depends on which services and solutions you’ve selected, particularly as there are discounts on bundles. Generally, here are a few factors that will affect your total cost:
- Total monthly dental insurance payments
- The size of your dental practice
- The number of practice locations (Emerging Group, DSO)
- Type of dental practice (OMS vs General Practice)
- Number and type of services
With so many variables, there isn’t a single number we can present in an article — but it’s worth a brief and friendly conversation with our team to assess your individual needs and discuss how RCM can help you reach your earning goals. Book a quick 30-minute consultation with us to get answers to your questions, explore your options, and experience our excellent customer service.
Once you have your price, rather than focus on costs alone, we encourage you to use that number to determine your return on investment (ROI).
To give you an idea of what’s possible, here are real results from DCS Patient Billing customers:
- A dental practice in Hudson, Ohio started with DCS Patient Billing in May 2023. Just over a year later, her office has collected $281,817 through our automated patient billing solutions that are hands-free for her dental team. With DCS Patient Billing costs at only $4,704, she saw a 3,474% ROI.
- A dental practice in Dayton, Ohio began using DCS Patient Billing in March 2024. Their patient collections totaled $112,595 in the first 6 months — again, that’s entirely automated, freeing their team to focus on the patient experience and growing the practice. They paid $3,500 for DCS Patient Billing. This makes their ROI 3,217%.
Consider how much more you could collect with our expert support. Also, consider what your team could accomplish when a constant flood of billing tasks aren’t monopolizing their attention.
Instead, they’ll be doing the work that only they can do: reaching out to patients with unscheduled treatment, filling the schedule to increase production, delivering treatment plans, and developing better patient relationships.
Truly, everyone’s time is invested more wisely when you have DCS by your side.
Boost your profits, processes, and patient experience: Say yes to our RCM services
To recap, here are 5 questions we’ve answered if you’re thinking of outsourcing your RCM:
- What services can I expect?
- Who will be handling my dental revenue cycle?
- How will my Account Specialist work with my dental administrative team?
- When can I expect to see results?
- What are the costs associated with outsourced dental billing?
We’ve answered the common questions, and if that has raised more questions for you, we’ve got more answers!
All your questions will all be addressed when you talk to one of our revenue cycle management experts via Zoom. You’ll speak face-to-face with a real person about your unique needs, and you two will work together to figure out which services suit you best.
DCS offers end-to-end revenue cycle management services for dental businesses of all shapes and sizes. Our experts will streamline your operations to help you collect more and worry less: Book a free 30-minute consultation today.
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