As a dental business leader, you’re always looking out for new ways to improve your dental practice or group. And you want to be innovative in these improvements — but where exactly should you start?
Your first step: Look at your business as a whole, and think about the most important parts and your top measures of success. Both probably involve your revenue and your in-house team. When those two run smoothly, it’s a sign your business is running well.
The smoother your cash flow and operations, the better your dental business is doing.
DCS uses an innovative approach to help you with both by increasing your revenue while supporting your in-house team. We use technology to simplify workflows, increase accuracy, and encourage higher productivity, and also lighten your team's administrative workload so they can focus on the patient experience.
The result? Consistent cash flow, a peaceful workplace, happy patients, and a more relaxed you.
If that’s what you’re aiming for, read on, as we’re highlighting the 6 innovative revenue cycle management services at DCS, and how each of them increases your success by using a cutting-edge approach to build a robust and resilient dental business.
1. Automated Dental Credentialing
When you read “credentialing” just now, you might have let out a groan. We get it! Dental credentialing is a huge administrative headache that keeps coming back.
You have to manage with multiple deadlines, gather all the correct paperwork, and then wait months before hearing that your application is approved — and in a year or two, you’ll have to do it all over again.
Our dental credentialing services use today's automation technology to handle the tedious, time-consuming parts of this process for you.
We ensure cost-efficient, compliant, and secure enrollment administration that goes all the way: from call center; to data collection, data entry, and data integrity; to integration and analytics.
Unlike traditional credentialing that leaves you in the dark, with DCS Credentialing, you and your team will have 24/7 access to an up-to-the-moment view of every credentialing status on a clean, easy-to-use online dashboard. You’ll never have to wonder or (worry) about your credentialing status again, because you can easily access current information anytime.
And because we handle your credentialing well ahead of its due date, you'll never again experience delays or interruptions in providing treatment or billing for it.
Read more: Automated dental credentialing: 3 things you'll be glad to know
2. Technology-Assisted Insurance Verification
Insurance verification often takes a backseat for dental teams who are maxed out by other tasks, so they don’t have the time to perform it — they either don’t verify patients’ insurance at all, or they wait until the time of a patient’s treatment to do so.
Not verifying at all can lead to inaccurate estimates of your patients’ out-of-pocket cost, which in turn, can lead to difficulties collecting from patients. Waiting until the last minute to verify insurance can increase patient wait time, damaging the patient experience.
A last-minute or lack of insurance verification damages the patient experience, whether at the time of treatment or weeks down the line — perhaps both.
Our technology-assisted insurance verification services take charge of verification 2 to 3 days before your patient’s treatment, so you and your team don’t have to worry about it, or even think about it. There will be no confusion about your patient’s insurance information because it’s been recently checked and verified by experts.
And with our experienced Account Specialists continually verifying your patients’ insurance information, there will be fewer mistakes, and therefore fewer claim denials, resulting in fewer disagreements with patients about unexpected out-of-pocket costs.
The bonus for your business will be more — and more consistent — cash flow.
Our technology-assisted insurance verification services will take a many-times-a-day task off your team’s plate and increase the accuracy of your claims, while also increasing patients’ trust due to your financial transparency.
3. Specialized Insurance Billing
I spoke to a former dental office manager recently, and she did, in fact, audibly groan when I mentioned insurance billing — and like with credentialing, I get it!
Insurance companies have made claims submission and follow-up so complicated that it feels impossible, and is truly challenging, to collect reimbursement from your first submission. Therefore, your team often has added tasks for appealing denied claims with limited time to do so.
In fact, insurance billing is our most popular service because claims management is typically the most difficult and time-consuming step of the revenue cycle, and it becomes even more difficult when treatment requires both medical and dental insurance claims.
Our experts will review your claims remotely within your software, submit them to the clearinghouse, and in the rare case of a denied claim, they’ll handle the follow-up and appeal. They’ll also revisit older unpaid claims in your Accounts Receivable (AR) at least once a week.
We offer these billing services for all specialties of dentistry, including oral surgery billing.
Our expert billers at DCS know the best practices and strategies for getting your claims paid the first time, freeing up your team to focus on growing your practice and tending to patients.
And for your direct benefit, our team will even generate financial reports for you from your practice management software to demonstrate how your business is performing for informed decision-making.
Read more: Dental insurance claims processing: Who gets the best results?
4. Automated Patient Billing
It takes a staff member a lot of time to handle dental patient billing, and it costs real money to print and mail paper statements. Then, calling patients and/or mailing past-due notices to follow up on outstanding payments uses even more time and money.
Many automated billing systems charge transactional fees to mail payment reminders, plus the cost of stamps, envelopes, paper, and ink even when the reminders are sent electronically through your practice management software. And when following up by phone, your dental team may feel like they’re bugging the patient, and with continued calls, your patient may agree! The combination of awkwardness and anger can begin to deteriorate that patient relationship.
Don’t get me wrong — if a patient owes money, it’s important that your team stay in contact with them until they pay. But it’s just as essential to maintain a strong, comfortable relationship with your patients.
DCS’ automated patient billing syncs with your practice management software for a flat monthly fee, instead of transaction-based charges for each payment reminder, like other billing services. That’s a huge money-saver for you, as well as a predictable expense.
Our follow-up automations also save your team the time and headache of chasing down patients about overdue payments. Once insurance payments are posted, if a patient has a remaining balance, the billing system will automatically generate and send outreaches — statements and reminders — to the patient via email or text.
Our automated patient billing systems sync with your patient management system (PMS), which ensures the outreach being sent to the patient is an exact match to the patient’s balance in the dental practice management software.
Your patients will appreciate your modern approach to billing and easy online payment methods, your team will appreciate the lighter workload, and you’ll appreciate the more consistent cash flow.
Read more: 3 reasons to automate your patient billing services ASAP
5. Expert-Driven Special Projects
If you’re in a larger dental business, such as a DSO, it’s harder to streamline processes across multiple locations and offices. If that’s jeopardizing business growth, you could benefit from DCS’ support for large and/or specific projects.
Our Special Projects services are designed to help DSOs and emerging groups by taking on the revenue-generating tasks your team doesn't have time for. You can use our flexible solutions to address your accounts receivable challenges and other income issues to ease financial burdens and increase cash flow.
We believe your access to our group of experts, which we call the DCS Knowledge Network, will help transform your systems and processes. When you harness our growth-focused teams to increase the revenue of your DSO or emerging group, you’ll be able to lift your dental business to new heights.
Our teams use automation, talent, and technology to clean up your aging reports and modernize your billing processes, resulting in optimized, compliant workflows and quicker cash flow.
6. Virtual Patient Scheduling
Online patient scheduling has been an option for several years, but many services are limited in their features or higher in price, compared to what DCS offers.
DCS Patient Scheduling will simplify your appointment system, enabling your team to increase production and improve the patient experience.
DCS Scheduling includes:
- Real-time availability: Direct integration with your office's PMS, so its calendar displays up-to-the-minute appointment slot availability
- Customized branding: A fully customizable scheduling link that mirrors your office's branding to ensure a friendly, consistent patient experience
- Automatic no-show charges: Card-on-file option for charging cancellation fees, which results in a near 100% show-up rate
- Complex schedule handling: Sophisticated management of block scheduling, calendar block outs, and other complex scheduling needs
Overall, our patient scheduling services will improve the workflows at your dental office, reduce administrative frustration for your team, and give your patients an easy way to make, cancel, and reschedule appointments without directly involving your staff.
Read more: Welcome to DCS dental patient scheduling! 3 things you need to know
Will you level up your dental business with DCS by your side?
To recap, DCS uses innovative approaches to manage your revenue cycle with:
- Automated dental credentialing
- Technology-assisted insurance verification
- Specialized insurance billing
- Automated patient billing
- Expert-driven special projects
- Virtual patient scheduling
Our end-to-end revenue cycle management services use cutting-edge technology to increase accuracy and compliance, streamline your workflows, and increase your overall revenue.
At DCS, we are continuously innovating and improving our processes so we can best serve dental teams and dental businesses of all shapes and sizes. Our team acts as a partner and resource for your in-house team. One of our customers, Marina Hills Dental, explains it perfectly in this testimonial:
“I work directly with Rebecca P. & Kristi L. at Marina Hills Dental in Spring Creek NV. I have been in the dental field for only a short 1.5 years & was completely blessed with the two wonderful ladies I work with at DCS. They are an essential resource to not only myself but to my entire team as a whole and the practice would not run as smoothly without them.” -Marina Hills Dental.
To explore how we can innovate your dental business, book a free 30-minute call with us today.
Related Posts
Dental billing resources