How Dental Claim Support collaborates with dental offices: who is responsible for what?

You’re ready for someone to take on some of the responsibility.  You’re looking to outsource your billing so that the front office staff can focus on what’s in front of them, such as taking care of patients and answering phones, and overall making sure the office is running smoothly. 

This sounds like an enticing idea, but you’re not sure how an outsourced dental billing company is going to work and collaborate with your dental office staff. Dental Claim Support is here to work with you, not take over your entire office and tell everyone what to do. We’ve been helping dental offices around the United States for years with their billing process, making sure you are paid by insurance companies. 

In this article, you will learn how we collaborate with your staff to share the workload, what workflow updates Dental Claim Support sends and everything else your office can expect from outsourcing your dental insurance billing.

Defining the relationship between your dental office and Dental Claim Support

Defining relationships can be tricky. You have to establish expectations, boundaries and communication styles. We know what you’re thinking… “Where are you guys heading with this?” Really though, this all applies to working with Dental Claim Support! Once you sign on with us at Dental Claim Support, you will start by going through an orientation. 

In orientation, you’ll begin to learn what our expectations of one another will be. As mentioned before, we aren’t here to take over your entire front office’s job. We’re here to take on a few responsibilities to save your staff time to do other things. 

You will then be assigned a team lead and an account executive. Team leads are account executives’ direct supervisors. Your account executive will do all of your claim submission, insurance payment posting, accounts receivable work and send you a daily totals email. This email will cover how much we posted and differentiate between your insurance check totals, insurance direct deposit totals, and insurance virtual credit card payment totals. 

The daily totals email will also inform you of patients who have a balance after their claims have been paid, and claims that may need additional information. Your team lead makes sure everything is being done correctly by the account executive, specifically meeting deadlines. 

Let’s get more specific about who is responsible for what when we collaborate. 

Here is what you can expect from Dental Claim Support: 

• We will post insurance payments

1. 1. Post the insurance payments that are scanned to us the previous business day.
      • • You will place the check-in alphabetical order by insurance company.
   2. Since we’re posting the EOBs to your patient’s ledger, we will make necessary adjustments depending on what fees were charged in the ledger vs in-network fees 
   3. While posting insurance checks, we will also process insurance denials and no-pays. So make sure you’re scanning those in as well!
   4. We will submit all appeals and secondary claims with the primary Explanation of Benefits attached.
   5. We will send you a daily email with the following information: 
      • • Amount of payments posted, itemized with checks and electronic funds transfer amounts (if applicable).
        • Patients needing statements after all insurance claims have been closed.
        • Accounts needing additional information or assistance. 

• We will work insurance aging reports

1. 1. We will work your outstanding aging report – working the oldest claims first to be sure that there are no claims that will be denied for timely filing. 
   2. No matter when you start with us or how old your claims are, we work all claims over 30 days and will let you know of any that need your attention

• Claim submission

1. 1. We will send claims through your clearinghouse daily (the next business day after batching). 

Keep in mind that in order for us to do all of this for you, we will need you to stay on top of a few things as well. Remember – we’re not taking all of your responsibilities away. We’re just lightening the load. We’re here to work together to keep your billing process streamlined and organized. That being said, we do need you to do a few things. \

Here is what we expect your dental office to continue doing: 

• Verify insurance benefits 
  1. It’s important to verify a patient’s insurance before they come in for a procedure to avoid confusion on their bill. 
• Collect patient copays
• Send patient statements
• Call on patient balances
• Contact patients for student status, wrong insurance, initial placement dates, etc.
• Batch initial claims for submission (we will send the claims, but you need to batch) 

Download your FREE insurance verification form HERE.

Think of us as working the back end of the business while you work the front end. You’re dealing with patients, we’re dealing with insurance. Together we’re going to increase your collections through an organized and regimented billing process.

Collaboration within dental software  

So, how does Dental Claim Support collaborate with your office within your dental software? Thanks to technology, when either of us does anything within your dental software, we’re going to be able to see each other’s work. 

You’ll see us work your aging report weekly, making sure it doesn’t become lengthy with overdue claims. We do highly encourage you to keep track of your own trends, making sure that once you sign on with us you see your aging report number decrease and your collections percentage increase. 

The best way to monitor our progress is by recording your insurance Aging Report numbers prior to working with us so you can compare with where they were before our services, and where they are now. You can run the report in your software with specific instructions for OpenDental, EagleSoft, and Dentrix here.

This is something you can do in your dental software, and if you’re not sure how to keep up with these trends, we can show you. That’s the amazing thing about having good dental software, it’s easy to collaborate across the country with each other. 

It’s crucial to scan insurance cards and patient information into your software. If we encounter claims being rejected or denied due to incorrect patient demographics or insurance information being entered, we will look in pertinent areas of the patient’s chart to see if the information to correct the errors is present before we reach out to you.  

For example, if a patient’s member I.D. or birthday was input incorrectly, instead of calling you and then waiting for updated information from the patient, we can use the copy of their insurance card or health history within the software and correct the mistake ourselves. This promotes a faster turnaround for processing rejected or denied claims. If we can’t find the information, we will let you know promptly.

Dental Claim Support joining your dental practice’s team

We all start as strangers, but we want you to think of us as your right-hand man, right there at the desk with you taking care of all of your insurance billing issues. It’s okay to pick up the phone, call us, shoot us an email or text if you have a question or request. You’ll have your Account Executive and Team Leads contact information at your fingertips. We’re here to work with you and help not only make your work-life easier but also make you more money. 

By increasing your collections and decreasing your aging report numbers, your practice will become more profitable. You will also be able to focus on other tasks in the office without worrying about insurance companies causing you headaches. To learn more about how we work together and how much time we spend on your account, visit our blog article, “How much time does Dental Claim Support dedicate to my account?