How to handle dental office staff turnover while working with an outsourced dental billing company

It feels like everything has changed, for better or for worse. Many of the dentist offices we work with had to restructure their staff, let people go or move people to other positions. 

We get it, you have to make these changes in order to do what is best for you and your team. And sometimes these changes happen more quickly than you’d like. 

It’s likely that when you’re going through these tough conversations, paperwork, exit interviews, and having to tell your team about the changes, that one of the last things on your mind is telling your outsourced dental billing company about the change.

As an outsourced dental billing company, it’s important that we know the structural changes within your office, especially when it comes to our point-of-contact. We stay laser focused on your billing process, posting payments and running your aging report. To help you get the best results possible, staying up-to-date on who we communicate with is actually a huge part of how we remain productive for you. In this article, we will explain to you why knowing information such as when someone is replaced, let go or moved to another position helps us make sure that your billing process remains smooth and fruitful even when you’re going through staff changes.

How important is the point-of-contact relationship with your dental practice?

When you sign on with someone like Dental ClaimSupport as your outsourced dental billing provider, you are choosing to let someone else take on the responsibility of your entire billing cycle. It’s a critically important role because billing is what keeps your revenue flowing! 

Getting paid by patients and dental insurance companies is what pays for everything in your practice, so the person taking care of this process obviously needs to be someone you trust. Consider an outsourced dental billing company as your billing coordinator. 

Here at Dental ClaimSupport our philosophy to match you with one of our remote billers based on personality and dental software. This is the person who you are in daily communication with. This is someone who will become familiar with your dental office staff and learn the ins and outs of your practice. It’s like you’re adding another person to your team, so this relationship is important to maintain.

If there is ever a posting problem, or an issue with an insurance company, your remote biller is going to be contacting their point-of-contact at your practice immediately. 

This flow of communication is how the work gets done. It’s how payments are posted and how you collect the money you have earned after performing a dental procedure. 

What happens if your dental office is experiencing turnover?

There are a few reasons we need to know when the point-of-contact for an outsourced dental billing company is removed from your office. The first being, if there is ever a problem with anything billing related, we are emailing our original point-of-contact. So if their email address is no longer being used, how is anyone at your office going to know there was an issue? 

Your remote biller reaches out to let you know when claims are rejected because information is incorrect. In other words, telling you that you might need to reach out to a patient for a correction. What if this email is never sent to the right person? Our remote billers are also sending daily totals to their point-of-contact at your office. This is important information! 

If this information isn’t being received by the right person, it could delay your collections process and in turn, keep you from making money. 

Training your new staff member on how to work with an outsourced dental billing company

If you’ve hired someone new that is inexperienced in dental billing, or even if they are experienced, but have never worked with an outsourced billing company before, you have two options. 

1. You can try to learn from your fellow office staff by watching them do their jobs. You can ask questions to get an immediate answer to what struggles you’re facing. This takes time and research and also takes away from other people trying to do their jobs.
2. You can let Dental ClaimSupport help you and enroll in our orientation for a formal education on how to best work with an outsourced dental billing company. This is a more substantial time investment in the short run.

In our experience, option 2 helps your new staff member to figure out how the billing process works with Dental ClaimSupport in the equation. We want to make sure everyone is all on the same page when it comes to posting payments, running aging reports and anything else your particular practice may need. Through properly training your new office coordinator or front-desk staff on what our expectations are of one another, the transition will be far smoother. 

We know what you’re thinking. “Another orientation for my new front desk staff member? How much is this going to cost me?” The answer? Nothing! 

Another hesitation your new staff-member may have is the time consumption that is orientation. Yes, training does take time and more effort than you originally planned. We’re here to make your billing process more efficient, and without proper training, there will be a lot more time spent explaining processes and questions instead of posting payments and running aging reports. So really, it will save you time in the long run if you let us know when you plan to hire a new staff member, and we can begin planning how their training with Dental ClaimSupport will take place. 

Dental ClaimSupport removes the strain of dental insurance from your practice   

At Dental ClaimSupport, we have always valued being proactive over reactive. This means that when there is a problem, a challenge or change of plans, you will not get an emotional reaction from us, you will see us trying to find the solution. When it comes down to it, we want to be as productive as possible for you because that is what will help your practice increase that collections percentage, A.K.A, help you make more money.

When there isn’t clear communication between one another, information gets lost, the process becomes unorganized and there’s a chance payments aren’t getting posted in a timely manner. 

Your cash flow is what keeps your practice alive, so it’s important to stay on the same page as the people taking care of your billing. Simply put, just give us a heads up when there’s going to be some turnover and a new point-of-contact.

We’re happy to adjust and share our process  with this person to learn and grow with Dental ClaimSupport. We want all of our customers to be successful, especially when there is change at the practice that everyone is adjusting to. To learn more about how we define a successful customer at Dental ClaimSupport, check out our blog article, “What Does Customer Success Look like with Dental ClaimSupport.”