Not sure how your dental business is performing? Keeping an eye on your patient billing revenue is easy when you have the right tools reporting on your billing and collections. The very best tools also do your billing and collections automatically and digitally — no printing, no postage, and no problems.
Imagine grabbing your favorite mug of coffee and firing up your computer. With just a glance, you can see which patients paid their bills overnight, and which statements will go out today. It puts a smile on your face, first thing in the morning!
Your team is smiling this morning, too, because patient billing and follow-up is entirely hands-off and automatically synced with your practice management software (PMS). All they have to do is occasionally monitor what’s coming in, and all you have to do is analyze the reported numbers and enjoy the automated revenue — and your coffee.
You and your team are in dental to deliver high-quality oral health services — not to be burdened with the daily hassle of printing, assembling, and mailing bills.
You deserve this ease and convenience, and so do your patients.
In this article, we'll look at how you can make easy patient billing your reality within just a few days.
DCS’ Patient Billing solution is known for delivering fast cash flow — soon after it’s set up, payments roll in. Our automated software will send patients their payment reminders via text or email, making it as easy as possible for them to promptly pay their outstanding balance online using their favorite payment method and their digital device.
It’s that easy. Our software will sync with your practice management software, start collecting for you — without involving your team — and sync back to your PMS when payments are received.
This article shares 7 key features you’ll find in your DCS Patient Billing dashboard that paint the big picture of how your practice, group, or DSO is performing.
Key takeaways about analyzing your dental patient revenue:
- Keep in mind that holidays, seasons, and events will likely affect your revenue
- If you notice a revenue dip during a specific time period, talk with your team about what may have caused it, and also how you might prevent it, avoid it, or make up for it
- Have your team take advantage of the time given back to them by automated patient billing. Pro tip: Prioritize treatment presentation and in-office patient experience
1. Sort by transactions
To start, you can view your dashboard with different variables. In the screenshot below, you’ll see you can sort your view by different types of transactions.
You can sort each transaction by:
- All transactions: Get an overall view of what payments are coming in
- Prompted: View payments made to the office as a result of our outreaches
- Processed: View payments made through our outreaches
- Recorded: XX
- Not recorded: View payments pending write back
The Instant Insight:
It’s helpful to look at these categories to get a sense of how much the patient billing solution is being used by your patients. If you see a high percentage of prompted vs. processed payments, it might be worth sending out a mass email or text letting patients know they can pay using the link — especially if our patient billing solution is new to your customers.
2. Hone in on the date of the transaction
You can view your dashboard by preset periods of time:
- Month to date
- Today
- Past 7 days
- Last Month
Or you can get more specific by using the calendar to choose a date range.
The Instant Insight:
Viewing the performance of your revenue by dates will help you reconcile your payments, as well as explore trends and regularities in your cash flow.
3. Gross volume
Gross volume represents the estimated revenue from all types of payments at this location.
The Instant Insight:
Your gross volume is your overall revenue at your dental practice from both patients and insurance claims — the total value of every transaction at your business. This number paints the bigger picture of how your dental business is performing financially.
4. Net volume
Net volume is the estimated revenue from all types of payments after deducting fees, refunds, and disputes at this location.
The Instant Insight:
Net volume paints a more vivid picture than gross volume. It tells you what is impacting your revenue — Are your processing fees what you expected? Are too many patients asking for refunds? Have there been credit card disputes? What else is tapping into your revenue? Net volume shows that difference from your gross volume.
Related: Write-offs at the dental office: do’s and don’ts of writing off payments
5. Spend/Patient
Spend/Patient — or Spend per Patient — is the estimated revenue calculated for each individual patient at this location.
The Instant Insight:
When coupled with terminals, this is a way to uncover the monetary value of each patients’ treatments minus their insurance. It can help you gauge treatment plan, size, and acceptance. It answers the question: How much on average is each patient spending at my practice over a specific period of time?
6. Adjustable chart: Gross volume, net volume, spend/patient
This chart is a visual representation of your revenue that you can sort by gross volume, net volume, and spend per patient.
The Instant Insight:
Having a visual representation of each of these pieces of data helps easily point out trends and regularities in your revenue. This is a great tool for giving presentations to your team on how to improve revenue, or for sparking questions as to why it may have fluctuated during a specific time period.
7. Transaction breakdown
Visualize the breakdown of your transactions through the 3 categories Successful, Refunds, and Failed.
The Instant Insight:
This chart gives insight into the value of failed transactions and refunds. If you have a high volume of refunds, it’s worth investigating why. This is money you’re losing for services you’ve provided.
Related: 3 surprising ways your dental patients get benefits from RCM services
How to take advantage of this easy-to-use patient billing dashboard
When you use the DCS Patient Billing solution, it syncs with your PMS, and all you need to do is watch the money flow in. Just sit back and click to view these easy-to-navigate analytics, empowering yourself to make informed decisions about your business.
Our patient billing solution will give you the best parts of having a dental business:
- Increased cash flow
- A productive dental team
- Happy patients
Our customer, Marcia Stewart of Burrell Family Dentistry, has this to say about our patient billing solutions:
“Patient billing stands out—I love to see those extra monies coming in from past due accounts. You guys are amazing.”
Implement patient billing solutions that will start collecting for you in just a few days: Book a free 30-minute consultation with DCS today.
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