3 ways an outsourced dental biller is an extension of your team

When introducing your team to a dental billing company, or even bringing up the idea of hiring one, your employees will naturally have a lot of questions like: Do we report to the remote team? Are we losing our jobs? How will this work?

It can be difficult for the administrative team to keep an open mind when working with a dental billing service at first. But the truth is, the outsourced dental billers serve as an extension of your team. 

Sure, a remote biller won’t be in the office. They won’t be creating that same in-person connection with your team, but they will hone in on getting your claims paid and helping your employees have more time to focus on patients, scheduling, and taking care of the office. 

As an outsourced dental billing company ourselves, Dental ClaimSupport prioritizes the relationship between your office and your extended team, helping it get off to a good start. 

We help you manage the way this relationship is introduced to the administrative team, as we understand how difficult it can feel at first. Through the years we’ve watched dental teams feel hesitant about our services, then realize that we’re an extension of their team. Not a replacement or “boss.”

In this article, you will learn the 3 ways an outsourced dental billing company is an extension of your team. It’s important for dentists and administrative teams to understand this so that they can avoid undue fear and anxiety about transitioning to working with a dental billing company, and instead take advantage of the increased income they’ll earn from this tool.

1. The dental billing team communicates directly with your administrative team

Your team might think once you’ve signed on to outsource the insurance billing, you’ll have nothing to do with insurance because the remote team is invisibly handling it. 

You might never meet them in person, but the remote biller or team is going to not only meet you via video conference but also communicate with you daily, the way any team member would. 

The remote biller is not a robot submitting claim appeals

Your remote biller is a real person helping your practice make more money, and giving you time for your most valuable work instead of sitting on hold with insurance companies. They deal with stall tactics such as long holds for 2 hours or more so that you don’t have to. They’ll also reach out to you if they have a question or concern about a claim.

The claims process is not always seamless. If the outsourced biller has a question or needs patient information corrected, your team needs to be available to respond.

Your success in working with a dental billing company hinges on your willingness to communicate with the remote biller. You don’t necessarily have to talk with each other every single day. But the point of contact in your practice should be available to speak with your biller during business hours if need be, or answer a quick email. 

The biller should be treated as a team member because your revenue is tied to that important stream of communication between you both.

2. The outsourced biller has the same goal as your team: get claims paid

The remote biller is an expert on insurance billing. They know insurance is, for lack of better words: a pain in the rear. Same as you!

Your team probably dislikes dealing with insurance as much as the next person. The only difference between your team and the biller, is the experience and expertise the biller has that comes with dealing with insurance daily. Plus, the remote biller will have the time to devote to the task of insurance billing. It’s like a chess match for the billers, and they always intend to win the appeals game. 

Your billers spend their day submitting claims, working the aging report, and trying to get denials appealed. Whereas, for your admin team… the task of insurance billing likely just feels like a huge tax on their workday.

Your outsourced biller has special incentives to get claims paid

While administrative team members are paid by the hour, the remote biller isn’t. Your biller (or billers, depending on the size of your practice) gets paid depending on how much money they bring in for you! So they are hyper-motivated to get your insurance claims paid. 

Most billers are 1099 contractors. They don’t necessarily get the same paycheck every other week as a W-2 worker would. Because of this, their personal income depends on how many claims they close out for each office they work with. So, they’re ready to get every single claim paid for you.

And your team is motivated to get claims paid because it will help increase the revenue of the practice. Having this common goal puts everyone on the same team. 

3. The biller does not “boss around” your admin team

A common fear among office managers, or other members of the administrative team, is that the outsourced biller is going to take control away from them. 

It’s understandable - a person you’ve never met is coming in and taking over a large portion of the practice’s income. Insurance billing is an important task that was previously handled by a team member and is now being passed over to someone else. Are they going to take other tasks from the dental team?

The short answer is no. Their sole responsibility is going to be your insurance billing. And the reality is, there’s a reason the dentist (or business owner) hired them. They needed an expert to help the practice bring in more money from insurance claims. 

The biller will only offer tips or advice when it’s appropriate

The admin team will not “report” to the biller, and the biller won’t really report to the admin team. They’ll technically report to the dentist or business owner. 

If the remote biller is hired on, and notices a lot of the claims they submit for the team are being denied for the same reasons (incorrect patient information, data entry errors, etc), they’ll address it with the admin team and figure out where there might need to be an improvement in the process. 

Does your team have a streamlined insurance verification process? Are the roles and responsibilities between each team member clear? 

The biller isn’t going to offer advice or solutions unless problems (such as consistently denied claims) arise that affect how they perform their own duties. 

Learn the 5 signs you have a great dental billing process in our Learning Center.

Are other outsourced dental billing myths holding you back from increased revenue?

An outsourced dental billing service is there to help your team streamline its process, bring in more money, and heal the stressful work environment, likely created by the insurance billing being a looming task yet to be done.

The billers you work with want your team to succeed, not just with insurance billing but also with patient billing, scheduling, check-in, and everything else that it takes to run a dental practice. It’s a lot! And with insurance billing off of your team’s plate, they can focus on those things. 

The expectations of what it’s like to work with a dental billing company need to be set in the beginning. Dental ClaimSupport has several conversations with dental offices to make sure these expectations are clear - and you should always keep that in mind when hiring any billing company. 

To learn more about the nuance of working with a remote biller and outsourcing, read our article, “Outsourcing your dental billing: 4 expectations vs reality.”