As a dentist and business owner, you’re interested in exploring outsourced dental billing to solve a big problem: the costly, slow, confusing process of getting insurance firms to pay your claims.
However, you’re really hesitant about adding another expense to your ledger. It seems that between your practice bills, overhead costs, and other miscellaneous expenses - you’re already signing a lot of checks.
You’re feeling reluctant to pay for dental billing services. But don’t let that stop you from at least learning about outsourced dental billing. And we get it - it’s something unfamiliar that you know is going to cost something.
As an outsourced dental billing company, Dental ClaimSupport is one of those resources that will help you generate more revenue. However, we’re not here to tell you that outsourcing is the end-all-be-all. It’s designed to give a dental practice the most value at the least cost. But it’s not always the first choice for everyone, because it’s unknown.
Outsourcing your dental billing should do more than collect more money. A proven system should add value by keeping your process compliant, supporting smoother patient billing, and giving you and your team time back for patients and other business goals.
In this article, we’ll walk through how and why outsourcing may seem like an expense not worth the trouble or money, and then we’ll explain how it’s actually a tool for revenue generation. And although there is a monthly cost associated with outsourcing your dental billing, the benefits you’ll receive far outweigh that cost.
So let’s answer that question every dentist asks when they explore outsourcing their billing: Is it an expense or a revenue generator?
Why is outsourced dental billing seen as an expense for some dental professionals?
Well, let’s call a spade a spade. Outsourcing your dental billing isn’t free. Of course, there is going to be a monthly cost!
And this cost is largely based on the size of your posted claims income. For example, if your practice collects $40,000 per month or less in insurance, your outsourced dental billing is going to cost $1,300 per month. Once your office posts over $40,000 per month, your fee becomes a small percentage of the amount posted (3.5% or less).
The good news is that you don’t pay hourly. No matter how long the insurance company keeps the biller’s call on hold, you typically only pay based on the amount posted to your bank account (note that different dental billing companies each have their own payment structure).
The more insured patients you bring in, the more claims revenue you collect. Your remote support will scale to keep up with your growing productivity.
You won’t be recruiting, hiring, training, and paying benefits for an additional biller in your office.
Instead, you’ll pay a small fraction of what the remote team collects for you – which also motivates the team. You have zero onboarding costs, staffing issues, or hits to your productivity.
You are buying cost management, not paying a salary, and that difference is hard for many people to understand
Paying an employee's salary looks like a necessary expense while paying a service feels like an optional expense. But the outsourced dental billing company does the same work you’d pay an employee to do - with a fee structure designed to optimize your overhead.
The reason you’re exploring the idea of outsourcing your billing is that you need insurance collections to go up and your outstanding insurance aging report to go down. You need a process that deposits your claim payments quickly and accurately.
Great! That’s exactly what a dental billing company will do. And if you want a bright future, it’s important that you have the most cost-effective process for this task. Your insurance claims can account for most of your overall revenue - so this isn’t a task that should be pushed to the side until someone gets a free moment.
Another reason many dentists see this service as an expense is that it’s not an in-house employee that they’re seeing every day. It’s seen more as a “service” - but trust us, a real person is working on your claims when you hire a billing company. And for much, much less money per year.
Let’s compare the cost of an insurance biller vs a billing service provider
Hiring a full-time insurance coordinator might feel like less of an expense because you’re hiring a single person to handle your insurance billing, and you’ll see them in the office every day.
But an insurance coordinator is paid on average $22 per hour. Assuming they work 40 hours per week and there are 52 weeks per year, that’s $45,760 annually.
$22 x 40 hrs x 52 weeks = $45,760 per year (plus a benefits package, Unemployment taxes, and the social security employer tax match).
In comparison, dental billing services cost about $1,300 per month to start and from there cost about 3% of claims payments posted. If you’re a mid-sized dental practice, let’s say your total claimed amount is just under $100k per month. Your dental billing fee will range between $1,400 and $3,500 per month, based on the claims revenue posted.
Let’s do the math and get the annual cost of a dental billing service the same way.
$2,500 per month x 12 months = $30,000 annually.
Look at the difference in annual cost. You could either pay a dental billing company $30,000 per year, or your insurance coordinator $45,760, plus benefits. That’s $15k you can save with a service, or about ⅓ less.
Dive deeper into this cost comparison in our Learning Center.
So, how is outsourced dental billing a revenue generator?
We’re glad you asked! When you outsource your dental billing, you’re really hiring that biller’s system. And you’re paying someone else to make sure their system is profitable for you.
The most successful dental billing companies only hire highly trained and skilled billers. They teach a proven process that minimizes follow-up requests and disarms delay tactics from insurance companies.
In our case, our billing company will vet every single biller hired and train them to make sure they’re so efficient, that they can close more claims in about one-third of the time others need without this process. Getting more claims paid in less time adds up to more revenue for you.
As you know, the longer it takes for a claim to be paid, the less likely it is to ever be paid. Time is money! That’s why the efficiency of your billing process is so valuable.
Dental insurance billing is a very niche skill, and it’s a huge advantage to have a team of expert billers handling it on your behalf. Another value-add of outsourcing is the knowledge pool that private practices can’t create on their own.
A good billing process relies on teamwork. If one has a question, others jump in to help. They share their experience and knowledge. These billers have one responsibility, and it’s to get your claims paid quickly and properly. The shared-knowledge approach saves you the cost of training and re-work, so more money goes into your bank account.
Outsourced billers are not distracted by any other office tasks. They’re laser-focused on submitting your claims and working your insurance aging report, appealing denials, and making sure fewer claims are denied in the first place.
An outsourced dental biller is going to raise your collections percentage, AKA generate more revenue for your practice
We all know a good total collection percentage is above 98%, right? If yours is lower than that, there’s more to gain from your billing process.
When you outsource your insurance billing, you’re delegating the hardest part of dental billing to experts who thrive on the challenge.
Insurance companies are always finding new ways to not pay on claims, and the goal is to figure out the “why” behind the insurance claim denials and update the process accordingly. Outsourcing allows your staff to spend their valuable time taking care of your patients and keeping the schedule full.
Because of workflow efficiency, a sustained high collection rate, and a minimum of $15k per year in overhead cost savings, outsourced dental billing is more of a revenue generator than an expense.
Ready to invest in outsourcing your dental billing?
As you begin to shift your mindset on what outsourced dental billing means to you, you will see that through the cost savings and the increase in revenue, the money you generate from the expert billing services will outweigh the monthly cost for those services.
Outsourcing your dental billing is a continuous investment that dental practices make when they want to take control of their insurance claims income. After a few months of working with outsourced billing experts, you’re going to see your insurance collections percentage raise, and that insurance aging report go down. All of this and your employee overhead expense did not increase!
To learn more about how outsourcing your dental billing can give you a return on investment, visit our Learning Center.
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