The medical claim form, in itself, can be a source of confusion and frustration for many dental team members. Claim form submission errors are the most common cause for claim rejections. They’re also the biggest source of frustration and the reason that many dental team members give up on filing claims to medical insurance. At Dental Claim Support, our team of knowledgeable expert medical billing specialists assist our clients with billing dental procedures to the patient’s medical plan successfully on a daily basis. The dental world is changing. Servicing hundreds of providers, we have seen the trends of common dental procedures needing to be billed to medical insurance.

How do you know if you are running a successful dental practice? Happy patients and happy employees are a key factor, but are you actually making money? Many dentists struggle with the financial side of running a dental practice. It’s not that it’s just difficult to keep up with, it’s that most dentists don’t want to or know how to. Most dentists like to fix teeth, plain and simple.

You’re a dentist with your own practice, dealing with the after effects of 2020. Your collections percentage is down, and it’s affected the revenue of your business. You’re scared, anxious, considering cutting overhead costs, and possibly unable to perform certain procedures due to lack of revenue. To put it simply, your business is facing its worst case scenario. Learning where the disconnect is between your office, your patient and the insurance company can help you figure out where your money is going and why it isn’t in your pocket where it belongs.

Getting a crown paid, without an appeal, has become difficult for some dental practices lately. Insurance companies want as much information as possible to determine the necessity of the crown. Not to mention, any major work will always be your most delayed payment from an insurance company. At Dental ClaimSupport, we have gotten thousands of crowns paid for dentists. We utilize our process and system to get crowns paid effectively and efficiently, without waiting on insurance to respond with more requests.

As a dental business owner, you need to be aware of your insurance aging report. But did you get into dentistry to make sure insurance companies pay claims, or to fix smiles? It’s safe to say we will go with the latter. However, if you’ve seen a waterfall of insurance payments turn into a trickle, the first place to investigate the “why” is your outstanding insurance aging report. You may see that you have thousands of dollars outstanding that should be in your pocket. There needs to be an urgency to getting this money into your bank account. The longer a claim sits untouched, the less chance it has of being paid.

Have you ever gotten yourself in trouble without even realizing you were doing something wrong? Of course you have, we all have! In the dental billing industry, it is a common mistake for dentists to use stock dental narratives without realizing this could get them in trouble. A narrative in the dental industry is a description of the patient’s problems and procedures. This is something you might see documented in clinical notes or the patient’s medical history. Stock narratives are default descriptions that cover a wide variety of symptoms, problems and procedures. Think of it like a “default” setting on your phone.

You don’t have to be “old” to be behind on technology. Plenty of dental offices are still using dated software simply because it’s something they’ve always used and are familiar with it. Change is hard, especially when it comes to learning a new piece of technology. It can be annoying, frustrating and seem unnecessary. At Dental ClaimSupport, our goal is to set you up for success, so having a newer software will in turn, help us increase your collections percentage. We believe dental offices need to convert to newer dental softwares for the same reason people need new cell phones. The main reason being, the software is outdated. If you are currently operating on a Dentrix, OpenDental, Eaglesoft, Curve, there is typically no reason to switch unless you just prefer one over the other. These tend to be the major softwares that most are converting to from the older softwares. Other reasons to switch softwares may include larger practices with multiple providers, paying providers based on production and/or collections, multiple locations, or they want to convert from server to cloud based softwares.

Like many dental offices, you may have just seen a spike in your insurance aging report. Claims just don’t seem to be paying like you want them to, and your collections are fluctuating each month. This is worrisome, to put it lightly. But what causes this? Because we are self-proclaimed “dental nerds” at Dental Claim Support, we actually enjoy researching claims. We have seen every single reason a claim does not process or pay that will inevitably increase your insurance aging report. This report isn’t necessarily “fun” to work on, but if you treat it as a game or challenge, you may change your mind on the matter.

When it comes to outsourcing your dental billing, we understand the hesitation. You’re thinking, “I need a more organized, streamlined way to run my billing department, but how can I trust these people? Isn’t there a way I can just do it myself? Am I up for starting a working-relationship with people outside of my organization?” Signing on to work with total strangers that you rely on to solve problems is easier said than done. Will they really produce outcomes? Will they truly support you along the way? Or will they force you to sign a year-long contract and leave you to fend for yourself?

You are one of the thousands of dentists that have made the decision to utilize an outsourced dental billing company. This could be the perfect decision for your office, but what made you decide to engage in outsourced dental billing in the first place? Maybe you have your key insurance billing employee leaving for any number of reasons. Or you may be looking for quick fixes to internal insurance claim collection issues. Maybe your dental office is increasing your patient base and you simply need the additional help but don’t have time to train. Whatever the reason, you have decided to take the outsourced dental billing leap. Any change in your office personnel or teaming up with an outsourced dental billing company will come with some sort of onboarding. So depending on your own needs, how long does it take to get rockin’ and rollin’ with a dental billing company?