5 benefits of outsourcing dental revenue cycle management: Collect more and support your team

The dental billing process (or dental revenue cycle) presents a long list of challenges. For your office manager or a member of your administrative team, it’s hard to juggle the many parts of the dental billing process without dropping the ball — and teams have to complete those tasks in addition to handling patients. 

This is why many dental leaders look for third-party support and expertise to manage their revenue cycle. 

Outsourcing dental billing has become increasingly popular for dental leaders who want their in-house team to focus on patient care and growing the business, while experts and automation handle the more routine and repetitive billing tasks.

This article will cover 5 huge benefits of outsourcing dental billing — benefits that serve you, the dental practice owner, and your in-house team, as well as your patients. 

We’ve also included a free resource, The DCS Guide to RCM Services: How to Win Over Your Dental Team, which will share practical and proven tips for preparing your team to get outstanding results when working with an outsourced revenue cycle management provider.  

Benefit #1: Consistent cash flow with a calmer back office

Insurance claims account for nearly half of most dental business’ revenue — this is why accurate and efficient claims processing is so important and needs to be handled with expertise. 

To ensure your fast reimbursement from insurance companies, there are several steps to the insurance claims process, each step depending on the previous one. Because each step is tedious and time-consuming (working the insurance aging report, especially), errors are often made. 

Errors during the insurance billing process lead to claim denials, which result in payment delays while the corrected claim navigates the appeals process. It may be hard to believe, but errors as small as flipped digits on a CDT code have the potential to derail the insurance half of your overall revenue. 

That’s why outsourcing your dental billing is so beneficial: you and your team don’t have to worry about the following tasks when you partner with DCS: 

• Double-checking insurance claims for errors or missing information, then submitting to the appropriate insurance provider
• Posting all insurance checks and electronic funds transfers (EFTs) 
• Maintaining and analyzing accounts receivable (AR), aka insurance aging reports
• Resolving issues by taking care of proper adjustments, secondary electronic attachments, missing patient information, and deposit detail match/reconciliations, and also appealing denied claims

Both you and your team will love working with DCS. When experts are solely focused on managing your claims process, you’ll see fewer denials, faster reimbursement, and your team won’t be stuck on the phone for hours with insurance companies when they could be assisting your patients.

Benefit #2: A patient-focused dental team

Your dental patients are why you have a business. The care they receive from your in-house team should be nothing less than phenomenal. 

But that’s easier said than done when your team is distracted by the unending stream of insurance claims paperwork. If you have a small in-house team, and they’re stressed about appealing denied claims or working the aging report, then they aren’t able to give your patients their full attention. 

That split attention will be reflected in your patient’s overall experience at your dental office:

• Treatment presentations will be rushed (or not happen at all)
• Appointment check-in and check-out will be abrupt and impersonal,
• Scheduling will become a mess, and
• There will never be time for growing their skills or growing your business.

But when your insurance claims are managed by single-minded experts, your team is free to devote their valuable time and skills to what matters most: the patient experience. 

When your dental team has time and focus to cultivate loyalty and trust with your patients, you’ll see more positive online reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations.

This work is much more rewarding for your team than claims paperwork, and it’s these day-to-day interactions that grow your business organically — and consistently. Not to mention, your patients will appreciate the extra attention. 

Read More: 3 surprising ways your dental patients get benefits from RCM services

Benefit #3: Maximum reimbursement despite insurance coding and policy changes

Does your team struggle to keep up with insurance CDT coding and policy changes? If so: We get it.

Every year, insurance companies make it harder and harder to receive reimbursement by introducing small changes they hope your team won’t catch. And with everything else on your team’s plate, it can feel overwhelming to also stay abreast of the latest coding and policy updates. 

But to accept insurance, that’s the game. It’s unfair that payers make the rules, but your dental business needs — and earned — that claim money. 

When you outsource your dental billing, you will have experts keeping up with this information for you and for your team. We call our coast-to-coast information resource The DCS Knowledge Network.

When you partner with us for dental billing, you’ll be assigned one or two designated insurance billing experts, depending on the size of your dental business. But actually, you have access to all 100+ experts at DCS. If your designated biller can’t answer one of your questions, they’ll turn to one of their other seasoned coworkers at DCS for the solution. 

Imagine it: Your designated experts will stay up to date on changes across all insurance providers on behalf of you and your team, and they will make sure your submitted claims reflect these changes for legal compliance, maximum reimbursement, and fewer denied claims. And if there’s ever any doubt about an update, they will turn to The DCS Knowledge Network for answers. 

Benefit #4: Save money on staffing

The staffing shortage is certainly having an impact on the dental industry — you may have even felt the strain of it yourself.

Especially when it comes to the niche expertise required to handle insurance billing, you may have struggled to find experienced hires that are the right fit, but you do need that niche expertise.

If you hire a novice to learn on the job, they’ll likely make errors that will end up costing you more than what you saved on their entry-level salary. So, your best options are either hire a seasoned insurance coordinator or outsource your dental billing. 

Outsourcing your dental billing is the more cost-effective and efficient choice. Here are some real numbers…

The average salary for a dental office insurance coordinator is $22/hour, according to a 2022 Dental Post Salary Survey. At that rate, an insurance coordinator will actually cost you between $45,760 and $64,064 per year, depending on benefits.

DCS fees are based on your monthly collections. Let’s say you collect $45,000 of insurance claims per month. Then your monthly bill from DCS would be $1,575, and the yearly expense would total $18,900.

For a conservative calculation, let’s compare the low-end $45,760 salary to the fixed $18,900 expense:

$45,760 – $18,900 = $26,860

You would save $26,860 by outsourcing your dental billing instead of hiring a full-time insurance coordinator — or as much as $45,164, when considering the high-end of the salary range. 

Dive deeper into a cost comparison between in-house vs outsourced dental billing in our Learning Center.

Plus, from a Human Resources perspective, when you work with DCS, you won’t have to spend time hiring, training, and retaining additional staff.

And unlike your in-house staff, you won’t have to worry about DCS calling in sick, going on vacation, quitting, or retiring. If your designated biller is unavailable, another will step in to ensure your maximum collections.

Benefit #5: A more efficient and profitable dental business

When you outsource your dental billing, you have experts who will come in, look at your current workflows, and help your team make adjustments to maximize their efficiency. 

Our experts at DCS have worked with dozens of dental teams, and most of them have been part of an in-house dental team in the past. With this experience, they know what does and what doesn’t make for a streamlined dental billing process. 

With their eyes on your workflows, they’ll be able to spot mistakes sooner to prevent leaks in your revenue. They will even help simplify convoluted processes to ensure cash flows freely into your dental business. 

Extra eyes on your processes also means extra accountability. With objective third-party experts working on your revenue cycle, you’ll lower the chances of embezzlement — and Dentistry Today reports the lifetime probability of dentists being targeted for embezzlement is 60% to 70%.

Read more: How can embezzlement be prevented at your dental business? 3 ways RCM will help protect you

DCS’ experts are constantly looking at your numbers, and they will let you know immediately if something isn’t adding up. This provides you with extra security, peace of mind, and, of course, ensures your business keeps the revenue you deserve.

So, you’re confident that you’ll benefit from outsourced RCM – but what about your team?

After reading through the benefits of outsourced RCM, you now feel pretty confident about taking the next steps. But you might be wondering how you would communicate this change to your team. 

It’s crucial that your team is on board with outsourced dental billing for everyone to benefit from the results. So, we’ve got you covered with a few tips on how to win your team over to outsourced dental billing.

Don’t get me wrong. Dental teams love the results after DCS takes over claim submission, claim follow-up, appeals, working the insurance aging report, and payment posting — those are often a dental team’s least favorite tasks.

But at the outset, your team may have concerns that DCS is trying to replace them. Our guide will help you clarify that our experts are there to support their work, not take their jobs.

Download our free resource: The DCS Guide to RCM Services: How to Win Over Your Dental Team. 

Fill out the form below and the guide will appear in your inbox in just a few minutes.

Getting the best results from working with RCM experts requires the adaptability and cooperation of your in-house team. All of us have to be able to work together without friction or reluctance. 

The manager of our Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (OMS) Business Unit, Angela Moorman-Rakestraw, describes a profitable interaction with one of our customers’ in-house team: 

“One of the main reasons for success was the open lines of communication with DCS and the OMS office staff. We have a great team of DCS billers working with Aspire Oral Surgery, and their in-house team was extremely welcoming to the DCS Team. They were also willing to work together for that success.”  

It takes two to be successful in a relationship, and partnering with an RCM provider is no exception.

Reap the benefits of outsourcing dental billing, and eventually your full RCM

To recap, outsourcing your dental billing provides the following benefits: 

• Benefit #1: Consistent cash flow with a calmer back office
• Benefit #2: A patient-focused dental team
• Benefit #3: Maximum reimbursement despite insurance coding and policy changes
• Benefit #4: Save money on staffing
• Benefit #5: A more efficient and profitable dental business

Now that you are excited about the benefits of outsourcing your dental billing, get your team excited, too. Download The DCS Guide to RCM Services: How to Win Over Your Dental Team.

Make these benefits a reality with DCS’s expert revenue cycle management services: Book a call.