Imagine a world where you don’t have to manage patients’ dental insurance verification in your practice. It sounds like a dentist’s nirvana, right? But it is far from reality. This is where getting dental insurance support can benefit your practice.
Dental insurance support is a dedicated service that submits the insurance claims, completes regular follow-ups, and attends to patient queries regarding insurance settlement.
Dental insurance providers can take up a significant amount of time in the clinic, keeping the employees on the phone and distracted. Having dental insurance support enables the dentist to focus on what matters the most – patient care.
You can save valuable time, seamlessly update patient insurance information, and have happy patients. But how does it work, and how it benefits your dental practice?
Keep on reading to find out.
What is dental insurance support?
It is known that patients with dental insurance are more likely to avail dental care and accept treatment plans. However, as a dentist, processing and verifying dental insurance is time-consuming and can ultimately lead to frustration.
You have to be prepared with all the right tools and information to tackle the challenges thrown by dental insurance companies to get the claim paid the first time around.
As you will be busy focusing on in-house patient care, things like submitting, verifying, and follow-ups of insurance benefits, account statements, and reviews, among other tedious and time-consuming tasks, pile up.
Old and aging reports can make things difficult for you if you do not have a robust system in place. This is where dental insurance support comes into the picture.
Dental insurance support handles different facets of dental insurance for your dental practice. Irrespective of the department, they will be prompt to offer an extra hand, looking after all the insurance-related needs and issues so that you can focus on providing quality dental care to your patients. The service boasts unique administrative expertise and quality customer service, which can streamline the entire dental insurance system and keep the AR system up to date, ensuring constant cash flow, scheduled treatments, and happy and satisfied patients.
Therefore, as a dentist who owns a clinic, you should consider getting dental insurance support.
What are the typical insurance billing problems?
Dental insurance contains information that you will use to get paid by the patient’s insurance company. Usually, most dentists copy the patients’ insurance cards the first time they visit them.
Now, things get quickly piled up, and sometimes it gets tricky to keep the cash flowing. You will have to constantly contact the insurance company and provide them with patient details; they will cross-check the data, and after 40-minutes or so, your payment is cleared.
Above all, if you have hundreds of patients with insurance, you will be spending a lot of time attending calls.
Also, you will be putting your staff on insurance duty as well. This affects the quality of care your clinic offers. With that, you will be facing some common problems; in this article, we explain which and what to do about them.
Let’s begin!
#1 Inaccurate patient insurance information
The most common problem that dentists face is dealing with inaccurate insurance details.
Patients are changing their dental insurance plans all the time and, on top of that, insurance providers keep updating their policies every year to stay lucrative in the market and attract more clients.
It should not be your responsibility to keep yourself updated regarding your patients’ insurance information, but neglecting such things can cause problems when you apply to claim the money from the insurance provider.
Having adequately trained dental insurance support onboard can ease the process. They will follow up and double-check with the insurance company to ensure that everything is up-to-date.
If a patient changes his/her policy or the insurance provider modifies the plan, you will be notified and updated about the same without any hassle.
#2 Insurance reports get piled up without making the claims
One of the primary aspects that affect the cash flow of a dental clinic is an aging insurance report.
Many dental clinics fail to keep insurance collections up-to-date, translating complications with your dental practice’s cash flow.
Having a dental insurance support team on board can make the process a lot easier. They will look after collecting insurance payments owed to you and ensure that everything is recorded for future reference.
You simply have to focus on patient care.
#3 Patients questioning surprise fees
As a dental clinic, it is a common practice to update your fees and other deductibles. However, your patients may find it frustrating when you surprise them with unexpected deductibles and copay.
It may not be as severe as it sounds, but it can play a vital role in patient retention. You need someone to cut down this frustration who can keep the patients fully informed.
A dental insurance support service will keep your patients from unpleasant surprises, keeping them informed about charges or fees that they will have to pay out of pocket to get the treatment, an intelligent step towards better patient retention.
You need to find a way to work with unsatisfied patients who are unhappy with your pricing model and provide them with a suitable solution for both the patients and your practice.
Hiring dental insurance support is one step towards that.
#4 Unable to talk to dental insurance companies
When you submit your insurance claims to claim the payment, insurance companies will not pay straight away without making any inquiries.
A dedicated service that can submit your insurance claims, complete follow-ups, and entertain insurance companies with their queries can be of great help in these situations.
Taking up the calls from the insurance companies is vital to keep the cash flow in. Also, you would want to focus on your patients rather than taking up calls pinpointing them the insurance details.
How does dental insurance support work?
When you hire a dental insurance support team, they will work with your team and even your phone provider (if needed) to synchronize the call forwarding actions required.
When the support team makes outbound calls on behalf of your dental clinic, they will be using your phone number. This ensures seamless support.
They will be responsible for:
- Re-care/undone treatment calls
- Post-op calls
- Insurance breakdowns and verifications
- Filling last-minute appointment openings
The service provider may also work with your IT team to create a secure remote network connection between your dental clinic and office.
From there on, you don’t stress about creating appointments and scheduling patients. They will work on the specifics so that you can focus on effective patient care.
Conclusion
Dental insurance support can save you time, effort, and energy. It is all about finding the right service provider.
Shop around and do your research to make an informed decision. After all, it is your clinic, and you would want your patients to have unmatched experience.