Is your dental practice turning into a bank without you realizing it? Letting patients leave without paying and providing in-house financing can easily turn a business designed to help patients improve their oral health into a business that provides financing and slowly collects money from patients. Don’t let your compassion turn into a closed business. Here are some of the many ways you can decrease your accounts receivable.
Insurance Verification
Insurance verification can help improve the patient experience and make billing less stressful, yet many dental practices fail to complete the process. One way to decrease your accounts receivable is collecting insurance information from patients before the appointment so that you can ensure its accuracy. This also gives you the opportunity to see how much of the visit will be covered so that you can give them an accurate out-of-pocket estimate and collect enough at the time of the appointment.
Don’t Rely on Billing Later
Do you collect payment at the time of service or mail a bill later? To minimize your accounts receivable, you should always collect a patient’s co-pay or obligation at the time they are treated. Sending bills in the mail or over email is a surefire way for them to be lost or missed by accident, even by patients who have the money to pay right away.
Get Versatile with Payment Options
The more payment types that you accept, the easier it will be for you to accept payment. While you don’t have to add new options like Venmo or CashApp, you should make sure that you accept multiple types of credit cards and have an online payment portal. This speeds up the payment process and makes it more convenient for patients too.
Additionally, you should consider offering third-party financing. There are numerous third-party financing options today that work with medical and dental practices. By doing this, you can connect patients with the funds that they need for their procedure without being responsible for collection yourself and taking the risk of non-payment.
Bill Often
Many dental practices wait 30 days to send payment reminders to patients. If you’re trying to rapidly decrease your accounts receivable, you should consider decreasing this period to 15 days. When you are asking your patients for payment more often, you will be at the front of their minds and have a greater chance of collecting payment more quickly. The squeaky wheel gets the grease!
Make Billing and Payment Easy with APEX Reimbursement Specialists
Whether you’re looking for a way to make the insurance verification process easier or hoping to improve your overall patient communication plan, APEX Reimbursement Specialists is here to help. Contact our team today by calling (410) 710-6005. We look forward to working with you to make your practice a more profitable place.