Shared insights from an office manager for how to reconcile insurance credit card payments, interest payments, and process insurance refunds in Dentrix.
Dental insurance companies can be challenging to deal with. There tends to be a constant struggle to get your patients’ claims paid in a timely manner. But sometimes, getting paid is only part of the battle. When you finally do get paid, how you handle that payment may pose its own challenges. Here are some examples of insurance payment challenges that offices have shared with me and how to best handle them in Dentrix.
Insurance Credit Card Payments
When an insurance company sends you payment for a claim by virtual credit card, it’s important to differentiate those payments from insurance check payments. If you don’t, it can make balancing check payments and credit card payments in your Dentrix daily reports very difficult.
When posting an insurance payment by credit card, be sure to select the appropriate payment type in the Batch Insurance Payment Entry dialog box so that the payment types will be listed accordingly in Dentrix reports.
I suggest contacting the insurance carrier regarding all future payments and opting out of credit card payments. It’s costly for your practice to accept credit card payments, and it’s unfair to be expected to accept insurance payments using that payment method.
Insurance Interest Payments
When insurance companies take an extended period of time to make a payment on a claim, there may be instances where they will also include an interest payment once payment is sent. When posting that payment, offices will usually handle this in one of two ways:
- Method 1: The claim payment is posted to the claim in the usual manner. The interest payment is posted as an additional payment to the claim and a charge adjustment is made to the patient’s account.
- Method 2: The claim payment is posted in the usual manner to the patient’s Ledger. The interest payment is posted to the Ledger for an account created for the practice, for example Dentrix Family Dental.
The reason for both of these methods is that the interest payment is owed to the practice due to the delay in the insurance company’s payment. This interest payment is not owed to the patient. For both methods, it’s critical to post the interest payment to the correct provider, especially in practices where providers are paid based on collections. In the case of method 1 above, the adjustment should also be posted to the correct provider. It may also be a good idea to create an adjustment type for just these particular adjustments so you can easily differentiate them on reports.
Insurance Refunds Withheld from Another Payment
There may be instances when an insurance company withholds an insurance overpayment from a future patient’s claim payment, instead of allowing your office to refund the overpayment in the traditional manner. This can be frustrating because they may withhold a payment from a different patient than the patient with the refund due. This is not ideal as it requires you to make adjustments on two patient accounts in Dentrix.
It’s a good idea to have special adjustment types for these types of adjustments so you can easily see the adjustment types both in Dentrix reports and on the patient’s Ledgers and know what these adjustments are for. For the patient whose payment was withheld, you can post a zero payment to the claim and make the necessary credit adjustment of the amount that should have been paid but was applied to the overpayment. Make a detailed note in the adjustment note field. For the patient who owes the insurance refund, you can make a charge adjustment making a detailed note in the adjustment note field.
Dental insurance companies can present dental practices with many challenges on a daily basis including filing and following up on claims in order to get paid in a timely manner. Some cases they present are more unusual and can be a bit more complicated to handle in Dentrix. Hopefully these instances are rare in your practice, and these tips help you to navigate them.
Learn More
For additional information, read the following:
- Adding Adjustment Types
- Customizing Adjustment Types
- Entering Credit Adjustments
- Entering Charge Adjustments
By Charlotte Skaggs
Certified Dentrix Trainer and The Dentrix Office Manager columnist
Charlotte Skaggs is the founder of Vector Dental Consulting LLC, a practice management firm focused on taking offices to the next level. Charlotte co-owned and managed a successful dental practice with her husband for 17 years. She has a unique approach to consulting based on the perspective of a practice owner. Charlotte has been using Dentrix for over 20 years and is a certified Dentrix trainer. Contact Charlotte at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.
