Improve your billing process to have healthier cash flow and a better collection rate.
I had an office recently ask about when the appropriate time is to send a patient a billing statement. It’s important to have a consistent procedure for your office’s billing process so that accounts don’t fall through the cracks.
Generate Statements After Insurance Payments are Posted
When you post any type of insurance payment, I recommend you generate a billing statement immediately if the patient has a remaining balance. If you are posting insurance payments using the Enter Batch Insurance Payment feature, you can generate statements directly from that window.
If you are posting within an individual insurance claim, you can easily generate a statement from the patient’s Ledger.
Generate Statements on a Consistent Basis
For all other billing statements, I suggest you generate them on a designated day every month. For example, always generate statements on the 1st or on the 15th of the month. When selecting billing statement options, select If Not Billed Since and enter the date of one month prior. By selecting this option, you won’t send a duplicate statement to patients who received one recently if you sent one after receiving an insurance payment.
Automate When Statements are Generated
You can use the Task Scheduler to generate billing statements automatically so you don’t forget to run them on your chosen date. You can add Billing Statements (found under Ledger Reports in the Available Tasks list) to your Monthly queue and they will be automatically generated based on the settings you are prompted to enter when you add the task to the queue and according to the queue’s Recurrence settings.
Streamline the Billing Process
QuickBill can streamline your statement sending process even further by doing a lot of the work for you. Billing statements can be sent via mail from Dentrix without you having to print them yourself. With QuickBill Email (available for Dentrix G7.3 and above), billing statements can be emailed to patients. When statements are emailed, patients have a secure option to view and pay their balance online, which is more convenient for patients and also means your office gets paid faster.
Collect at Time of Service
Train your administrative team to always look at the family balance when checking a patient out for their visit. Although a patient may not owe a patient portion for her dental cleaning and exam today, her husband or child may have an account balance, which you could collect from her, saving you the time and cost of having to send a statement.
It’s important to send billing statements consistently. If you send them immediately after receiving insurance payments, you’re likely to receive the patient portion of the balance more quickly than if you wait until your next monthly billing cycle. Use Dentrix tools like the Task Scheduler to automate sending statements each month or consider implementing QuickBill options for statement delivery. All offices want to get paid faster. By implementing these billing statement tips, you’ll have a better collection rate and healthier cash flow!
Learn More
For additional information, read the following :
- Tips for Generating and Sending Billing Statements
- QuickBill Email: Send Bills Electronically and Collect Payments Online
- Simplify Billing with QuickBill
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.
