Discover how the Dentrix specialists at eAssist Dental Solutions can take the burden of contacting patients and collecting overdue balances off your hands.
A dental practice cannot be successful purely on clinical skills alone. For a dental practice to be profitable, the office needs to be collecting 100 percent of what is rightfully owed to the provider, from both insurance companies and patients. The hard truth is, sometimes trying to collect outstanding balances due from patients can be even more difficult than dealing with insurance companies.
Once patient accounts are over 30 days old, the chances of being able to easily collect those balances drastically decreases. Many times, the patient is simply unaware that there is still a remaining balance owed after their insurance has paid. Dentrix has integrated reports that makes viewing outstanding insurance and patient balances accessible and easy to understand.
For dental offices that want to track outstanding patient balances specifically, Dentrix has a report called the Collections Manager. This report has multiple customizable options for offices to choose how they want to access and view outstanding account balances.
Some of these customizations include:
- List by range of patient accounts
- List by specific provider
- Minimum account balances
- Number of missed appointments
- Outstanding insurance claim amounts
Once those options are set, the Collections Manager will generate a list matching the filters selected. I recommend selecting the Show Totals option at the bottom of the Collection Manager View window.
This allows you to see exactly how much you have in outstanding patient accounts receivable. Another best practice when using the Dentrix Collections Manager is to select filters based on which patient accounts need to be handled first.
From the Dentrix Collections Manager, you can view the patient’s Ledger, Office Journal, Document Center, Family File and other patient account info with just a click.
This easy access helps with patient ledger audits and answering patient questions during financial conversations. Another helpful feature of the Dentrix Collections Manager is the ability to right-click and hide accounts you’ve already contacted.
The eAssist Dental Solutions platform has Dentrix specialists that use the Collections Manager to formulate a report to match the doctor’s requests and use it to track account progress as patients are contacted about outstanding balances. eAssist aims to give each dentist a customized patient billing experience to maximize their collections by providing a dedicated billing phone number for patients to call directly to have billing questions answered. This keeps the practice phone line open and available for scheduling. Dentrix specialists at eAssist Dental Solutions perform patient ledger audits, send statements on a consistent basis, make reminder phone calls to patients regarding past due balances, and send customized reminder letters tailored to office preference.
So, if your past due patient accounts receivable are ballooning and you are ready to take that burden off of your dental administrative team, consider completely outsourcing your billing department to the Dentrix specialists at eAssist Dental Solutions.
Learn More
Schedule a no-obligation consultation today to see how the dental billing specialists at eAssist Dental Solutions can improve your profitability, maximize your Dentrix software, and help you reach your goals.
Read Simplifying Collections with the Collections Manager for additional information on how to discover which accounts are overdue and collect on them before they become a problem.
By Kaela Whitehead, eAssist Success Consultant
This article is provided for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. You should not act on the basis of any material contained in this article without obtaining proper legal or other professional advice specific to your situation as needed. The views expressed by the author or other third parties in this article are those of the author or third-party and not, necessarily, of Henry Schein One, LLC. Certain components of the product, or other products or services that interact with or support the product, and on which its functioning relies, may be provided by third parties, and Henry Schein One, LLC is not responsible for them, and expressly disclaims all liability for damages of any kind arising out of their use or operation. Third-party products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners and are used with its permission.
