Make sure your Treatment Manager list is accurate by updating important patient insurance plan Information regularly.
As we enter the fourth quarter of the year, it’s time once again to start all of the end-of-year routines in your practice. One important thing I suggest practices focus on at this time of year is to identify patients that have outstanding treatment plans and that still have remaining insurance benefits for the year. Once these patients have been identified, you can begin to contact them to try to get them scheduled for that outstanding treatment.
Scheduling outstanding treatment plans before the end of the year is an excellent way for your practice to generate additional production and revenue. By scheduling outstanding treatment plans now, you’re also helping your patients to take advantage of insurance benefits they might otherwise lose if they aren’t used up before the end of the year.
The best Dentrix tool to help you find the patients with outstanding treatment plans and who have remaining insurance benefits is the Treatment Manager.
I prefer to use the Treatment Manager as opposed to the Unscheduled Treatment Plan List when contacting patients with outstanding treatment because the Treatment Manager allows you to apply filters to specifically search for the patients who meet certain criteria. The Treatment Manager has a built-in filter that will find patients with a minimum amount of insurance benefits remaining.
Another thing that makes the Treatment Manager such a helpful tool is the ability to access other Dentrix modules directly from your search results. Because the Treatment Manager is an interactive report, if you contact a patient to discuss their treatment plan and they have questions about the cost, you can easily open the Treatment Planner directly form the Treatment Manager and review case details, insurance coverage, and more. You can even record your results of your conversation with the patient in the Office Journal, which is also available without ever leaving the Treatment Manager.
While the Treatment Manager is an extremely helpful tool, there are some important insurance plan information to double-check within Dentrix to ensure that it provides you with accurate information.
First, be sure to check the benefit renewal month for insurance plans in Dentrix and update them if necessary. Many insurance plans renew based on a calendar year, but there may be some plans that are different. In order for Dentrix to calculate insurance maximums and deductibles properly, make sure your team is checking and updating the benefit renewal month for each plan if needed.
It’s also important to enter any insurance maximum amounts patients may have used outside of your office into Dentrix so that insurance maximums are calculated accurately. If a patient is new to your office and has already used some of their insurance maximum, be sure to enter that information in Dentrix. Dentrix will track how much of their insurance maximum a patient uses at your office, but anything used outside of your office will also need to be entered manually, so that the maximum amount of benefits used is accurate.
You can use the Dentrix Treatment Manager to identify which patients have outstanding treatment plans and have remaining insurance benefits. However, it’s important to enter patients’ insurance information correctly in order for the list of patients you generate to be accurate. Once you’ve found the patients that meet your criteria, you can contact those patients to schedule their outstanding treatment plans. Scheduling these patients before their insurance benefits renew is beneficial for the patients because it allows them to take advantage of insurance benefits they may lose if they don’t use. It also benefits your practice—by scheduling outstanding treatment plans, your office is generating production.
Learn More
For additional information, read the following:
- Viewing Patient Insurance Benefit Information from the Treatment Planner
- Finding Specific Groups of Patients in the Treatment Manager
- An Easier Way to Manage Patient Insurance Details
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.
