Learn to effectively use claim statuses in Dentrix so everyone understands what’s going on with unpaid claims.
In order to have steady cash flow coming into your practice, it’s important to stay on top of your office’s accounts receivables. There are several ways you can track accounts receivables in Dentrix: the Aging Report, the Collections Manager, and the Insurance Aging Report. It’s this last report that I’ll focus on in this article.
If your office files insurance claims for patients and accepts assignment of benefits, it’s especially important to generate the Insurance Aging Report regularly because much of your outstanding account balances will be expected to be paid by dental insurance.
I recommend generating the Insurance Aging Report on a weekly basis as a way to check on the status of any outstanding insurance claims. Once you’ve checked the status of a claim, you can make notes in the Claim Status block within the insurance claim in Dentrix. That way you and everyone else in your office will be able to review those notes to see why the claim is still outstanding.
In Dentrix G7.7, the Claim Status block has been updated with a more streamlined look. Some of the status options have been updated to use clearer terms.
Watch the Dentrix G7.6 and G7.7 New Features webinar to learn more about this feature.
New status options include the following: Contested, Information Needed, and Partially Paid Info. Using these status options and adding a note with additional information will make it easier to see at a glance why a claim remains unpaid.
When you generate the Insurance Aging Report, you have the option to print claim status notes on the report.
This makes the process of following up on outstanding claims more efficient because when you see an outstanding claim on the report, you can also see when you sent additional information or resent the claim, for example. You don’t need to spend time opening the patient’s Ledger and opening the claim to check the claim status notes. It’s all right there on your report and you can simply move on to the next outstanding claim.
The Insurance Aging Report is sorted by insurance carrier. When checking the status of claims, I find that the most efficient way to use your time is to focus on one insurance carrier at a time. Whether you’re calling the insurance carrier on the phone or checking claims’ status online, you can save time by checking several claims at once.
By generating the Insurance Aging Report on a weekly basis, you can keep on top of outstanding insurance claims. This is important because insurance payments generally make up a large portion of most dental office’s accounts receivables. If a claim needs to be resent or if an insurance carrier is requesting additional information for a claim, you need to know that as soon as possible. That way you can take necessary action in a timely manner so your claim can be considered, and your office can receive payment.
Whenever you update the claim status, be sure to add claim status notes. That way you can easily know exactly what is happening with each outstanding claim in your practice, especially if you include the option to print those status notes when generating the Insurance Aging Report. Other team members will also be able to view this information, so if a patient has questions about their outstanding claim, it will be easy for anyone in your office to know the most up-to-date information about the claim.
Learn More
Watch the Dentrix G7.6 and G7.7 New Features webinar to learn more about this feature.
For help generating and interpreting the Insurance Aging Report, read the following:
- Finding the Information You Need on the Insurance Aging Report
- Generating the Insurance Aging Report
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.
