As the saying goes, “cash flow is king.” So how do you maintain a healthy cash flow for your dental practice?
The answer is simple: Get paid faster. But the “how” can be tricky.
Coding and billing often feel like pulling teeth for many dental offices. Navigating the complexity of the claim process is labor-intensive and time-consuming. If you file by paper, you may wait weeks just to receive a notice in the mail saying that the payer has rejected the claim and you have to start the process all over again.
Meanwhile, shifts in the healthcare industry mean more patients pay for treatments out of pocket. Let’s be honest: Paying dental bills isn’t anyone’s favorite pastime. If you send a paper statement and hope patients will write a check, find an envelope, and hunt for a stamp immediately — you’d probably be disappointed.
To get paid faster, you must increase claim processing efficiency and make it easy for patients to pay you. That means handling your claims and patient statements electronically and allowing patients to pay online with various payment options.
Here’s why dental practices of all sizes are filing claims and sending patient statements electronically:
You need a software application to process patient statements and submit claims electronically. But choosing one that’s right for your practice can be daunting. Here are some key considerations:
Buying on-premise software often requires a substantial upfront investment for purchasing the hardware to run the application and store the data. You’re also responsible for ongoing maintenance and replacement costs. On the other hand, you can access a cloud-based application without a high initial cost.
Your cloud vendor takes care of all the upgrades, so you can access the latest features and deliver a modern patient experience with a flat monthly fee. Also, a reputable provider will implement all the necessary security controls to protect your data and ensure HIPAA compliance.
Most traditional e-claim software requires you to use a clearing house, attachment application, and payer portals to transmit various documents to complete the submission process. Practices often end up with multiple copies of the files, creating data integrity issues. Plus, the complex workflow makes the process cumbersome and error-prone.
Instead, choose a modern cloud-based dental management platform like tab32 that allows you to submit claims without going through multiple clearing houses or payer portals. You can process all submissions from a single dashboard to simplify workflows and improve efficiency.
Your e-claim and invoicing solution should integrate seamlessly with your existing tech stack to maximize the benefits of automation, streamline your workflows, and minimize costly human errors. If you purchase standalone applications, you’ll need to use APIs to integrate them with your practice management software, which may not be an ideal approach for dental practices.
It’s often more cost-effective for dental offices to use an all-in-one practice management platform that includes robust e-claim and patient invoicing features. You can pull EHRs and X-ray images directly from the database and add them to your claims without patching together different services, which can be costly and error-prone.
Choose a solution that also allows you to include payment links with e-statements and offer multiple payment options. You can use an all-in-one dental practice management platform with a robust patient communication module to send invoices immediately after a visit, automate reminders, and process payments via an intuitive interface to deliver a modern patient experience.
tab32 is a cloud-based, all-in-one dental practice management platform that offers industry-leading claim submission and patient invoicing features to help you process e-claims and e-statements in real time.
Our Dental Billing module doesn’t require you to juggle third-party integrations with a clearing house or NEA attachment vendors (we manage that relationship on the back end) to save you a lot of headache and thousands of dollars a year.
Meanwhile, our invoicing feature works hand-in-hand with our payment processing functions and patient communication module. It’s a breeze to send e-statements and reminders while providing people with a convenient way to pay you from any device with a few clicks.
Request a demo to see how tab32 can help you get paid faster.
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