Can an associate dentist paid on collection track the amount the insurances pay the office he or she works for?

[toothmagic]

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Like not just being told, 59,000 a month or anything, but the exact breakdown per procedure? The amount is an example.

 

[Soleus715]

Depends on the PMS being used at the office and being able to print out reports daily/weekly/monthly.

Embezzling is sadly way too common in dentistry, so I'd do some research or speak with a consultant to protect yourself from losing your hard earned money.

I am very anal about this, so in addition to software reports, I print out a daily schedule in my office and keep tabs on collections from pts/insurances.
I color coded my procedures by marking in red procedures I need to keep track of and blue for procedures that were 100% collected on.
This is a practice I started during office management days when I took over someone who had "lost" over $20,000 from incorrectly filing insurance claims.

Once I got used to doing this, it became a habit that takes less than 15 minutes out of my day to check everything. I'm probably overdoing it but it lets me sleep easier at night.

 

[toothmagic]

Depends on the PMS being used at the office and being able to print out reports daily/weekly/monthly.

Embezzling is sadly way too common in dentistry, so I'd do some research or speak with a consultant to protect yourself from losing your hard earned money.

I am very anal about this, so in addition to software reports, I print out a daily schedule in my office and keep tabs on collections from pts/insurances.
I color coded my procedures by marking in red procedures I need to keep track of and blue for procedures that were 100% collected on.
This is a practice I started during office management days when I took over someone who had "lost" over $20,000 from incorrectly filing insurance claims.

Once I got used to doing this, it became a habit that takes less than 15 minutes out of my day to check everything. I'm probably overdoing it but it lets me sleep easier at night.

What is a PMS?

 

[SchwarzKorkhaus]

What is a PMS?

practice management software

 

[DrJeff]

Everything you should be looking for should be in the ledger of the practice management system. For exam, in my office, we run Dentrix as our PMS. In the ledger it lists the provider who did the procedure, the fee charged, any insurance adjustment, any insurance payments received and whether the remaining balance the patient is responsible for was paid via cash, check or credit card, as well as any outstanding overall balance on that patients account.

Now if you are in a situation where your won't grant you access to the ledger section of the offices PMS, that would certainly be a significant concern in my book, especially if all/some portion of your pay is based on collections

 

[Soleus715]

Everything you should be looking for should be in the ledger of the practice management system. For exam, in my office, we run Dentrix as our PMS. In the ledger it lists the provider who did the procedure, the fee charged, any insurance adjustment, any insurance payments received and whether the remaining balance the patient is responsible for was paid via cash, check or credit card, as well as any outstanding overall balance on that patients account.

Now if you are in a situation where your won't grant you access to the ledger section of the offices PMS, that would certainly be a significant concern in my book, especially if all/some portion of your pay is based on collections

Limited access to ledger would be a huge red flag for sure, I bet it's coupled with having a dry-erase board in the back room with associates' production numbers written. Seen too many of those offices during my job hunt.

 

[allDAT]

It is sooooo much easier for everyone to be paid a % of adjusted production than on collections for this very reason...You can’t really follow collections perfectly.

The only practical way to actually know exactly what’s going on with collections is to have unrestricted access to the PMS as mentioned above, but that also requires a good team entering the data. Unfortunately, the data in the PMS is also easily manipulated (that’s why so many of us get embezzled from). The only true way to follow where the money goes is to have access to the PMS, the accounting software, and the bank account statements to cross check the reconciliation reports and associates don’t get this type of access to the business for a lot of reasons. All the more reason to own the practice.

 

[Typical Average Student]

What is a PMS?

If they use Dentrix, I can walk you through how to find those numbers, not sure how to find it on other softwares.

 

[toothmagic]

Hi, no they don't use Dentrix, my friend is being scammed or whatever, he is thinking of moving on... Thank you all for your answers!