how does your office do it?

[organic]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hi dear all,

I've been wondering how you dentists out there charge your patients usually.

I work in an office where we only take PPO. The way our office charges patients is that, if it is for major work( bridge, multiple crowns, denture etc), we send pre-estimations to insurances....this is quite common. But as for the basic treatments and the approved major works, we first provide the service, then claim to the insurance companies, and by the time insurance companies pay for their portion, we then bill our patients the rest ( co-payment, deductile). I have found that there are many drawbacks with this method, for example, it takes forever to receive some payments, we have to bill again and again and call the patients, some of them simply don't pay at all....and some would turn angry yelling at us that they never really thought it'd be so much money ( even if we told them before or "so much money" meaning 50 bucks....one patient even told us that he never expected to pay anything !!!)


My husband told me that when he went to see his dentist, he paid off the rest right away after the treatment. But our office manager insists that this method would cause even more confusion and trouble than ours. Her point is that you have to figure out the portion right on the spot, sometimes insurance payments are very complicated, therefore it is better to wait for the insurance companies to send us the payment before we charge patients anything.

I am wondering if what we are doing in the office is really the better way, since each month, our patient aging report is like 4-5 pages long!!! and I get the feeling that some patients consider the expenses just like when they use the credit card, they don't think 3000 bucks is really 3000 bucks until they receive the bill....

What is your method of managing patients' and insurances' payments? Do you have any recommendation?

any input is very much appreciated
thanks,
sincerely,


organic
😀

 

[DrJeff]

My office works the same way as yours, with the same problems too. "What it's not 100% covered?" for the $30 co-pay on a DO amalgam (scary thing is that its the $30 amalgam co-pays that get more calls(read as whines) than the $300 co-pay on a molar endo. We do have group of patients with a specific insurance that we make pay 100% upfront(one of the casinos here in CT has they're employee dental plan where the patient gets sent the insurance check directly with the intent that the patient then forwards it to us, well lets just say that we had a few people that never sent us the checks, and that plan had a $2000 yearly max) and we get a few gripes that way too. In general, though, most patient do appreciate, and understand that they bill after the insurance company pays their part will be coming their way, and we do make our policy very clear to our patients and if they so desire, we'll "estimate" their co-pay for any procedure. I too feel that our AR(accounts receivable - read as the amount that you've billed, but haven't yet collected due to waiting on insurance/waiting on patient payments, etc) is too large, but then again very few dentists don't think their AR is too large. Our uncollectable AR(the amount that we end up adjusting off the books due to non-collection was at 3.75% of our gross last year, which doesn't ssound too bad until you look at the numbers and realize that 3.75% equals almost $50,000😱 😡

I have friends that practice based on all the fees due at time of service and are "insurance free", I've got others that require the estimated insurance co-pay at the time of service, and others that practice like yours and my office. Most everyone is happy with how their office works. I guess that each area and practice style warrants different types of collection policies.

 

[organic]

Dr Jeff

thanks for sharing...

 

[FMLizard]

You have to realize that most Americans are either unemployed or have had their health and dental benefits cut down big time. The cost of their share can really be a shock when the bill comes and they make less money than they did 5 or 10 years ago.

I am surprised your collections are that good.

 

[organic]

Dear FMLizard

I don't quite get it, your point of view,

from the time patients receive treatment to the time we bill patients, it takes about 2 months....what is that 5-10 years all about?


Yes the economy is bad, but when the patient walks in for the treatment, they ought to know how much it costs them. The fact that economy is bad doesn't turn all normal citizens into bad credit hooligans, not to mention that there is no way to justify this kind of action with the reason of BAD ECONOMY.

A dental clinic is not charity

 

[FMLizard]

The 5-10 years refers to the fact that most people had much more money to spend on dental bills a decade ago than they do now. It will surprise them how much it costs, and how little their corporate-cutback insurance will cover.

Not an excuse for this, but a reason why a lot of it happens.