Like every place of business, it takes time to perfect the billing process. We all have our own systems and like to do what makes sense to us. While there isn’t an end-all, be-all step-by-step set of rules for billing, there are some common questions that are likely to be asked in the process, one of them being, “how often should my dental office be sending insurance claims?” Whether you are an experienced billing coordinator, just trying to increase your collections percentage, or a brand new practice owner learning the ropes on getting paid by insurance companies, this is an important question to know the answer to!
The medical claim form, in itself, can be a source of confusion and frustration for many dental team members. Claim form submission errors are the most common cause for claim rejections. They’re also the biggest source of frustration and the reason that many dental team members give up on filing claims to medical insurance. At Dental Claim Support, our team of knowledgeable expert medical billing specialists assist our clients with billing dental procedures to the patient’s medical plan successfully on a daily basis. The dental world is changing. Servicing hundreds of providers, we have seen the trends of common dental procedures needing to be billed to medical insurance.
As a dental professional, you're familiar with the periodontal maintenance procedure and CDT code D4910. But applying this code can still be confusing.
8 New Codes Added to CDT 2021, effective now The ADA Code Maintenance Committee approved the following 8 new codes to be included in CDT 2021. These codes were accepted into CDT 2021 under special provision during the annual CMC meeting held on March 11-12, 2021. These codes have been added to CDT 2021 in response to the current pandemic. Currently, at least 25 states have approved dentists and 14 states have approved dental hygienists to administer the SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19 vaccines.
How do you know if you are running a successful dental practice? Happy patients and happy employees are a key factor, but are you actually making money? Many dentists struggle with the financial side of running a dental practice. It’s not that it’s just difficult to keep up with, it’s that most dentists don’t want to or know how to. Most dentists like to fix teeth, plain and simple.
You are in the market for a new dental practice management software. Your modern dental practice is currently utilizing out-of-date and inefficient software that is slow, glitches constantly and all of this makes posting payments a huge pain, plus they aren’t being posted in a timely manner.
You’re a dentist with your own practice, dealing with the after effects of 2020. Your collections percentage is down, and it’s affected the revenue of your business. You’re scared, anxious, considering cutting overhead costs, and possibly unable to perform certain procedures due to lack of revenue. To put it simply, your business is facing its worst case scenario. Learning where the disconnect is between your office, your patient and the insurance company can help you figure out where your money is going and why it isn’t in your pocket where it belongs.
Getting a crown paid, without an appeal, has become difficult for some dental practices lately. Insurance companies want as much information as possible to determine the necessity of the crown. Not to mention, any major work will always be your most delayed payment from an insurance company. At Dental ClaimSupport, we have gotten thousands of crowns paid for dentists. We utilize our process and system to get crowns paid effectively and efficiently, without waiting on insurance to respond with more requests.
As a dental business owner, you need to be aware of your insurance aging report. But did you get into dentistry to make sure insurance companies pay claims, or to fix smiles? It’s safe to say we will go with the latter. However, if you’ve seen a waterfall of insurance payments turn into a trickle, the first place to investigate the “why” is your outstanding insurance aging report. You may see that you have thousands of dollars outstanding that should be in your pocket. There needs to be an urgency to getting this money into your bank account. The longer a claim sits untouched, the less chance it has of being paid.
Have you ever gotten yourself in trouble without even realizing you were doing something wrong? Of course you have, we all have! In the dental billing industry, it is a common mistake for dentists to use stock dental narratives without realizing this could get them in trouble. A narrative in the dental industry is a description of the patient’s problems and procedures. This is something you might see documented in clinical notes or the patient’s medical history. Stock narratives are default descriptions that cover a wide variety of symptoms, problems and procedures. Think of it like a “default” setting on your phone.
