10 Oct Increase Productivity and Profitability with Insurance Verification
With practice expenses rising faster than revenues, every dollar matters. According to an August 2023 report from the ADA Health Policy Institute (HPI), practice income for GP dentists increased by just 2.2% in 2022, while expenses rose by 7% that same year.
Although there can be large, unexpected expenses that wreak havoc on your practice’s financial health, it’s often the accumulation of small, overlooked losses that could be prevented.
Start Here for Success
Many of the administrative and operational tasks that must be (or could be) performed at the onset of a new year can be time-consuming, tedious and reduce the amount of time your staff has available for other responsibilities. And yet, these important tasks can ultimately have an impact on your practice’s bottom line.
Here are six reasons why January is the perfect time to update your processes and best practices for insurance claims processing, with an emphasis on early insurance verification:
Policy Changes
This is the time of the year when many insurance plan changes kick in and some patients have new insurance policies. Since your patients may not have delved into coverage changes or updated requirements, it can create friction between your staff and patients when coverage is different than expected.
Deductible Resets
As you know, since many plans operate on a calendar-year basis, deductibles and maximum benefits reset on January 1. Verifying insurance early in the year helps establish the financial responsibility for each patient’s routine preventative visits or treatment plans so there are fewer surprises.
Compliance Requirements
Since insurance regulations may vary from year-to-year — including insurance billing rules — now is the time for practices to ensure they’re complying with all regulations that may affect reimbursements.
Timely Claims Processing
When claims are denied or payment is delayed, it can have an impact on overall cash flow, as well as increase the stress level for both patients and practice staff. Verifying eligibility early reduces the likelihood of claims processing problems.
Overall Financial Health
If your practice verifies insurance coverage at the beginning of the year, it provides an opportunity to mitigate areas of potentially lost or reduced income. It’s much easier to plan ahead for a shortfall or reduced profitability when you have a clear picture of your projected cash flow, as well as estimates of claims processing times for various carriers.
Operational Efficiencies
When more staff activities are streamlined, automated or provided by a qualified business partner, this can contribute to happier employees, enhanced work culture, satisfied patients and stronger financial position.
Your Partner in Productivity
The Medusind® team current processes an average of 55,000 eligibility/benefit verifications every day. In fact, we pioneered the dental outsourcing industry more than 20 years ago. Since that time, we’ve grown to better meet our clients’ needs as their partner in dental billing, insurance verification, fee schedule maintenance and more.
Since our insurance verification approach isn’t one size fits all, you can be confident we’ll meet your practice’s needs. Using our QuickVerify™ technology, we make your staff’s life easier by following your specific protocols:
- We use your insurance breakdown forms.
- Gather all the information you want.
- Enter the details back into your practice management system.
- Attach existing plans to patients or create new plans.
These services are provided for upcoming verifications (such as new-year bulk verifications mentioned earlier), as well as same day or emergency appointments.
And with Medusind you will have at least two dedicated and trained full-time team members working only for your practice. We offer transparent transaction pricing and scale up or down according to your volume.
We stand ready to help you start the new year strong. Contact us for a no-obligation consultation to discuss how Medusind insurance verification — or other dental billing services — can optimize your dental practice’s productivity and profitability.
Medusind Quick Facts
- We launched the dental outsourcing concept in 2002 in Miami
- Our team is more than 4,000 employees strong
- We process an average of 55,000 verifications per day
- We support more than 7,000 dental offices nationwide
- We also serve independent, small group and specialty practices
