09 Dec Payment posting is what pays your bills—and we have advice
Dental insurance payment posting is a major part of the dental billing and insurance claims process. It ensures that payments for services delivered by dental professionals like you are accurately recorded, tracked, and reconciled. For that reason, dental insurance payment posting is important to the overall financial health of your dental practice, and it impacts how effectively your practice manages its revenue cycle.
If you’re part of a dental practice, dental insurance payment posting involves entering payments you receive from insurance companies or patients into your practice’s accounting system. Dental insurance payment posting lets you keep track of patient balances, resolve discrepancies in payment amounts, and see to it that services are correctly attributed to the proper accounts. In addition, dental insurance payment posting maintains transparency between your practice, your patients, and insurance providers by making it clear where financial responsibilities lie.
What is the dental insurance payment posting process?
Dental insurance payment posting begins after your dental practice submits a claim to an insurance company to be reimbursed for services. Once the insurance company processes the claim, your practice receives an Explanation of Benefits (EOB) or an Electronic Remittance Advice (ERA), which details the payments the insurer made and what your patient still owes. Then your dental insurance payment posting team reviews the EOB/ERA to determine the amount that needs to be applied to your patient’s account.
Here’s a breakdown of the key steps involved in dental insurance payment posting:
- Receiving Insurance Payments: After an insurance company processes a claim, it issues a payment or denial. If it’s a payment, you’re paid either via check or electronically. Electronic payments are more common today, since they’re faster and there’s less risk of errors.
- Reviewing the Explanation of Benefits (EOB): The EOB or ERA provides detailed information about the claim, including the amount approved, the services covered, and any deductions, such as co-pays, deductibles, or patient portion amounts. Your dental insurance payment posting team should review this information carefully to confirm all details are accurate.
- Posting Insurance Payments: Once your dental insurance payment posting team verifies the details in the EOB, it applies the payment to the patient’s account by allocating the appropriate amount to the correct procedure codes (CPT or CDT codes), applying any amounts the patient is responsible for, and updating the patient’s balance.
- Patient Balance Adjustments: After your practice posts insurance payments, it must adjust the patient’s account for any remaining balances, such as co-pays, deductibles, or out-of-pocket expenses. If the patient owes any additional amount, this will be reflected in their account, and they’ll be billed accordingly.
- Reconciling Payments: Finally, your dental insurance payment posting team reconciles the payment entries to guarantee they match the total payment amounts issued by the insurance company. If you find any discrepancies, you must investigate and correct them. These discrepancies may show up because of errors in coding, missed charges, or adjustments made by the insurance provider.
Why is dental insurance payment posting important?
Accurate dental insurance payment posting delivers these benefits:
- Improved Cash Flow: By promptly posting insurance payments and patient balances, your dental practice can maintain a steady cash flow. In other words, dental insurance payment posting ensures that there’s cash in your bank account. With timely payments, your practice can pay its bills, employees, and other operational costs when due. Without accurate dental insurance payment posting, your practice could face delays in receiving payments or struggle to track overdue accounts.
- Account Reconciliation: dental insurance payment posting helps ensure that your practice’s financial records are up-to-date and accurate. By reconciling payments with the amounts indicated on the EOB/ERA, your practice can quickly identify underpayments, overpayments, or billing errors. This helps prevent revenue loss resulting from discrepancies or unpaid patient balances.
- Reduced Administrative Workload: Accurate dental insurance payment posting reduces the need for administrative follow-up. If payments are posted correctly the first time, there will be less need for re-billing, dispute resolution, and claims resubmission. This frees up time for your dental staff to focus on other critical tasks, such as patient care and scheduling.
- Better Patient Relationships: When dental insurance payment posting is done accurately, it prevents confusion regarding patient balances, so your dental practice can clearly communicate with patients about what they owe, helping to avoid frustration and misunderstandings. It also minimizes the risk of billing errors that could detract from patient satisfaction.
- Compliance and Audit Readiness: Your dental practice must comply with regulations regarding billing and insurance claims. By maintaining accurate payment records, you confirm compliance with industry standards and reduce the risk of audits or penalties. With a well-organized dental insurance payment posting system, your practice can easily respond to inquiries from insurance companies, regulators, or auditors.
What are the challenges in dental insurance payment posting?
Payment posting isn’t always easy. What are some of the possible roadblocks?
- Complex Insurance Plans: Dental insurance plans often feature intricate coverage details, including varying co-pays, deductibles, and exclusions. Your dental insurance payment posting staff must have a deep understanding of these plans to accurately post payments and identify patient responsibilities.
- Payment Delays: Insurance companies can delay payment processing, triggering a lag in cash flow for your practice. This can create challenges if your practice relies on timely payments to cover expenses.
- Underpayments or Denials: For various reasons, insurance companies may underpay or deny claims. In that case, your practice should investigate these issues, appeal the denials, or correct the errors to ascertain you receive the full reimbursement you’re owed.
- Manual Data Entry Errors: Some practices still post payments manually, which can introduce the risk of human error. And if you enter data incorrectly, that leads to billing mistakes, payment delays, or underpayments.
Support for dental insurance payment posting
There’s another aspect of dental insurance payment posting that merits discussion: It can be very complex and time-consuming. The fact is, your staff aren’t specialized, dedicated experts in the field of dental insurance payment posting—but at Medusind, we are. It’s what we do for a living. It’s why we’re considered a national leader in dental billing and collections.
Our clients enjoy a 12% increase in collections revenue and a 40% reduction in labor costs. Does that sound like something your dental practice might benefit from?
If so, contact us, and let’s discuss how your practice could profit from professionally optimized revenue cycle management.
