Part of running a successful business is cutting out unnecessary tasks wherever possible. You don’t need to dedicate time to tasks that don’t actually add value to your bottom line. At a dental practice, you may wonder how you can be more efficient, especially in your front office. Are there ways you can be more efficient here?
Dental insurance verification takes up quite a bit of this team’s time, but is it really necessary? Would it make more financial sense to cut this from the dental claims process? The answers may surprise you!
Is Dental Insurance Verification Necessary?
Yes, it is essential! It may seem superfluous to reach out to the dental insurance company before the patient comes in for treatment, but in the long run, it will ultimately save you time and get you paid more quickly.
Without the verification process, your team will submit claims blindly to insurance companies, hoping that everything is correct. If a mistake is found, the claim will be denied, and you’ll have to start over: getting the right information from the patient, submitting another claim, and following up so that you do eventually get paid.
Although the verification process can be time consuming, having to do everything again is doubly expensive and frustrating. And that’s just for one patient! Taking a little bit of time upfront to verify insurance eligibility is worth avoiding rework, stress, and wasted hours dealing with insurance companies.
What Is Involved in the Dental Insurance Verification Process?
In the dental insurance verification process, once you gather the group and member ID and other insurance information from the patient, your team reaches out to the dental insurance provider to confirm their benefits. When the patient undergoes treatment, your team can then file claims with more confidence that the claim will be approved and paid on schedule.
If certain procedures are anticipated before the appointment, you can also look up the coverage of the patient’s policy and be ready to share this information with them. This way, the patient knows what to expect and how much they’ll need to pay out-of-pocket, again ensuring prompt payment.
You may wish to remove unnecessary tasks from your dental practice’s processes, but insurance verification is not one of these. It plays a vital role in bringing revenue. In other words, if you want to be paid—paramount for any business—you need to continue verifying eligibility or outsource this task to a qualified team to keep your business running smoothly.
About Dental Support Specialties
As a service company, Dental Support Specialties is happy to handle dental insurance verification for your practice. We can take the time-consuming burden off your front desk team, which allows them to focus on other tasks that must be performed in the office. In addition, the DSS team can answer phone calls and schedule appointments on your software. To learn how we can help your team function more optimally, contact us for a consultation.