Getting and analyzing reports for dental practice accounts receivable is crucial to understanding the health of your practice. Medical billing reports are vital and arguably serve as the lifeblood of the practice’s cash flow. 

Let’s look at the 7 reports for dental practice AR that’ll help you understand the health of your practice.

1) Patient analysis report

The patient analysis report is arguably one of the most essential reports for dental practice AR. In fact, it’s the report you should be checking most often to see how your practice is performing. Ideally, you should inspect this report every month. Many people recommend running through the report every week.

It’ll showcase where the practice stands by describing several different variables. The report will indicate the types of patients you’re seeing, how often you’re seeing them, and where they’re coming from. It also contains information on the active patient base, the insurance base, and patient hygiene.

The best way to analyze the report is to look at patients seen in the last year, the last two years, and the last three years. Take a further look into these percentages to see any areas that you might need to improve.

2) Accounts receivable reports

If you’re not already receiving a dedicated accounts receivable report, you’re not doing your practice justice. It’s the main report for dental practice AR and is typically available through most accounting software on the market. Most software allows you to add filters, but you may wish to ignore these to get the most accurate numbers possible.

When calculating monthly production, consider any credit values in the accounts receivable. There may be individual balances that need adjustment, so it’s vital to review the report periodically.

You should also take a look at the aging category. That essentially allows you to identify what represents the most considerable portion of the practice’s accounts receivable. Keep an eye on the age of the balance. As that grows older, the probability of collecting the amount diminishes significantly.

3) Outstanding claims by aging category report

A lot of modern dental practices accept insurance payments regardless of their participation with an insurance plan or not. These practices need to keep a close eye on the outstanding claims by aging category report. It’ll help ensure a consistent collection of these outstanding claims and help you maintain a balance.

The report will showcase all patients with open claims, and you can see which ones belong to the same insurance company. Once you’ve identified the following, it can become a simple task of calling the insurance company and taking care of multiple outstanding claims simultaneously. It’s beneficial when you’re looking to see the total amount of claims over a 60-to-90-day period.

4) Provider productivity and collection productivity reports

Also essential are provider reports. They help provide specific information regarding the level of production and any necessary adjustments suppliers need. They’ll provide you with a summary of all production collections and adjustments for a specific month. They also contain all the necessary information on the number of patients and the average visit from each patient.

5) Service code and type productivity reports

Service productivity reports essentially show dentists their practice according to the respective service category and coding. Their purpose is to showcase the services charged out for a particular month or year. It also contains useful information like the average patient fee and the total productivity level in the respective period. 

6) Patient master report

For any practice, the most important contributing factor is the patient body. The patient master report will contain information on new patients joining the practice and the level of current patient retention.

Getting new patients and building retention is all about how your practice can build trust with the patient. It’s important to ensure your whole staff understand the importance of this report. Once you’re done analyzing, be sure to inform everyone what they can do to help bring in more patients and improve the level of retention as well.

7) Referral reports

One of the most common ways dental practices get new patients is through referrals. If dentists want to track these referrals, they will have to rely on referral reports that’ll help them keep track of how they’re getting new customers.

These contain information about their top referral sources and which recent patients have come through referrals. They also typically include information on patients that have visited your office after a referral and did not return afterward.

8) Hygiene recare reports

Another vital report to help keep a check on your practice’s overall health is the hygiene recare report. Hygiene recare is essentially tips that dentists share with their patients to help them maintain their hygiene and remind them to keep their cleaning appointments. 

Final thoughts

Without analyzing the proper reports, it can be difficult to keep a pulse on your practice’s accounts receivable. Use all these reports to help get the best indication of the health of your practice. By effectively keeping track of the practice’s accounts receivable, you give yourself the best chance of success.

If you’re confused about how to read these reports or don’t know which ones to include, Opencare is here to help you out. We offer revenue cycle management to take these tedious tasks off of your plate, and give you time back into your day. 

The post 8 reports you need to keep a pulse on your practice’s accounts receivable appeared first on The Floss By Opencare.

For the average person, a trip to the dentist can be a source of anxiety. A 2018 study found that roughly 60 percent of people suffered from “dental fear.” The dental patient experience is key to making patients feel comfortable in your chair.

Today, potential dental patients have their pick of dentists and the ability to research practices right from their smart devices. Competition is heavier than ever which means differentiation is one of the most effective ways to stand out. If you know how many people are nervous about going to the dentist, this can be the perfect insight to help you differentiate your practice. 

This article provides numerous ways to upgrade a dental practice’s experience for patients from start to finish: from having an easy booking process, to ensuring anxiety-free waits, to smooth appointments, to appropriate follow-ups. Join us as we show how to create offices patients will look forward to visiting and help alleviate the fear of appointments.

Leading Up to the Appointment

A dental patient’s experience with your dentist office starts long before they visit. Here are four tasks to complete ahead of your patient’s appointment.

Keep your website user-friendly

A 2018 survey of 351 small businesses found that roughly 64 percent offered a website. Dentists are more likely to have a website, with 78 percent in one study reporting they had a site for their practice (of that number, about 85 percent said they were happy with their websites).

Dental websites can help with customer discovery, appointment booking, as well as providing valuable pricing and service information. Because of the many ways a website can help your practice, it’s vital to maintain user-friendly websites by following steps such as:

• Making sure it has an online scheduling tool
• Ensuring it’s mobile-friendly
  • Roughly 60 percent of respondents stated their websites are mobile-friendly in the aforementioned small business survey
• Incorporating a variety of content, such as embedded YouTube videos
• Have an engaging and professional website layout
  • With various template websites available, such as Wix, it’s relatively easy for dentists to have engaging websites for their practices.

Regularly incorporate new technology 

Many dentists keep regular tabs on the latest dental technologies to improve their practices and operations. One of these dentists, Dr. Neal Patel in his article on patient experience and techonlogy, lists cone beam computed tomography (CBCT), computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) as some of the new technology he believed could improve levels of patient care. 

Bien Air’s IChiropro, for example, is “an implant motor that uses an iPad to control a pre-programmed clinical sequence for implantology.”

With the speed at which innovation moves these days, dentists need to incorporate new technologies into their practices to keep up. If these technologies help you improve your level of care, it’s worth looking into.

Keep proven methods, like postcard reminders

Well-designed websites and the latest technology are important parts of managing a dental practice. That said, good old fashioned postcards are still needed as well, to reach dental patients who might not be as computer-savvy or simply prefer an appointment reminder they can affix to their refrigerator or cubicle.

A couple of tips for the postcards include:

• Make the greeting fun and personable
  •  Include the dental patient’s name, perhaps handwritten
• Make the timing customizable
  • Let patients decide how often they want to receive the postcards

Refresh your waiting room

Dental offices can sit trapped in time, with decades-old copies of Highlights for Children and framed advertisements with 1990s sitcom stars imploring people how often to floss and brush. Don’t let this be your practice.

Let your dental patients know you care about their experience by creating a 21st-century waiting room aesthetic. This can mean clean, modern design and flat-screen TVs, or recent reading materials. Not sure where to start? Google some examples then get opinions from your team and keep your goals in mind. Comfort, cleanliness, a welcoming atmosphere for many, or modernity are all great style goals.

In the Waiting Room

A patient’s dental appointment begins in the waiting room. Here are a few ways to ease tensions for your patient as they wait to see you.

Create a relaxing space

Aside from updating your waiting room, those trying to figure out how to increase dental patient volume in a dentist office should focus on fostering relaxing waiting room environments. Ways to do this include:

• Play calm music at moderate volumes
• Train your staff to maintain a calm and professional demeanor at all times
• Avoid having too much magazine clutter. Clear out materials that are more than a couple of months old and keep stacks manageable and tidy

Customize your TV content

It’s easier than ever for businesses to customize the content on their waiting room televisions by making the most of the frames, sidebars, and bottom of the screen tickers.

Customizable TV content can give dental patients entertainment through licensed rebroadcasts of popular shows as they wait to be seen for their appointments. The content can also help raise brand awareness, both for the dental office and third-party sponsors who might have display ads.

This said, strike a careful balance. Aside from showing no commercials, dentists incorporating customized TV content into their waiting rooms will want to be careful not to overdo it with banner and sidebar ads. Less is more, too much visual clutter can spike anxiety in dental patient experience before the appointment.

Offer streaming-capable WiFi

Plenty of dental patients still prefer to entertain themselves, or some may want to keep small children occupied, or need to complete some work while they wait. Add an extra element of convenience and comfort by offering complimentary, and reliable WiFi to allow patients to watch their favorite shows on their smartphones as they wait for their appointment.

Manage wait times

So much of service-based business is about setting clear expectations for customers and then delivering. Your front desk staff needs to manage wait times for dental patients as they sit in the lobby of your office.

Here are a few ways to manage wait times:

• Set accurate expectations
  • If the wait is 45 minutes, be honest and accurate. Customers can generally handle longer wait times as long as they’re prepared. 

• Make the time feel quicker
  • This can include providing entertainment options and training staff to engage with waiting patients, when appropriate

• Speed up the intake process
  • Look for how to improve dental schedule practices, from automating appointment paperwork ahead of time to staggering scheduled cleanings, keeping patients from waiting for long periods 

During the Appointment

Once a patient’s appointment begins, it’s time for dentists and dental hygienists to shine. Here are a few tips to make sure the patient’s time in the chair goes smoothly.

First impressions matter

Research suggests that people form first impressions about others within seven seconds of meeting. Therefore, it’s extremely important for dentists to make good first impressions and set the tone for how appointments will go.

One way to do this is by greeting every patient directly and guiding them to the exam room. Too often, dentists can hide behind counter staff and hygienists and function as mysterious, intimidating figures. Put patients at ease from the minute you greet them and let them know a reliable, relaxing appointment awaits.

Listen to get a sense of expectations

Listening is the most-used communication skill, with humans spending approximately 45 percent of their waking hours listening. For dentists, listening acutely well to patients at the beginning of appointments can help provide a window into patient expectations. 

Does the patient know they have a lot of tartar that needs to be removed from their teeth? Are they hoping a cleaning will result in a slightly whiter smile? Have they been experiencing any mouth pain they want to be examined? Do they sound nervous or uncomfortable? 

Listening to patients can help give dentists the information they need to provide the best possible service. It can also help ease anxiety for patients, making them feel heard.

Educate the patient

After listening to the patient, lay out what the appointment will entail and consider their questions or concerns. If their journey to stronger dental habits were a lesson, you are the teacher. Think of the best teachers you’ve ever had and how they helped you learn. Encourage questions and check to see if what you’re saying is being understood. 

The goal is to not just help the patient get through their current appointment but have greater oral health long-term with the dental patient experience. It’s comforting and empowering for patients to know that better dental health is well within their reach, with the help of the lessons a good dentist can impart.

Have entertainment options

With all this talk of first impressions and teachable moments, it’s worth noting that a dental appointment doesn’t have to be strictly business. Dentists can also provide appointment entertainment, be it through music or even flat-screen televisions positioned strategically near or even directly above dental chairs. 

After all, anything beats staring at the ceiling or dental lamp. These can help improve the dental patient experience.

Welcome patients to use headphones

Many patients can also be counted on these days to provide their own entertainment through downloaded music or podcasts on their smartphones. 

In other words, headphones can be fine to wear during a cleaning, provided they don’t get in the way of dental equipment or prevent a dentist from communicating with their patients. Let patients know once you’ve chatted, they’re welcome to put on their headphones. 

After the Appointment

Once a patient’s appointment is complete, there are a few final steps to take to wrap up smoothly and help ensure the patient returns for future appointments.

Simplify checkout

Whether dental patients are relieved to get up out of the chair or pleased by that “fresh from the dentist clean” feel, they’re probably ready to leave the office. 

Having a streamlined checkout process in the dental patient experience can get patients swiftly out the door, ensuring that they’re able to get on with their day and maximizing efficiency for your staff. Ways to simplify checkouts include having scheduling programs ready to go for future appointments and minimizing small talk.

Survey dental patients

Sometimes, the smiles or kind words at the end of dental appointments might not tell the whole story. Regularly surveying patients can help find issues that should be dealt with promptly. Like an abscessed tooth, a dental customer service problem shouldn’t be left to fester.

There are many ways to survey patients. Websites like SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics provide survey tools for businesses, but sometimes at a cost. Companies on a budget can also access free survey tools through Google Drive.

Send tips for dental care between appointments

As mentioned earlier, learning good dental care can be a long-term process for patients, with many people having to learn over time how to brush and floss more regularly and other strategies for maintaining oral health.

With the Internet, there’s no reason learning opportunities must be confined to the dentist’s office. Show your expertise and eagerness to help by regularly sends tips to their patients, via newsletter sites such as Constant Contact. This helps patients grow, lessens their chances for cavities and dental decay between appointments, and also provides powerful engagement and marketing for dental practices.

5 Tips to Keep Improving the Dental Patient Experience

For anyone still seeking ways to improve the dental patient experience, here are five more tips:

1. Take nothing personally: Some people, no matter what, won’t enjoy a trip to the dentist.
2. Focus on incremental improvements for difficult patients: After all, these people won’t have their problems solved overnight.
3. Market key areas of your practice that you excel in: A person needing a root canal might be put at ease if they know your office does this better than any other in the region.
4. Don’t make payment a source of anxiety: Working with a variety of insurers if possible, accepting credit, and being open to payment plans are a few ways to prevent stress with patients go to pay.
5. Always be honest with patients: Dentists sometimes get a bad reputation, with some unethical practitioners even known to do unnecessary work. Needless to say, a reputation for honesty is invaluable for dentists. Explain why a filling needs replacing, or why x-rays need to be retaken. If you’re putting your patient’s health first, that honesty will instill confidence and trust. 

Beyond this, the best advice perhaps for any dentist is to continue learning and growing. Improving dental patient experiences is a constant effort, with no exact solutions that fit all practices. What works today might not be so effective tomorrow. Or what works for a dental office in another location may not work for your patients. So give it time and don’t give up!

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Ever wonder whether the role of a dental assistant might be the right career option for you? Learning more about this position’s typical responsibilities, the required training, and career opportunities can help determine if you should start taking steps to obtain your degree and which route would work best for you. Let’s break it down, starting with what is a dental assistant?

Dental Assistants 101

You’ve likely seen a dental assistant performing a wide variety of tasks around an office. A sort of employee of all trades, a dental assisting career, requires you to interact with patients and handle dental technology that ensures the best service level. The role requires assisting dentists (bet you guessed that one) with everything to ensure the patient’s visit runs smoothly, from preparing the dental operatory, assisting with the procedure, explaining and engaging with patients and maintaining sterilization protocol. With a mix of technical skills and interacting with patients, a dental assisting career offers variety and challenge. It is ideally suited to those who enjoy following a process and giving compassionate care.

What would I do as a dental assistant?

The technical side

Depending on the office, your day as a dental assistant will likely vary. But everyday responsibilities include: working with x-rays, interacting with patients, assisting with procedures, and overseeing sterilization efforts and protocols. This role allows you to flex your technical abilities and be responsible for ensuring all tools are cleaned and cared for. Having organizational skills will be vital, especially when billing and ordering supplies to keep the practice stocked and running efficiently.

The people-person side

If you love helping others, this role requires plenty of face-to-face time with patients. Dental assistants are the ones who settle patients into the exam rooms and ensure they’re comfortable. Patients often look to you for guidance and assurance, especially when they are nervous about the procedure. This role gives you the chance to help patients take the right steps in the upkeep of their oral health. Teaching aftercare techniques and explaining dental procedures to patients of all ages lets you act as a patients’ coach and cheerleader. 

As a dental assistant, you get to help with many interesting dental operations and every day is a different challenge. Suppose you’re the type of person that loves to switch up your daily routine and use your skills in many areas, both clinical and office management . In that case, a dental assisting career might be the ‘perfect fit.’ 

What will I need for a dental assistant career?

Should you decide to follow this career path, there are multiple education and training options available. College-level education will give you the training required for this position’s technical and oral health knowledge requirements. The one year program needed to get your dental assistant degree is available at public and private colleges across the country. Depending on the program, you may get to experience hands-on assisting placements at private clinics, public health clinics and at the local dental university clinics. During your program, you will gain in-depth skills related to taking x-rays, taking impressions, assisting techniques, dental instruments and dental procedures.

Education requirements can vary by province, so be sure to check for dental assisting information for your specific area.

Where are the job opportunities for a dental assistant?

According to the ADA and CDA, the current demand for dental assistants is high. As dental offices grow, the benefits of having a skilled dentist assistant as an employee that can help with patients, supplies, and office management are incredibly beneficial. A great dental assistant is a valued and respected team member. Because of this demand, there are often multiple full-time and part-time positions available. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a promising dental assistant job outlook, with an above-average growth rate of approximately 11% by 2028.

All types of practices, including solo, group, and specialty practices, require dental assistants on their teams with varying levels of responsibility and skills. But don’t forget to look at public health clinics, hospital dental clinics, or school clinics.

With additional schooling, dental assistants can find employment at community college dental schools, universities, technical institutes, or vocational schools.

How do I know if dental assisting is right for me? 

Consider your goals first.  Do you enjoy working with people and find providing excellent care and service rewarding? Do you want responsibility in your position for important tasks? Are you willing to jump in to help others wherever you’re needed? You will need in-person and on the phone communication skills. Updating patient records, emailing suppliers, and using booking systems will mean you need to be comfortable and competent on a computer.

If the questions above got you excited about what a day on the job could look like, start looking into dental assisting career requirements in your area. You got this.

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