The Ultimate Guide to Outsourcing Dental Insurance Verification

What makes patients return and recommend new patients to your dental practice?  

A lot of dentists will have different answers to this question, but to get straight to the point, it’s patient care. The Journal of Medical Practice Management found that 96% of patient complaints are related to customer service, while only 4% correspond to the quality of care.

Outsourcing dental insurance verification, billing, claims, and other tasks can free up your time to focus on delivering great patient care. 

Let’s face it; tasks such as insurance verification and dental billing take a huge chunk of your in-house team’s time, time that could be used to develop meaningful connections with existing and potential patients. However, the dental insurance verification process cannot be ignored because it ensures that practices get paid.

This Ultimate Guide to Outsourcing Dental Insurance Verification and Dental Billing will help you understand what dental office virtual assistants can do for your dental practice.

Dental billing outsourcing is now a growing trend in the dental field and large dental service organizations are making use of dental insurance verification companies to ease the pressure that comes with a lot of patient traffic.

This guide will help you get started on how to leverage dental insurance verification companies to grow your practice.

What is Dental Outsourcing?

In simple words outsourcing is the process of using a third-party company to complete certain tasks.

This is common in industries where there’s either a shortage of labor for particular positions, where the cost of labor is too high, or when businesses or dental practices want to save money (savings could be as much as 70% on payroll costs).

As your dental practice grows, so does the need for resources. Specific tasks arise that require human, time, or financial resources that might not be available or come at a high cost. This might also not be sustainable for the news practices.

However, outsourcing dental insurance verification and dental billing solutions provide a way for practice owners to find international top talent at a considerably low cost as compared to employing locally.

Outsourcing dental insurance verification and billing, for example, saves you and your staff from the tiresome processes that have to be completed to submit verification requests.

Furthermore, calculations of patient benefits, their entitled claims, co-payments, and many more all make up the repetitive often-long dental insurance verification process.

When should you start outsourcing dental insurance verification and billing?

What would be the impact of a 70% saving, in your monthly payroll, on your dental practice? 

If your answer is a huge impact, then you might want to continue reading.

Knowing when to outsource dental billing and insurance verification services can set your practice apart from the rest if you act on it.

Fortunately, there are several ways you can determine if your practice needs to outsource some tasks such as insurance verification and billing to dental outsourcing companies. 

Ask yourself this;

1. How many insurance verifications does my team do daily?
2. How many successful claims go through?
3. How is this affecting my team’s productivity?
4. How can I improve the insurance verification and claims process?
5. Do I need help?

These questions are a great starting point and will help you have a clear picture of what is going on and how it can be improved.

You should consider outsourcing dental insurance verification and billing when;

1. When there is an increase in call-in volumes.

Dental outsourcing companies are flexible and can quickly add virtual teams to help you practice handle increased call volumes. This means your existing team’s workload is reduced, allowing them to focus on other key areas in your practice, such as delivering a great patient experience.

2. When you need to hire new employees.

Growth is inevitable in a progressing practice, however, it comes with extra costs. The process of hiring a new employee can cost up to $4000 and that’s before we add monthly salaries and benefits.

Outsourcing your dental billing services, for example, helps you maintain consistency, frees up your time, and increases efficiency without overwhelming you with increased payroll costs.

3. When you want to expand your practice.

Expanding your practice footprint can come at a considerable cost. You will need new offices, furniture, hire employees, etc, however outsourcing saves you a ton of money that you could channel to other areas of your new practice.

Dental virtual assistants do not need new furniture, office space or computers, etc, all this is provided to them by the outsourcing company.

What can a dentist outsource?

As highlighted earlier you can outsource almost anything that does not require a person to be physically present.

Here are some of the key tasks that dentists can start outsourcing today; 

1. Outsourcing Dental Insurance Verification

Virtual dental insurance verification is when a trained person remotely checks and verifies all patients’ insurance coverage, eligibility and benefits before they are treated.

According to the Dentistry IQ in most dental practices, dental insurance checks equal approximately 50% of the practices’ income.

This can translate to a considerable loss in revenue if not properly handled.

Every time a patient opts to leave payment of a procedure to their health insurance then it is up to you to verify if they a fully and adequately covered.

To have no errors and payment on time, you have to verify at least three times.

a. When a patient applies

b. On the date of service

c. When they come for a follow-up/check-up.

According to TransUnion, approximately 68% of patients failed to fully pay off medical bill balances in 2016, up from 53 percent in 2015, and 49 percent in 2014.

This number is expected to climb to 95% by 2020.

Dental insurance verification companies can help your practice reduce denials from insurance applications and avoid delayed payments affecting your accounts receivables.

This will also free up your existing front office team to cater to patients walking into your practice.

2.  Hygiene Re-care

Hygiene re-care is a great way to ensure a steady cash flow. Outsourced virtual dental teams can help reduce attrition rates, allowing your business to have a constant inflow of patients.

Some of the ways that trained virtual dental teams can help your practice reduce attrition rates are;

• Rescheduling patients for their next hygiene appointment.
• Contacting patients that do not show up for an appointment.

3.  Unscheduled Treatment Plans

Outsourcing a dental virtual assistant to organize your scheduling cannot be emphasized enough. Emergencies are common in the dental field but the financial strain they leave cannot be ignored.

According to Dental Practice Solution, most dental practices begin work with over $100 000 in outstanding patient treatment.

4.  Reactivation of Patients

People tend to overlook the need to return to the dentist. However, gentle reminders can generate a lot of returning patients if done the right way. As part of delivering the best patient experience, the reactivation of patients needs to be done by trained personnel.

The result is patients that feel well cared for and who would gladly return to your practice.

Outsourcing ensures that you have patient retention and an increase in the number of patients that come to your practice.

5.  Appointment Confirmation

With the busy schedule that your patients have, it is very possible to mix up or even miss appointments.

Practices that use dental outsourcing companies benefit from well-organized appointment scheduling and confirmation system. Allowing them to plan knowing that the status of their patient’s eligibility.

6. Outsourced Bookkeeping and Collection

One of the most important services that your practice can outsource is bookkeeping and collections.

Outsourcing trained bookkeepers at affordable monthly fees can go a long way and keeping digital records of payments can result in less clutter in your practice and faster retrieval.

7. Virtual Personal Assistant

As your dental practice grows, you will need help with your own daily schedule. This is where virtual assistants come into play.

Outsourced virtual assistants help with:

a. Email management and client correspondence.

b. Scheduling appointments and meetings, both for yourself and your patient.

c. Immediate and basic bookkeeping, administration, and invoicing for your practice.

d. Keeping client records up to date and available.

e. Establishing a working database of your patients and developing marketing and sales communication with this information.

Patient care is handled via online platforms as well as traditional calls to ensure that the most efficient means of communication is used.

Outsourced virtual assistants usually possess excellent communication and organization skills.

8. Dental practice marketing

Online presence is now a must for any practice. Almost everything is now being handled online. This means that the entire image of your practice is dependent on the way people view your profile online.

Studies show that 2 out of 3 people go online to get opinions on what to consume.

This is most evident when people are researching solutions online. Without an online marketing strategy, your practice risks failing to generate or keeping patient interest.

Even worse, you will fail to thrive in the ever-competitive and dynamic medical field.

Investing in online presence gives your dental practice;

• Better visibility.
• More targeted marketing.
• Better client relations and patient retention.
• Less expenditure on marketing and brand development.
• Better reach to would be a patient.

9. Outsourced IT support for dentists

Get more time to focus on giving quality dental care and helping your patients. Outsourcing I.T professionals lets you lighten the load of being a dentist, business owner, and I.T specialist.

Keeping up with modern technology while focusing on your practice is not easy but you can manage it if you allow a professional to help.

Having an in-house I.T team in your practice can weigh on you financially. Outsourcing I.T services will give you access to skilled, experienced personnel with the latest technology and support at a flat low rate.

I.T related issues take up a large chunk of your time. Outsourced I.T partners are responsible for making sure your tech system is kept running smoothly and at its very best.

Software updates, security, and network solutions keep your practice running efficiently enhancing the quality of care you can give your patients.

10. Dental Billing Outsourcing

Dental billing outsourcing is a game-changer. Dental practices that have adopted it have reported increased efficiency and patient satisfaction.

If you want your team to focus on delivering great patient experiences, then dental billing outsourcing will not only do that but will also allow you to elevate your current team members.

Depending on the dental billing outsourcing company you eventually choose, they can add other services to your package.

Watch as Dr. Nikki Green explains how she has been using a virtual assistant for her dental practice.

What are the Advantages of Outsourcing Dental Insurance verification?

Every practice has two elements; the medical element which you are an expert of, then there is the business element.

It would be almost impossible to be beside your patients and returning calls all at once. But it is possible to have all the services you need from patient care to accounting on one site.

Here are the advantages of dental outsourcing:

• Reducing operating costs

When you outsource you get skilled expertise at a fraction of having an actual team present in your practice. Save on employee benefits, training costs, and equipment.

Dental outsourcing gives you a team on a remote platform, which means you can manage and control tasks and progress that you want. All this is done at a single flat rate.

• Shift focus to where it’s most needed.

As the workload is spread out to your outsourcing partner it gives you and your team the much-needed time to focus on the tasks that take your practice further.

Focus on improving customer service turnover time and quality of dental service given. Also as you outsource you are able to invest in new innovative technologies that will be trending in the dental world.

• Choose from a pool of world-class capabilities.

Outsourcing takes advantage of the expertise that is all over the globe. When you choose to outsource you get access to some of the best-skilled personnel that is well trained to become part of your practice. This ensures that the quality of work in your practice is maintained or is actually improved by this addition.

• Free resources for other purposes

We mentioned that the major reason why most practices outsource is the saving you stand to make. These savings mean you now have more to invest in other areas of your practice where there might be a need. As an example, you can invest in newer up-to-date equipment and increase the efficiency of your practice.

What should you consider when choosing dental outsourcing providers?

Just as you would want to be a reputable practice that is the same with the service providers you seek out for your practice. When choosing your outsourcing partner you must:

• Do a thorough research and view reviews.

Anyone can claim to be the best at what they do. Having several people vouch for them is not as simple. When you partner with a reputable company you are assured of a good company image and guaranteed service.

• Know what you need to outsource

Outsourcing companies vary in service and expertise. It is good to know exactly why you need outsourcing and what you need help with. This ensures that you partner with a company that has the same vision as you do.

• Is your brand represented the way you want it to?

Having a good reputation is all well and good but your outsourcing partner must be able to match the image and personality of your practice in order for it to be right for you.

The right outsourcing company will know how to deliver the right message to the right target audience and have your brand be well represented to current and potential patients.

• They Can Help You Scale

As your practice grows, your IT needs are going to expand. Make sure that any IT services company you are considering can help you easily scale up your IT resources both in terms of hardware and software.

Whether it’s setting up additional storage for your practice’s file system or installing an upgrade of your practice management system, they should be able to fully support your needs not just now, but in the future.

Why Africa can is the best outsourcing destination

The foremost reason to outsource in Africa is that there are no language problems, depending on the country you choose to outsource from. English is widely spoken on the continent.

If you choose to outsource from Zimbabwe, for example, there is actually no difference in tone, pronunciation, and accent. The vocabulary and language structure remains the same as that of the United States and the United Kingdom.

Leaving no language barrier and business communication will run smoothly.

Africa remains one of the world’s most untapped human resource pool in the world. There is a large number of educated people that are skilled but unemployed.

This makes it a good source for skilled personnel at an affordable wage bracket.

With some of the fastest rising economies, Africa is an attractive outsourcing destination. Focus Economics states that 6 out of the 15 fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa.

This results in improving infrastructure and growing investment from international companies closing the gap between Africa and the rest of the world.

The improvement of ICT infrastructure and the adoption of new automation technology increases the efficiency of the continent’s workforce. The regional government’s investment and incentives are also contributing to place African countries under the outsourcing spotlight.

Outsourcing in Africa does not only directly benefit your business. It will also encourage better employment in the continent as a whole.

Outsourcing companies like Support DDS a subsidiary of Global BP Solutions have offices in Zimbabwe, Africa, and have a number of outsourcing services and personnel.

Zimbabwe has a pool of over 30 000 potential employees that are churned out annually from its various tertiary institutions making it a good outsourcing pool.

Africa also has a high number of young professionals.

• Get a younger demographic of skilled professionals.
• A high population of educated individuals looking for work placements.
• Higher literacy rates almost all outsourcing personnel have a degree or higher.
• Have educated, literate and skilled individuals handling all your outsourced tasks.

Why you should choose Africa as your next outsourcing destination.