5 Ways to Improve Revenue Cycle Management
The financial health of your practice is wholly dependent on your office’s ability to focus on patient care. RCM makes this possible. Another name for revenue cycle management (RCM) is streamlined billing process. Employ this kind of system in your dental practice and it tracks the services you provide and the revenue you collect from patients. The only question is: Are you doing all the very best things for a well-tuned RCM at your dental office?
1. Share with the Team
Everyone has their own responsibilities within your dental office, but it’s smart to make your team as a whole understand the RCM and how it works. Someone may have a strategy or tip that helps your billing team be more productive and create new methods of organization – even the smallest tweaks can deliver incredible bookkeeping support and help revenue flow more smoothly, minimize questions, and eliminate problems.
2. Pinpoint Your Downfalls
Even if you feel like your dental practice is doing the best it can in the RCM, it doesn’t hurt to keep a regular appointment with your billing process to see where there might be holes and strengths. Ensuring the following is done every time can prevent you from leaving money on the table:
- Check a patient’s insurance details to verify coverage before procedures are done.
- Collect copays the day of the appointment.
- Collect outstanding balances after insurance payments are made.
- Double-check coding.
- Stay abreast of coding changes
- Follow up on insurance denials.
3. Implement Best Practices
Delivering incredible dental care and staying in-the-know about ever-changing insurance requirements and regulations can impact your RCM. But, implementing best practices for your dental office and making sure it is always followed will improve revenue and cash flow and keep accounts receivable out of the red.
- Capture all contact information accurately
- Populate their file with name, phone, address, and insurance information
- Collect all available insurance information to prevent billing issues
- Verify patient insurance coverage, eligibility, and benefits
- Communicate financial policies in writing, including when copays are collected, methods of payment, how unpaid balances are treated, and financing options
4. Seek Out New Strategies
Moving through the billing process is not a one-and-done effort. It’s essential to continually seek out new strategies to find the best resources to help you succeed and help your patients feel cared for. By simply subscribing to newsletters, reading blogs, visiting forums or chat rooms, or connecting with other dental practices or a DSO, you can stay up to date on best practices for dental billing.
5. Get Help from Your DSO
Partner with Independence Dental DSO about revenue cycle manage and you will have the support you need to get all the financial details right at your dental office. Getting everything right is complex, and that’s simply the way of a dental office. Contact us today to find out how we can work with you to achieve maximum success.
