The ROI-Boosting Revenue Cycle Management Module of Your Dental Practice Management Software

As you know, dental practice growth and the challenges that accompany daily dentistry can stretch your financial resources. Those realities increase your reliance on the revenue cycle management module of your dental practice management software.

What’s monitored, measured, and managed improves your capacity to adapt to growth or challenge. But effectively adapting requires your PM platform to track the specific revenue generating streams that routinely flow into your practice.

Why revenue cycle management (RCM) can’t be forgotten

You’re aware (often painfully so) that dentistry has two distinct sides:

  • The clinical side
  • The business side

Behind every clinical procedure is a series of coded business tasks. Those business tasks are what accurately channel financial resources to your dental practice.

  • Procedure charge captures
  • Insurance claims submission
  • Coding relative to each diagnosis or procedure
  • Collecting payments

These tasks (and others on occasion) places RCM in direct proportion to how you’re equipped to monitor it. A small scale approach – while better than none – can limit your capacity to track revenue production (or lack of it).

Just because your processes are routine and essentially unchanged for however long you’ve depended on them…doesn’t mean you shouldn’t evaluate them going forward.

Revenue cycle management isn’t what it used to be…

The rise of DSOs and dental group practices is putting a strain on their use of legacy systems. Alongside those dental organizations the reliance on traditional legacy platforms in a thriving solo dental practice can be equally stretched to its limits.

”Processes involving paper-based documents and cash or check-based collections increase the amount of time between providing a service and receiving payment, which increases working capital requirements and potentially acts as a drag on profitability. Perhaps most importantly, manual-based processes are time consuming and prone to errors: for small practices in particular, billing, chasing up and reconciling receivables can take up large amounts of employees’ time.”

Growth drives innovation. And so does challenge.

The COVID-19 era of dentistry that emerged in 2020 increased pressure on your dental practice revenue flow. Now that you’ve reopened the billing and reimbursement processes are up and running.

The big questions you’re somewhat forced to answer are…

  • How fast are your receivables being returned?
  • How efficient is your system for increasing your pace?

What to prioritize in your revenue cycle management

Each priority is intended to accomplish two goals:

  • Boost revenue!
  • Improve ROI (Return on Investment)!

Insurance calculations and claim attachments will help clarify coverage and speed reimbursements

Being uninformed or unclear about coverage allowances can be a pinch-point with insurance related data. Efficient and accurate calculations improves patient financial conversations and it can lead to quicker reimbursements.

Streamline the EOB (Explanation of Benefits) process to improve posting and payments

Communication about EOBs can produce frustration around dental practice financial presentations. And that frustration can often produce delays in reimbursements – especially if more than one is allowed. Team and patient clarity about allowable coverage keeps the revenue stream flowing.

Expedite the payment process via email or mailed statements

Tailor your payment process to your patient’s preference. Doing so can also help communicate your expectations regarding due dates, outstanding balances, and benefits to out-of-pocket comparisons, and (if necessary) defining collections protocol.

Overall, these priorities are best accomplished when automated. Automation can reduce your costs and save your team time.

And about automation…

Automated revenue management at-your-fingertips

The financial management capabilities of your software platform helps maximize your working capital while clarifying those metrics that improve your bottom-line.

That’s more reason to un-tether yourself from a legacy system.

Consider a cloud-based solution and accurately measure your revenue cycles

You might find the cloud solution like Denticon to be a more efficient report gathering platform to monitor and drive your overall dental practice or dental organization’s performance.

Aside from its financial management capacity, the Denticon platform also provides:

  • A predictable, monthly subscription rate
  • Data hosted in the cloud that’s remotely and securely accessible
  • Savings that compared with a “legacy” system can total an average of 40%

It makes sense to look below the surface and see the massive potential of upgrading to a cloud-based dental practice management solution with a more advanced revenue cycle management module.

Thinking about or ready to update your dental practice management software? Contact us or request a demo of the Denticon platform…before you decide!