11 Efficiency Questions for RCM and Billing Staff

Many dental practices are resistant to big changes. After all, the daily workloads of staff are typically overwhelming, and considering new solutions to drive practice success "3% here" and "5% there" can be a low priority.

But if put off for too long, a growing list of inefficiencies can transform into systemic problems, especially when it comes to billing and A/R management. At this point, your practice will need to take a hard look in the mirror.

To that end, we compiled this list of process-improving questions to provoke positive change for your office's billing practices.

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1. How often are we sending statements to patients?

When it comes to billing effectively, timing is everything. Getting patients to pay their bills might just come down to their temperament when they open a statement. So, timing is important, and frequency is the way to get the timing right more often. 

We have found in a previous study that on average it takes 3 statements to affect a balance change. Is your practice consistently sending at that volume?

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2. Are we sending statements on multiple channels?

Every patient has a preference for how they want to pay their bills. Some opt for new-age methods like digital wallets and others will stubbornly only open the purse strings for paper statements (sometimes literally).

We have found that offering as many payment options as operationally possible is the best approach.

3. By what means and how often are we running A/R reports?

The way your practice conducts its reporting shapes the way it perceives their financial health. With a lackadaisical approach, it’s often the case that key insights slip through the cracks, and carried A/R that appears to be manageable, is actually costing you more than you realize.

It’s important to develop a robust reporting system that addresses the right factors and answers the right questions about your A/R. We put together a guide on reporting patient receivables that can assist practices looking to improve their reporting process.

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4. How much time/cost are we spending on tracking down balances? What does that look like on a per patient balance basis?

The longer a balance is overdue, the more costly it is for your practice. For every mailed statement, call, email, and text your staff queues and sends, there is an associated dollar value.

Take a moment to calculate what this cost is for your practice (especially on a per-patient basis). The answer might surprise you, and efficiencies can emerge from turning over this stone and looking.

5. Are we batching our statements or sending in an ad hoc manner?

As mentioned above, cadence and timing are everything when it comes to successful billing.

If your practice is auditing accounts and batching statements every month, you might be missing those timing opportunities to collect.

Best practice is to have an automated system that sends statements via multiple modalities that qualifies balances with an AI-powered or rules-based system. This way, statements for all patients that meet requirements will be sent on a rolling schedule without staff intervention for batching or one-off processing.

6. Do we regularly offer payment plans or financing to our patients?

Giving patients the opportunity to pay their bill in installments is just as important as offering convenient payment options. Payment plans provide cognitive and emotional ease, and often lead to faster payment decisions and improved case acceptance when offered up front.

For financing, most practices use Sunbit, CareCredit, or another 3rd party product. Alternatively, offering in-house dental payment plans can give your practice control over the terms, structure, fees, and presentation of installment plans.

7. Have we considered improving the patient experience during the payment process?

If “we accept credit cards” means that your patients have to mail in a card authorization with your credit card info, then you don’t really accept credit cards. Offering a convenient pay portal that is accessible on multiple devices and branded to your practice is crucial to facilitate expedited payment for services.

8. Are we dynamically changing our billing language as a balance ages?

We recently ran an analysis on our practice’s communication approaches to determine what kind of language is the most effective for affecting a balance change. We discovered that offering dynamic instead of static language lifts collection rates by 7.3% on average.

Vary the language in your payment requests and suit the tone to the age of the balance and the device medium the notification will be sent to.

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9. Are we escalating delinquent balances appropriately? What is our pre-collections protocol?

Along a similar line as the previous question, is escalation. What is your process for escalating the language of your statements before sending patients to collections?

Best practice is to have a final notice protocol which includes a pre-collection letter with more serious language, and to have an agency lined up for the unfortunate hand-off if the balance continues to be delinquent.

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10. For dental organizations with multiple offices, how have we standardized our billing approach to make it a consistent experience for patients and staff?

With dental brands, patients generally want to have a consistent experience from one location to the next. You need to standardize your billing process to accomplish this for both your patients and your staff who will be interacting with this system across all locations.

Your reporting should also be conducted in a manner that tracks the same KPIs and has the same performance thresholds across your organization.

11. Do we have software in our tech stack that can automate our billing?

Your practice’s tech stack should cover the scope of all the questions asked here. If you’re mailing paper statements by hand, auditing patient accounts manually, or are inconveniencing patients with a poor payment experience, it’s time to reevaluate your software.

If patient billing is a recurring issue for you and your staff, Pearly is a one-stop shop. With rules-based billing workflows, automated statement follow-ups, and a state-of-the-art secure customizable payment portal, Pearly can modernize your practice and delight your patients.

If you would like to try Pearly for your practice, we offer a free 30-day pilot to prove our value. Book a demo with one of our RCM experts today.