A large number of healthcare providers are not worried about their practice’s billing procedures as long as the revenue is coming. Some choose to ignore whereas some lack the time to concentrate on the insurance billing processes. If you are facing the same problem at your dental practice, you might land up in serious trouble in the long run.
In case your billers are not performing error-free dental medical billing, your practice might be held responsible for dishonest billing practices. Such allegations can be costly to deal with and it can also damage your practice reputation.
Some of the dental medical billing services mistakes that can create problems:
- Failing to collect full co-payment or deductibles on a routine basis
- Offering to waive deductibles or co-payments
- Not showing other insurance coverage
- Not mentioning the correct treatment date
- Submitting claims for covered services, when a non-covered service was conducted
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What you need to do?
Dentists should have involvement in the billing processes at their practice. Any type of billing issue can be prevented by being proactive and through careful monitoring of billing patterns. From auditing insurance claim history for inconsistencies and reviewing third party payer contracts to cross-training staff and ensuring that the work performed matches the work billed are extremely important tasks for a dentist.
Dental practitioners should also be involved in reviewing financial charts of patients from time to time. This needs to be done to ensure that all treatments have been billed. If there is a batch of claims for which the insurance carriers haven’t made a payment yet, they need to take the required measures to get it solved. It is important to find the reason behind suspended claims waiting to be processed and also focus on eliminating documentation errors.
Don’t rely completely on your billing staff in handling the above mentioned tasks. It is good to concentrate on provision of quality care but to avoid facing fraudulent billing practices or insurance frauds, dentists need to devote some time towards the billing procedures as well. Remember, your dental license might be seized; you will end up paying huge fines or even go to jail if you are found guilty of insurance fraud; therefore, hire a team of skilled billers and coders and keep a constant track of what activities your billing department is performing.
Is lack of time and money posing a hindrance in carrying out these tasks?
Medicalbillersandcoders.com is the largest team of certified billers and coders, helping dental practices strengthen their billing procedures and enhance their revenue. A well-trained team will be handling your revenue cycle management, filing claims, complying with HIPAA and other reform, offering denial management solutions and taking care of other essential administrative tasks. This will eliminate your headache of hiring or training a qualified billing team or investing in the latest technology for effective billing results.
