Simplifying Revenue Cycle Management with Dentrix

The year 2010 marked a pivotal transformation in Dr. Richard Neal’s dental practice in Wolfeboro, NH. It wasn’t just the advent of a new decade; it was the beginning of the office’s digital era, with Henry Schein One's Dentrix practice management software now a part every operatory.

“With 3 people at the front desk, Dentrix has made a huge difference for us,” said Joanne Cameron, who is the office manager at Dr. Neal’s practice. “It provides us with so many handy tools. We are all able to use the system at the same time and see what work has been done, so we also aren’t duplicating any of our services.”

She vividly recalls the particularly game-changing impact of the software’s revenue cycle management (RCM) tools, including Dentrix eClaims, Dentrix Insurance Manager, Dentrix Pay, and Dentrix QuickBill Premium. “From an insurance standpoint, the processing period for a dental claim used to be 30 days, if we were lucky,” Cameron said. “Now, it takes 24 to 48 hours. It’s crazy how much these tools have sped up the claims process.”

Facilitating Insurance Claims

Integrating Dentrix RCM tools into practice workflows not only saves valuable time spent sending invoices and communicating with insurance companies but it offers the convenience of a simplified, organized workflow for everyone. For example, using Dentrix eClaims effectively streamlines the time-consuming, behind-the-scenes process of creating, validating, and sending insurance claims.

“Back in the day, when we sent claims in the mail or electronically, the clearing house would often come back to us and say they never received it,” Cameron said. “Using Dentrix Insurance Manager puts everything about our insurance claims on one page. We can see the status of a claim—if it has been sent, accepted, or paid. We can see how many claims we have outstanding. It can tell us what insurance is paid on the billed amount for each treatment on the bill or claim. And, if a claim manager says they haven’t received our claim, we have a confirmation number to help them find it. It’s so awesome!”

Digitizing Billing and Payment Processing

Cameron added that the Dentrix RCM Dashboard via Dentrix Pay has made credit card processing and reconciliation processes much easier, noting that she checks the dashboard daily. It provides quick and easy access to a single, interactive reconciliation report, combining billing information from Dentrix and the dental practice's payment processing provider. This reduces time spent doing manual reconciliation processes monthly, while also allowing practice team members to address any potential problems or concerns early and quickly.

“The team behind Dentrix and its RCM tools keeps coming up with solutions that make it easier to reconcile things,” Cameron said. “It is much better having all that data integrated in one place, and it saves so much time.”

She also finds the patient-facing billing process has improved after adopting Dentrix’s QuickBill Premium tool. “Before using QuickBill Premium, we had to print everything out and stuff the bills into envelopes to be able to send them out, which was 2-person job that could easily take 6 hours,” she said. “With QuickBill Premium, I still review the accounts, but I’ve got the process down to a 1-person job that takes about an hour, and the invoices are automatically sent out. This means I am free to do other things with that time.”

Cameron concluded, “The ability to send a patient a text or an email with a bill using Dentrix RCM tools cannot be overstated. It makes the turnaround time that much quicker. Before this service was available, I would chase patients for months, calling their phones and leaving them messages, because there was no better way to communicate with them. Now, if I send our patients a text or an email with a bill, it gets paid quickly, and that really means a lot to us.”