Dental Practice Management: Take Control of Your Financials Contd

Once you’ve identified your collection problems, you’ll want to put your staff to work.  In your next morning huddle, use a highlighter to identify large outstanding patient and insurance balances.  Then direct your front desk to call these patients and insurance companies.  Your staff may need to resubmit claims, and even send patients to collections.

 

A dental practice works best with the right practice management tools

Use an Effective Appointment Reminder and Recall System

A good patient reminder and recall system is the lifeblood of most successful practices.  Fortunately, just like your patient collection needs, your computer software system should provide an effective system to help your staff ensure high patient appointment compliance.

 

Recall Appointments

I find that the best time to create the next recall appointments for patients is while they are still in the office.  Be sure your staff does everything they can to make your patients’ next check-up appointments before the patients leave.   Sure, patients might forget the exact day of an appointment six months out, but the mere fact that they have made an appointment will serve to commit them to coming back.  Your software should provide an easy way to print recall appointment cards and lists so that, well before the scheduled recall appointment, you can remind patients of their recall appointments.

 

Appointment Reminders

There is nothing quite like experiencing a no show on a three-unit bridge appointment.  We’ve all had them, and, to some degree, it goes with the territory, but there are new tools available that will help minimize missed appointments.  To be sure, your front desk staff should make personal confirmation calls to all large cases; however, this type of personal follow-up drains a staff’s time and may be overkill for smaller cases, especially for offices running a lean staff.  Some software systems now offer the ability to e-mail customized appointment reminders directly from the appointment book screen.  If your system doesn’t have this capability, you may want to look into a third-party add-on service that can send e-mail and/or text message reminders to patients.  Don’t overlook your appointment reminder system because anything you can do to help your patients keep their appointments will have a direct impact on your bottom line.

DentiMax, LLC
4115 E. Valley Auto Dr.
Suite 101
Mesa, AZ 85206
(800) 704-8494
(480) 396-1798
http://www.dentimax.com