There are many things which are responsible for the success and failure of your dental practice but one of them could be dental debt collection.
While it is quite obvious that one should pay the bills of all the procedures but many patients make it difficult for your accounting team to get payment from them. Once you are done with dental treatment collecting payments is the next step as you cannot afford to lose a patient as well as your profit. Here are a few best dental practice debt collection tips which can increase your profit.
Offer third party financing: Most of the time patients are not able to afford treatment and that is the reason they don’t come forward for treatment. To avoid such a situation you can offer them a third party financing which can pay on their behalf at the time of service and patient can pay them on a monthly basis which will not disturb their finances.
Create and explain a financial policy: If you don’t have a financial policy for dental debt collection till now then this is the time to create one. Make sure after creating the policy, explain that to each patient and review the policy before the treatment. It will avoid any confusion regarding payment and patients are aware of the expected payments. While creating the policy keep in mind that it should not be too strict as well as too lenient.
Ask your patients for payment before they leave office: Make it very clear in your financial policy that patients need to pay at the time of service for all the procedures that are less than $200 or any other amount. One more thing is, ask your insured patients to pay their portion of payment at the time of service right there.
Offer e-billing: Give your patients an easy and assessable way of payment. One of the best ways is e-billing. This can increase your collection rates as patients can check their dues by log into their account and make a payment easily.
Open Communication: Have open communication with your patients. Tell them about the cost and how much they need to spend from their pocket for the particular treatment. While explaining them doesn’t use your dentistry jargons, make the conversation as simple as possible so that patients could understand. Tell them about, for which part of the treatment they are paying.
Be Transparent: Many times patients don’t understand what they have been charged so they disagree to pay. So make it clear for what they have beech charged.