Improve Profitability through Clean Claims

With almost 11 ADA recognized dental specialties and having a burgeoning market share, the specialty dental business is here to make significant gains in the coming years as we take a cursory glance on the latest trends of the dental industry.

Listen to Ryan Arnold, Principal, Wisdom Teeth Guys as he explains the possibilities that lie ahead for Dental Specialty business and how he has paid attention on patient care,technology adoption and brand management to further sustainable practice growth for his specialty.

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Creating Sustainable Specialty Dental Businesses

Dentistry's Inner Circle Podcast

A series of podcasts from practice owners on how they navigated the change and successfully transitioned to CareStack. 

How Dr. Williams' Practice Optimized Growth with CareStack

Case Study: How Dr. Williams' Practice Optimized Growth with CareStack

Expanding Dental Care beyond the Clinic

Expanding Dental Care Beyond the Clinic

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Embracing Change To Grow Your Group

Enable Dental Completes Its Migration To CareStack

Enable Dental Completes Its Migration To Industry Leading Cloud Based Dental Software

Beatrice

Ishtiaq Rouf

Dana Veach

Dr. Himesh Kana, DDS

Himesh Kana

 Penny Filipe

Promoted to Manager, Now What

Promoted to Manager, Now What?

Top Trends in Dental Software for 2025

Top Trends in Dental Software for 2025: What Practices Should Prepare For

Brand Guidelines for Dental Offices to Attract and Retain Gen-Z Patients

Reducing patient no-shows and cancellations begins by accepting that 

it’s impossible to guarantee that your patients will always keep their appointments

. Once you accept that this falls outside your control, you can pool your efforts on the aspects that are within your control, and which help reduce no-shows and cancellations.

missed appointments cause a ripple effect

 that impacts your schedules, revenues, and the effectiveness of treatments. It strikes a serious blow to your bottom line. But with that said, there are 

effective safeguards you can put in place

 to address this issue. Before we explore these safeguards, let’s examine the key reasons behind no-shows and cancellations. 

Typically, patients miss their appointments when they:

Don’t understand the importance of keeping their appointments

Misunderstand when their appointment is scheduled

Self diagnose and decide to skip their appointments

Worry about bad news and try to avoid the situation

Have a shallow relationship with the provider

There is a wide range of reasons for patients to miss their appointments, but most can be mitigated with improved patient-provider communication and by implementing the following safeguards.

It became widely accepted as a care delivery method after the 2020 pandemic, but thanks to the convenience offered to patients, 

 is here to stay. Outside the initial check-up and actual treatment, consultations and routine post-op visits can be performed remotely. The virtual interactions offer patients the opportunity to 

receive treatment in the comfort of their living room

 or office. The added benefit of leveraging teledentistry is it adds one less reason for patients to rethink or opt out of their dental appointments. 

Another approach that has gained traction is using 

 to collect vital patient information. E-forms are a key feature of modern practice management software (PMS). This feature is now used widely to stay in line with the COVID-19 safety protocols. With this new norm, practices have completely replaced the clipboard and embraced digitization. Another fact that supports this approach is that 

98% of patients who take time to fill out online forms commit to their appointments

COVID-19 has added fuel to the fire of dental anxiety among patients. The risk of exposure is a valid fear. The best way for you to 

 is with communication and education. Ensure you convey the safety protocols and measures followed at your practice to reduce the risks from COVID-19. Launching targeted email campaigns, and updating relevant information on your practice website and 

convey your commitment to patient care and safety

 and encourage patients to follow through with their appointments.

When you provide your patients with the option to make payments in advance, it reduces the instances of no-shows and benefits your collections and accounts receivable. Get paid upfront instead of having to wait for 2-3 months. Paying cash in advance leads to 

. You can provide this option during patient checkout, especially when both you and your patient agree with the importance of scheduling the next appointment.

Offering upfront payment at this stage is apt, as the patient is likelier to take action and commit to their oral health. Another way to make it easy for them to pay is by providing an 

. Make sure that you inform your patient about your prepaid payment options. Market it through your campaigns, newsletters, and phone scripts.

Reminders are an effective way to reduce patient no-shows. Plan your 

and decide on a frequency that works best for your target clientele. Start off with a postcard, followed by email and text reminders. Add a phone reminder a few days before the scheduled appointment. Ensure that you cut down on reminders once you receive confirmation from your patients. Practice management software aids you to launch, coordinate and track your recall campaigns effectively.

reward patients who keep their appointments

. The reward initiatives can include discounts or gift cards. The benefits of such an approach are twofold. You encourage your patients to follow through on your appointments and 

convey how much you value their participation

. Moreover, curating such experiences helps you retain your customers.

Sometimes, patients simply forget an appointment. Send 

 that can include a “We missed you at the practice” message. Follow this up with a phone call to encourage them to reschedule immediately.

It is crucial that your patients know the impact of your treatments on their oral health. If your patients are not invested in the outcomes of your treatment plan, it is unlikely that they will uphold their commitments. 

 before every appointment. Remind them of the benefits of the procedure and the progress they’ve made so far. 

 of the scheduled appointment and ensure that they are fully onboard. A phone reminder before the appointment will help refresh what they already know about the 

Patients skip appointments because they owe your practice money or are worried the procedure will be too expensive. When this happens, it’s time to 

. It’s important that payments never come as a surprise to the patient. This causes anxiety in the patient, especially when they expect hidden expenses from each visit. When 

 and benefits are discussed upfront and agreed upon, patient no-shows due to financial concerns can be avoided. 

 allows you to effectively educate and communicate with your patients. Automating tasks like appointment reminders or confirmation/cancellation emails, filling last-minute openings, and sending online forms and other notifications to engage patients, practices can drastically cut revenue loss and staff workload while reducing patient no-shows and cancellations.

Eliminating No-Shows and Cancellations at Dental Office

For a dental practice, revenue cycle management is the equivalent of the body’s circulatory system and the heart of a practice’s financial success. The revenue cycle incorporates data capture, claims and denials management, and the collection of payments from both patient and insurance receivables. A healthy system works in concert with industry best practices and technical solutions to optimize efficiencies, identify “leaks” and improve operational workflows. As every practice is unique, it is difficult to prescribe a “one size fits all” approach. However, there are key performance indicators, which can and should be followed to measure practice performance. There are several potential KPIs which provide valuable insight into the collection’s performance and financial health of practice including, but not limited to: Collections percentage, Production growth, Aging accounts receivable, Days sales outstanding, Adjustments percentage, and Credit balances. 

Since 2011, the dental industry has experienced a steady and upward trend in aging receivables, with the majority of balances aged greater than 90 days. The good news is that CareStack offers a solution that combines modern technology, effective processes, and industry expertise to kick start the heart and breathe life back into the revenue cycle.

Revenue Cycle Playbook for Dental Professional

Revenue Cycle Playbook for Dental Professionals

From small, solo practices to large, multi-location clinics, these case studies demonstrate the versatility and value of CareStack in improving the patient experience and driving practice . 

Efficient revenue cycle management plays a crucial role in ensuring profitability and sustenance in a practice. The ability to effectively collect revenue and utilize it to improve the quality of care provided as well as the infrastructure of the practice is perhaps one of the most significant aspects of financial management in any practice.

In today’s digital age, the healthcare industry isn’t far behind when it comes to the use of technology and automation to manage its revenue cycle. This change has proven to be quite effective for the practices in managing their revenue cycle. However, despite these advancements, we are often able to find insufficiencies in some of the RCM processes. These insufficiencies need to be identified and properly addressed and the most feasible solutions need to be provided in order to ensure an effective revenue cycle management process in place.

Here are the most common RCM challenges that practices face on a frequent basis:

 This is one of the most common challenges faced by the practice. It is never easy to collect timely payments after providing treatments to patients. In fact, it is commonly agreed by most healthcare professionals that the collection of payments is the biggest challenge faced by their practice. Revenue not coming into the practice on a regular basis could adversely affect the overall operations of the practice and ultimately its efficiency.

Futile amount of time spent on revenue cycle management:

 Alongside treating patients and helping them lead healthier lives, optimization of the revenue cycle is also a crucial process for a practice to fulfill its mission. But oftentimes, the practice may lack the tools and resources that they may need in order to optimize and manage their revenue cycle in an effective manner. As a result, they end up spending an excessive amount of time and manpower on their revenue cycle instead of managing other more relevant areas of operations.

 The insurance eligibility of patients is highly unpredictable. Hence pre-authorization prior to providing any kind of care or treatment becomes very much necessary. But as important as this process is, it is also highly time-consuming. What makes it even more difficult is the delays and errors, if any, which would just end up further delaying/causing an inconvenience in the treatment or care being provided to the patient.

 Regulatory compliance is one of the more critical challenges that practices may face; especially when they are outsourcing their RCM service. It is very crucial that the practice as well as the RCM service providers comply with the rules and regulations of the industry. A practice’s RCM should comply with the guidelines laid down by the Healthcare Information Portability and Accountability Act 1996. HIPAA violations are an extremely common challenge in the healthcare industry today. Failure to comply could end up costing a fortune for the practice.

 Data and information are key elements to the effective management of a practice’s revenue cycle. The lack of communication and information exchange between departments can lead to tremendous amounts of revenue loss for a practice. The practice has abundant amounts of data and other resources which if used in a meaningful manner can boost the practice’s revenue. But on the other hand, the inability to share and exchange these can increase the risk of problems.

 This is a very complex RCM challenge that practices face because as crucial as it is, accurate coding is also an extremely difficult and confusing task. Practitioners dealing with these codes are required to stay up to date with the ever-changing codes and guidelines of the industry. Leakage of revenue is inevitable if these code changes are not duly monitored and adopted, and the application of the same is not reflected in practice.

 Most healthcare providers find it extremely challenging to get the deeper insights they require to ensure the most optimal approach to their revenue cycle management. Lack of the right tools in place, it’s next to impossible possible to get complete visibility into the revenue cycle and measure KPIs.

It is quite evident that these challenges are preventing the practice from functioning at its full potential and achieving its goals. Hence these challenges need to be addressed and tackled in the most efficient manner. In order to overcome these challenges, the practice must make available the tools to fill any existing gaps and clear any insufficiencies. On the other hand, outsourcing RCM services is in itself a great tool that can help take a major load off your practice by minimizing any errors or inaccuracies to a great extent. This helps you direct your focus on the more important aspects of operations in your practice. Once outsourced, the financial stability of your practice will directly depend on the quality and capabilities of the RCM service provider you are associated with. Partnering with an RCM service provider can help improve the overall financial picture of your practice.

Reclaim Lost Revenue with CareRevenue by CareStack

Is your dental practice losing revenue? CareRevenue, part of 

’s all-in-one platform, offers a complete solution to identify leaks, optimize claims, and improve cash flow. Perfect for startups, DSOs, specialists, and mobile practices.

Contact us today to see how we can boost your practice’s financial health!

Looking for the best cloud-based dental software?

Book a demo with us!

What are the major RCM challenges faced by the practices?

 largely occur between insurance carriers and dental practices. While a practice seeks to collect payments from carriers, insurance companies reject claims that don’t fall within their parameters of acceptance, and this happens often.

Add the complexity of dental claims processing to that, and we can see an average practice forfeiting around 9% of its yearly production to uncollected insurance revenue. If you take a moment to think about it, this is revenue that has been rightfully earned and owed to the practice.

When you crunch the numbers, the ramifications are astonishing.

Annual revenue generated by an average dental practice is around $1,500,000

The average annual revenue lost in uncollected insurance benefits is around $135,000

Average uncollected revenue over 30 years: $4,050,000

To add insult to injury, to write off the debt as uncollectible, a dental practice has to clear audits by the IRS and prove that it has taken reasonable steps to collect the debt but was unable to do so.

Impact on Staff and Cash Flow

The complexity of the dental billing process has made this ‘task’ into a full-time skill-based ‘job.’

Considering the range of responsibilities handled by staff, such as engaging with patients, presenting treatment plans, answering phones, keeping the schedule full, managing staff, and maintaining the office, it becomes difficult for them to contend with all that is required.

This includes preparing and submitting insurance claims, appeals, and follow-ups on receivables. Even the most committed office managers inadvertently have a negative impact on cash flow.

A general approach to dental practices that are considered efficient is to deal with claims in batches.

They set aside one day in a week or a month for these tasks.

The flip side of such an approach is that many claims and payments get delayed, with missing or incomplete information that stacks up the pending paperwork.

Outside the most apparent impact on cash flow, delayed submissions result in a wasted investment of time and efforts of your staff.

Pulling together missing or revised information can set them up against claim deadlines and appeal processes that might not always yield results.

The strain on time for your staff resources sets them up to unsuccessfully contest a commonly acknowledged ‘fact’ – delayed collections with outstanding balances over 90 days are unlikely to get settled.

But let’s say that you are able to afford a qualified professional who handles nothing else but dental billing and coding and A/R collections.

Even if this were the case, instances when your employee is on extended leave or quits their job leave you at a disadvantage with the added investment of hiring, onboarding, and training new staff.

These short-term setbacks have long-term consequences.

Meanwhile, your collection mechanism grinds to a halt and severely impacts the cash flow at your practice.

Another high-impact obstacle to dental billing is its impact on your patients.

While you prioritize patient health, a typical patient generally prioritizes their finances before health.

Your patients depend on you to help them navigate the maze of insurance benefits they are entitled to.

This is understandable as it’s difficult for a common consumer to comprehend their Explanation of Benefits (EOBs).

Undoubtedly, accurate financial processes are a large part of the patient experience.

Any errors regarding benefits coverage or surprises regarding out-of-pocket payments, irrespective of whether the fault lies with you, erode patient trust.

Once a patient loses trust, it’s difficult to patch it back up.

Complexity of Filing Dental Claims

Inarguably, filing dental insurance claims and appeals is a complex process. Let’s look at the following figures to understand its scope of complexity better.

250+ insurance companies are offering individual and group dental insurance.

Each has its own befuddling prerequisites, claim requirements, and benefit limits.

While filing, there are 700+ dental codes and over 10,000+ codes for specialists and medical billing.

To complicate matters further, you must deal with constantly changing state and federal laws and regulations, followed by a diverse range of appeal processes for every insurance company.

Malicious Intent and Human Error in Dental Billing

Human Error in Dental Billing

Having adequate checks and balances in place is a wise business practice.

Especially when you consider that two-thirds of all dental practices in the U.S. have reported being a victim of fraud or embezzlement.

Instances of intentional fraudulent activities, such as upcoding or billing for services not rendered, can lead to financial losses and tarnished reputations.

On the other hand, honest mistakes in coding, documentation, or data entry may result in claim denials and delays in reimbursement.

To mitigate these risks, dental practices must implement stringent internal controls, conduct regular audits, and invest in staff training to ensure compliance and accuracy in dental coding and billing procedures.

Vigilance and diligence are key to maintaining ethical practices and financial stability.

Why Dental Billing Outsourcing is a Viable Alternative

Dental Billing Outsourcing is a Viable Alternative

To excel in dental insurance billing and payments requires knowledge, experience, and efficient processes.

Challenges in maintaining the right staff and expertise, managing staff turnover rates, and the ever-evolving complexities of the insurance ecosystem, makes outsourcing dental billing a viable alternative.

The core responsibilities handled by your practice naturally make it difficult to provide uninterrupted time, attention to detail, and the consistent focus required for insurance collections.

Hence, seeking a dental billing support provider with high-caliber staff, round-the-clock support, and an excellent track record is vital.

The logical next question is about the cost viability of outsourcing dental billing. An objective cost vs. benefit analysis will provide the data necessary to make the right decision.

For instance, a full-time employee trained in EOBs and A/R management will cost around $20/hour.

This cost becomes significantly higher if you recruit highly experienced individuals.

The annual cost of having a full-time employee will be at least $36,000 or higher.

This is excluding benefits, taxes, or other compensation.

A good exchange is to invest $36,000 a year to collect $135,000 in uncollected revenue.

That said, the comparative costs of outsourcing dental billing services are lesser and provide immense value returns.

The most evident benefit of outsourcing is an increase in annual revenue collections.

Dental billing services include patient enrollment, eligibility checks, claims submissions, dental coding, billing charge entry, A/R follow-up, payment posting, and denial management.

Benefits of Outsourcing Dental Billing

Things to Consider While Outsourcing Dental Billing

Before outsourcing dental insurance billing, it is important to understand the breadth of services you will receive from a dental billing company and how they will make it work.

This includes examining hidden costs and how their technology and processes integrate with your practice systems.

Other points of consideration include the contract terms and whether the company offers related services that would benefit you now or in the future.

Dental billing companies partner with practices that generate a sizeable amount of claims. This means your practice should meet its threshold for claims generated at a practice.

In such cases, consider partnering with other practices to cross their minimum criterion collectively.

Opting for outsourcing would still require certain billing activities that must be performed at your practice.

Assess if it’s viable to outsource all activities or if it makes sense to maintain certain activities at your practice.

Examples of this would be all billing-related patient communications and gathering patient information.

Another critical point of consideration is with regard to your working relationship.

Will you be assigned account managers that dedicatedly work alongside your practice?

You must conduct a thorough background check to assess the track record of the billing company and examine the insurance companies to which they submit claims electronically.

All said, it’s safe to request a trial run on all services offered before you decide to outsource.

An outsourced billing company should typically offer the following:

Experienced professionals with expertise in medical coding and billing

Access to a state of the art billing software

Ensure that the billing systems are up to date

Know how to change regulations and insurance procedures

Provide in-house staff training on coding and billing rules

Troubleshooting and timely communication with in-house staff when it comes to discrepancies in claims

Provide on-demand performance reports and data charts

Flawless and timely claims submissions are an integral part of practice revenue. When focused on providing quality dental services and patient care, it becomes hard to accept the loss of revenue from insurance billing. This is where outsourcing dental billing becomes a significant consideration. With an experienced company handling billing-related activities, you can focus on what you do best. Improve the quality of your dental procedures, build a unique patient care experience, and develop long-term relationships with your clients. You can continue to do what you do best without worrying about uncollected revenues.

Manage your claims pending payment in real-time, track claim statuses, and eliminate the need to print separate reports or process them manually.

Wish to Know How?

Dental Billing Outsourcing

Dental Billing Outsourcing - A Walkthrough

Improving your practice production and driving growth is on everyone’s list. But it takes a lot to accomplish the same. In this webinar, Kelly Schwartz talks about the system and tools to improve your practice and how to be prepared when you are opening up a new one.

3 Simple Systems To Improve Your Practice Tomorrow

Maria Fuertes and Chad Hendricks talk about DeNovo insurance. The questions being answered include which plan should you accept, how to go about contracting and negotiating those plans and credentialing. Also, the webinar gives you insights into how to strategically choose insurance plans to bring in patients.

Decoding Bundled Insurance Plans

Maria Fuertes along with our practice heroes talks about the importance of eligibility checks, exclusions, and limitations, primary and secondary benefits, and plan fee schedule assignments in detail in this webinar.

Make Benefits Your Friend, Not Your Enemy

What Are You – a Dentist or a Business Owner?

Every dental practice is a caregiving institution. Every dentistry is also a thriving business enterprise. So the decision-maker at every dental practice is torn between the diverse responsibilities of being a caregiver and, at the same time, running the revenue show. But when a conflict of interest arises between the caregiver and the profit-maker role, how does the ball roll?

A recent study by the American Dental Association finds that 

dentists own more than 80% of dental practices

. When s/he is experienced and trained in the caregiver role, not much education goes into running a business as a practice owner. This lies at the core of revenue management issues at the dental practice.

What to Prioritize – Increasing Production or Optimizing Collections?

More often than not, most of the practice efforts for improving finances are focused on increasing overall production through new patient acquisition, patient churn reduction, and better acceptance rates. While all of these are essential for the financial stability of your practice, the first thing to be ensured before going in for the numbers is that you gap the plugs on your leaking purse.

“40 percent of providers fail to collect more than $31,713 a year from patients”

Be it a solo practice or a multi-location DSO, an improvement in production numbers may not always end up as money on the table. So where is your hard-earned money stuck?

Knowing your cash flow pipeline and its bottlenecks remains foundational to laying a 

 that can maximize collections from the current production. And that, in turn, is your first step towards ensuring sustainable practice growth and financial freedom for your practice or group. 

The theory part of it looks straightforward, but when it comes to implementing any RCM strategy, it’s an uphill task for the billing team and an administrative headache for the practice owner.

Without a doubt, managing billing and collections creates the maximum professional burnout at the dental practice. The redundant and mundane work of sending claims, posting EOBs, appealing denied claims, and communicating denials and rejections to frustrated patients may not be something your team might have signed up for.

More than 80% of dental providers reported experiencing burnout due to emotional fatigue and the depersonalization of dental care.

As optimal cash flow management is central in determining the financial viability of the practice, it becomes imperative for the practice owner to push the billing team to deliver better in terms of the volume of collections and claim approvals. So does financial success always come at the cost of staff burnout? Not really.

Improving cash flow by streamlining claims management and fast-tracking collections is not just another operational improvement for your thriving practice. Revenue cycle management has significant spillover effects in every other segment, so much so that when you plan to optimize, think of the bigger picture and have larger expectations. So, how much do you stand to gain by revamping your cash flow pipeline and optimizing revenue cycle efficiency?

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