Introduction
In the year 2016, at least 206 million people in the United States of America visited a dentist. Six years before this — in 2010 — this number was just 176 million.
Despite this spike in the number of dental patients, the median income of dental practices has merely inched up 5 percent in the same period. This disparity is primarily due to the poor adoption of relevant workflows in revenue management.
Revenue Cycle Management has always been a crucial element in the success of any dental practice. The various methodologies that RCM deals with — subject to frequent change with industry regulations — are aimed at minimizing loss at each stage of your billing or revenue cycle. Moreover, this loss is widest in patient collections.
The loss in patient collection is often overlooked due to its invisible or passive nature, and the practice loses on revenue in collections on accord of poor policies and inefficient systems built into their billing cycle. With an effective RCM system in place, a dental practice can boost its financial metrics along with lifting patient satisfaction and loyalty.