Auto-posting for dental payments has taken the dental industry by storm and questions are piling up: Is this automated technology a help or hindrance to dental teams? Is there a right or wrong way to tackle new AI-powered resources like auto-posting? Great questions! And our experts offer these great answers.
Dental billing technology is evolving quickly, and auto-posting has become one of the most talked-about features. While many dental professionals have heard the term, we’ve found that few are confident they fully understand what it means or how it fits into their dental billing process.
So we turned to the DCS executives who have poured their time and expertise into integrating auto-posting as a new feature into DCS Insurance Billing services.
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Josh Smith, co-founder of DCS, and Will Snipes, Vice President of Strategy and Special Projects, offered their insights into the 4 big questions about auto-posting, including where it’s headed and how to use it wisely.
Key takeaways on auto-posting for dental payments:
- Auto-posting will only work well for your dental practice if your operations and workflows are already effective.
- Humans will always be needed to oversee auto-posting to ensure errors are spotted and corrected.
- Before choosing an auto-posting vendor, confirm that their auto-posting setup integrates with your office systems.
1. What is auto-posting in dental billing?
Auto-posting refers to payments from insurance companies being automatically recorded in your practice management system (PMS) without a staff member typing them in. Auto-posting is designed to cut down on repetitive manual work and also to improve speed and accuracy to streamline your dental revenue cycle.
How auto-posting works
When I asked DCS co-founder Josh Smith how auto-posting works, he explained:
“Auto-posting is when insurance payments get applied into your practice management software automatically from an electronic remittance advice, or ERA. It cuts out the step of someone manually typing it in.”
So, after a dental insurance claim is submitted and approved for reimbursement, an insurance company returns an electronic remittance advice (ERA). Auto-posting software detects this ERA, matches its payment details with the correct patient account, and then applies—or posts—the payment.
Auto-posting: a practical example
Imagine an insurance company approves a $600 claim reimbursement. Its ERA will be sent to your PMS, and within seconds, auto-posting routes the payment to the patient’s account and adjusts their account balance.
But here’s the catch: not all payments are as straightforward as that.
Will Snipes, DCS Vice President of Strategy & Special Projects, puts it this way:
“Auto-posting is not this magic button that takes care of everything. If the insurance makes an odd adjustment or denies part of the claim, you still need someone to catch that.”
Auto-posting can be a huge time-saver, but it doesn’t promise that every payment will post perfectly. It cuts down on manual work, but it doesn’t fully eliminate it—and we’ll discuss its limitations later in the article. Even so, when used correctly, your team could reap massive benefits from using auto-posting.
2. What are the benefits of auto-posting in dental billing?
There’s a reason auto-posting is rising in popularity and sparking curiosity: dental professionals want to know if it can really reduce their hands-on work.
And when used properly, it can! Here are the top benefits of using dental auto-posting for your practice:
Auto-posting saves time
Your team can spend hours each week, week after week, doing payment posting by hand. Auto-posting automates that repetitive task, allowing staff to work on higher-value activities that automation can’t do, like caring for in-office patients.
Josh pinpoints the impact: 
“The big benefit is time. You don’t have someone sitting there typing in line items one by one by one.”
Auto-posting improves processes
Because auto-posting applies payments in a standardized way, it’s more consistent than the typical variation in how staff members handle remittances. That uniformity speeds up account reconciliations and improves reporting accuracy.
Josh compares then to now:
“It used to be that you had your people and you had your processes. Now you have people and processes—and technology.”
Standardizing this routine revenue-related process with auto-posting keeps your numbers correct and current, and it also reduces stress among your team members—one less tedious daily task.
Read more: How can AI be used to boost profits in the dental industry?
Auto-posting frees teams for more rewarding work
Instead of your team stacking up ERAs for a data entry session, then keying insurance payment after insurance payment for hours, auto-posting applies them within seconds as soon as they arrive.
That means your team is free to focus on managing higher-level operations issues, serving your practice from their zones of genius, and also building relationships with patients and ensuring they have a positive dental experience.
And isn’t that all more valuable to your practice, your team, and your patients than holding on to outdated methods?
3. What are the problems and limitations with auto-posting for dental billing?
Unfortunately, you can’t depend on auto-posting to process every claim on its own. Some claims are too complex or confusing for the automation to understand, and on those occasions, a team member will need to step in with their expertise and judgment. This hybrid workflow is popularly called human in the loop.
Auto-posting doesn’t eliminate errors
Payments don’t always align perfectly with claims. Someone needs to verify transactions in the system or incorrect adjustments and write-offs can slip through, creating a knot of data to untangle.
An insurance billing expert is needed to oversee this process and check for and correct errors, which leads us to an unwelcome truth…
Auto-posting is not 100% hands-free
It’s reasonable to assume that using automation for posting payments means you can ignore payments altogether—we don’t have to monitor our dishwasher or washing machine.
But it’s risky to leave auto-posting unsupervised when it can fumble unusual cases and exceptions.
Josh explains it easily:
“Auto-posting is like a nail gun: a power tool. You could hammer nails with your bare hands, but the power tool makes building much faster and more efficient. Still, you have to hold the nail gun and make sure the nail is going where you want it to go.”
Plus, some insurance companies still mail paper checks for reimbursement. Auto-posting can’t process paper, so a manual workflow is the only way to post and deposit those payments.
Read more: AI in the dental industry: Friend or foe? Here's what we know
Not all auto-posting technologies are created equal
Different auto-posting providers handle the automation differently. For example, many providers can auto-post only if the payment is received via EFTs (electronic funds transfers) or ERAs. And insurance companies send payments in various ways—like we mentioned earlier, some will only send paper checks in the mail.
You also need to ensure your software will integrate seamlessly with the provider’s auto-posting 
technology—some providers integrate with only one PMS. Be sure to do your due diligence when researching auto-posting providers, and remember that while this automated insurance billing feature is new to all of us, insurance billing itself is not—you’ll want a provider with a track record in insurance billing, not just the latest technology.
To start your research, note that DCS Insurance Billing auto-posts both EFTs and ERAs, integrates with popular PMS, and has been serving dental practices since 2012.
4. How can auto-posting be used for added efficiency at your dental practice?
Bottom line: Auto-posting brings speed and accuracy to a vital step in your dental revenue cycle, but it needs a human in the loop—either your team or an outsourced expert must oversee auto-posting processes for optimal results.
Most dental insurance claims have a standard pattern that the technology will recognize and process with ease, but the exceptional cases require human handling. Errors can be costly and time-consuming, so it’s essential that auto-posting be approached as a hybrid workflow—technology for routine claims, human experts for the exceptions.
It’s also important to understand that auto-posting adds speed and accuracy to a functioning workflow; it’s not going to fix a broken one. For auto-posting to make its full impact, your other dental office workflows need to be running smoothly, including the rare manual data entry, updated fee schedules, etc.
Josh Smith, co-founder of DCS, is hopeful but realistic:
“Auto-posting is not perfect for anyone by any means—but we’re working on it.”
At DCS, we embrace new technologies to better serve our client-partners, and we have always used the human-in-the-loop hybrid model. Efficiency-driven technology supports and accelerates our teams of billing experts, it hasn’t replaced them.
We know this from years of experience: you will strike the ideal balance of teams and technology when you see equal value in both resources.
Here are a few pro tips for approaching automated technology for your dental practice, including auto-posting:
- Combine automation with human review. Use auto-posting for speed on routine claims, but have staff continually review exceptions and denials.
- Set clear protocols. Assign one or more team members to verify payments. Decide how often payments will be monitored and what issues should be flagged for manual review.
- Train your team. Staff should be advised when to let automation work and when to step in.
- Monitor reports and reconciliations. Continuous oversight ensures accuracy and prevents problems from snowballing.
And remember you can turn to DCS Insurance Billing teams and technology to take many of these everyday insurance billing responsibilities off your plate.
Take advantage of auto-posting—but keep an eye on it
To recap, we answered these 4 questions on auto-posting:
- What is auto-posting in dental billing?
- What are the benefits of auto-posting in dental billing?
- What are the problems and limitations with auto-posting for dental billing?
- How can auto-posting be used for added efficiency at your dental practice?
Auto-posting is a powerful tool that can save time, improve consistency and accuracy, and free up your billing team for higher-value work and patient care—but it’s not a 100% hands-free solution. Without proper oversight, it can introduce errors instead of preventing them.
At DCS, we encourage practices to embrace technology strategically, as we have. Understand your system’s capabilities, create smart workflows, and train your team to use auto-posting effectively. That way, you’ll capture the rewards while avoiding the risks.
Let’s talk about how automation can boost your bottom line: Book a free 30-minute consultation with DCS today.
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