We know from experience that dental teams detest performing dental insurance verification. While it’s repetitive and tedious, it is also vital to the stability and profitability of every dental practice—your revenue and the patient experience both depend on it. But what if experts handled all of it for you?
The American Institute of Healthcare Professionals explains the challenge of insurance verification perfectly:
“In today’s complex healthcare landscape, obtaining accurate insurance information is critical yet increasingly difficult. Common problems include old eligibility data, missed patient details or coverage changes, which impact the workflow and cause revenue loss if not addressed.”
At the same time, staff shortages, rising overhead, and a growing demand for exceptional patient service mean that every administrative task needs to be as streamlined as possible.
Dental practices are under more pressure than ever to perform at a high level of efficiency.
That’s where outsourced dental insurance verification services come in—and where Dental Claim Support (DCS) can help streamline your practice’s daily operations. If you’re wondering, “How does outsourced insurance verification work?” or what kind of difference it will make, then keep reading. We’re here to shed some light on the subject.
Key takeaways on dental insurance verification services:
- Insurance verification is an early step in the revenue cycle that impacts all the steps that follow, particularly how easy it is to collect from both insurance claims and patients
- Insurance verification is most effective when performed 2 to 3 days before an appointment, but last-minute verification can be done—which is better than not doing it at all
- Your team can concentrate on in-office patient care and practice growth when they’re not bogged down with insurance verification
Why is in-house dental insurance verification such a challenge?
If your front desk is responsible for manually verifying insurance for every patient, you already know how time-consuming and error-prone this process can be.
Insurance verification (IV) typically requires the following for each patient appointment:
- Calling the payer or logging into an insurance portal
- Interpreting complex benefit breakdowns
- Inputting the details into the patient record manually.
It’s a repetitive, high-pressure task. Numerical data entry mistakes are common—and costly. A simple mistake like missing a clause about frequency limits or swapping digits to enter an incorrect group I.D. number can lead to denied claims, dissatisfied patients, unpaid balances, and write-offs.
Read more: Top mistakes in the IV process and how busy dental teams avoid them
On top of that, nearly all practices are struggling with staffing shortages these days.
The few available staff members often juggle multiple responsibilities—such as checking in patients, handling phone calls, and presenting treatment plans.
Insurance verification is just as important, but it’s not as urgent as attending to a patient in the office or on the phone, so this task regularly falls to the bottom of the list and stays there. Unfortunately, skipping or rushing the insurance verification step results in bigger problems down the line.
Effective insurance verification is foundational to a smooth revenue cycle and a profitable practice. When done poorly or inconsistently, practices experience an increase in billing errors, patient frustration, and lost revenue.
Denied claims take a toll on your team, too. They require your team to chase paperwork and payments, spend time re-verifying benefits or appealing denials, or write off services.
Insurance verification is tedious, time-consuming, and essential. It’s no wonder so many dental practices turn to expert IV service providers as an effective solution!
Saved money and time with expert dental insurance verification
Outsourcing your insurance verification can resolve all these issues for your team—and, importantly, help your practice thrive.
Cost savings through dental insurance verification services
One of the biggest benefits is reducing overhead. Instead of hiring and training in-house staff to handle this technical, time-sensitive task, your practice can rely on third-party professionals who specialize in it and stay focused on it.
When you work with a partner like DCS, you:
- Avoid the costs and time associated with onboarding and managing verification staff
- Eliminate hours spent training front desk team members on constantly changing insurance policies
- Reduce the risk of billing mistakes that lead to revenue loss
Fewer errors mean fewer denied claims—and that alone will lead to significant financial gains.
Time savings of dental insurance verification services
Insurance verification is one of the most time-consuming tasks for dental front offices. Outsourcing it frees your team to focus on what they do best: delivering a great patient experience.
With DCS as your IV provider, you’ll receive:
- Fast, accurate verifications before the patient even walks through the door
- Reduced administrative burden, so your front desk can concentrate on phone calls, check-ins, and treatment presentations
- Support from a dedicated team that prioritizes your verification requests based on your schedule and needs
Which all sounds great, and here’s how this actually works.
How does outsourced dental insurance verification work?
DCS’s Insurance Verification (IV) service ensures your practice has accurate patient insurance information before their appointment. We provide either a full breakdown (FBD) or an eligibility check (Elig), depending on the visit.
Our insurance verification services are compatible with all practice management software.
Timing is crucial when it comes to insurance verification. Here’s what we do for your team, and when:
- We verify insurance 3 office working days before the appointment
- Same-day add-ons (added after daily batch is complete)
- Must be submitted by 1:00 PM EST
- Completed within 4 hours
- Next business day appointments: Completed by end of day
- Future appointments: Completed within 24–36 hours
It’s that straightforward. There’s no need to change how you schedule or manage your day. You simply focus on delivering care while we handle the insurance backend.
Turn your focus to in-office patients while DCS handles insurance verification
To recap:
- Most dental offices struggle to verify patient insurance due to a lack of trained and experienced staff
- Mistakes during insurance verification lead to revenue loss, claim denials, and patient dissatisfaction
- DCS Insurance Verification Services address all these problems without adding more work to your plate—or more overhead to your business budget
DCS is a partner in your practice’s success. Since 2012, we’ve worked with dental practices across the country to streamline their billing operations.
Our insurance verification services are designed to be accurate, fast, and tailored to the real-life needs of busy dental teams. DCS was founded by office managers, so we know what you’re up against—and we’re here to help.
Hand off the background work of insurance verification to our experts so you and your team can put your patients front and center: Book a free 30-minute consultation today.
Related Posts
Dental revenue resources from Dental Claim Support