Dental Office Manager vs. Insurance Coordinator: The Difference & Why It Matters

Two major roles at a dental office are dental office manager and dental insurance coordinator. Both roles are important, and they’re very different. Oftentimes dentists think they’re interchangeable—that the office manager can take on the tasks of the insurance coordinator and vice versa. This may seem like an effective personnel strategy, but it’s not an efficient way to run your dental office.

When the roles of the dental office manager and the dental insurance coordinator start to overlap, confusion and their workloads will increase to an unbearable point. They’re two distinct roles with specific responsibilities, and when one person or both are wearing too many hats, they’ll make more and more mistakes.

Workplace errors turn into stress, which turns into burnout, which turns into staff turnover. Meanwhile, errors on dental insurance claims cause claim denials with time-consuming appeals, and unfiled claims risk losses to timely filing deadlines.

For these reasons and more, it’s best for your dental office manager and dental insurance coordinator to have clearly defined roles that have their distinct responsibilities and daily tasks. This article will help shed clarity on what each role should do, helping you improve your operations and maximize your collections while retaining your valuable talented staff.

DCS is here to help.

Key takeaways on comparing a dental office manager versus a dental insurance coordinator:

• When it comes to protecting your practice’s cash flow, clear ownership of insurance tasks matters more than job titles.
• When billing responsibilities are unclear or split, claims stall, A/R grows, and teams feel the strain.
• Well-defined roles and workflows ensure your team’s insurance follow-up supports patient care instead of competing with it.

What does a dental office manager do?

Your dental office manager should be thought of as an Operations Manager.

Big picture: Dental office managers should handle office administration, lead the team, and ensure the office runs smoothly. Their core responsibilities include:

• Overseeing daily front office operations. Scheduling, workflows, documentation, patient experience, and collections are all overseen by the office manager.
• Staff management. The office manager takes care of conflict resolution, relationship mediation, and leading and coordinating meetings.
• HR and administrative oversight. Payroll, paid time off (PTO), hiring, and maternity leave are often conducted by the office manager instead of a formal HR person or department.
• Financial oversight. While the office manager won’t be “in the weeds” of collections, they review high-level reports to track key performance indicators (KPIs) and production goals.
• Vendor relationships and systems management. Whether it’s a clinical and administrative equipment replacement or repair, the office manager is handling it.
• Ensuring smooth patient experience and office flow. The office manager will monitor patient relationships and make sure each patient’s appointment goes well.

Dental office managers are running the dental business—truly! Many dentists have kept the same dental office manager for 20+ years because they rely so heavily on them.

Because dental office managers already have a full plate, they don’t need to be bogged down in the details of insurance claims processing.

Related: 6 signs you’ve got the most effective dental office manager

What does a dental insurance coordinator do?

A dental insurance coordinator has a more detail-focused role than the dental office manager, and the insurance coordinator has a hyper-specific set of skills that can be harder to find.

Big picture: The dental insurance coordinator’s focus should be insurance revenue and claims workflow. They make sure claims are sent, appealed, and paid. Their core responsibilities include:

• Insurance verification and benefit breakdowns. They confirm when patient coverage is available and up-to-date.
• Obtaining pre-authorizations. Dental insurance coordinators retrieve estimates from insurance companies prior to treatment to confirm, though not guarantee, coverage.
• Accurate claim submission. “Clean” claims are submitted promptly after treatment, and they include all proper documentation and information.
• Tracking and administering unpaid claims and aging reports. Claims always have a set of eyes on them after they are submitted.
• Appeals and resubmissions. Denied claims are appealed and resubmitted. More information or corrected information is added, if needed.
• Managing coordination of benefits (COB). When patients are covered by multiple insurance plans, the dental insurance coordinator navigates that complexity to determine and submit the primary and secondary insurance claims according to the COB rule the patient’s circumstances align with.
• Communicating insurance estimates to patients. Insurance coordinators often handle or participate in treatment presentations so they can explain coverage to patients and give them an accurate out-of-pocket estimate.

Essentially, insurance coordinators protect and collect revenue from dental insurance payers.

We’ve found that this role is typically less defined than the office manager’s, and frequently the office manager takes on the role of insurance coordinator when they can and when it’s needed. But just because this often happens doesn’t make it efficient or effective.

What happens when one person does all the work for both roles?

Dental insurance coordinators with training and experience are hard to find, and the more seasoned insurance coordinators are expensive to hire.

Because of this, many office managers end up performing insurance coordinator tasks despite a lot of vital work they already have on their plate.

So if detailed and time-sensitive insurance coordination is added to your dental office manager’s heavy workload, watch out for:

• Delayed claims filing due to insurance work taking a backseat to other tasks.
• Delayed insurance reimbursement and inconsistent, insufficient cash flow due to claim submission taking that back seat.
• Rising A/R. Without systematic dental claims filing and follow-up to maximize payments, your list of uncollected revenue will continue to climb.
• Inconsistent and incomplete follow-up. Appeals work is tedious and time-consuming. However, if it’s put on hold for too long, your list of unpaid aged claims will also keep growing.
• Overwhelmed manager = weaker leadership. If your office manager is overwhelmed, it will negatively affect your front-office team’s attitude, decision-making, and overall work experience.
• Increased staff turnover. When the work environment suffers, your best staff will find better environments elsewhere.
• Excessive write-offs. When claims age past 30, 60, and then 90 days, they’re likely to end up as write-offs. Aged claims should be addressed daily, or at least weekly, to maximize revenue and minimize uncollectible accounts.

Even just a small selection of these problems will lead to low revenue and a toxic work environment, and they can even impact patient experience. Imagine if most or all of them occurred in your office.

Your dental business, your front-office team, and your patients deserve better—DCS can help.

Related: How to avoid dental office burnout in your practice: 3 tips

Here’s how DCS helps keep the dental office manager and dental insurance coordinator roles separate, as they should be

Like we said, and as you may have experienced, dental office managers end up acting as dental insurance coordinators by default, not by design. There are myriad reasons why it would be necessary, but ultimately, office manager and insurance coordinator are two time-intensive roles meant to be filled by two different people.

Instead of spending time, money, and effort on hiring a full-time dental insurance coordinator to support your practice—and your dental office manager—look to the experienced insurance billing specialists at DCS.

The coast-to-coast team of DCS insurance billing specialists makes work and life easier for dental office managers by:

• Handling claim submission and follow-up
• Monitoring aging reports and resolving unpaid claims
• Managing appeals
• Processing claims continuously, without delays due to vacation, illness, or turnover
• Keeping insurance processes accurate, consistent, and on time

When you partner with DCS, you will be assigned your designated dental insurance billing specialist, and there will always be someone processing your insurance claims to ensure you receive the cash you’ve earned and the steady cash flow you need.

When your office manager gets these hours back in their day, their primary work can have an even greater impact.

They’ll have more time to lead your front-office team, improve workflows, review staff performance, and build relationships with patients. Plus, there’s less stress overall because they can be confident their claims backlog is being taken care of by experts.

With DCS on your side, you’ll get:

• Quicker insurance payments
• More cash in hand due to lower A/R
• A healthier, more scalable front-office team
• A more successful, focused, and effective dental office manager

Stop mixing and matching the responsibilities of your office manager with an insurance coordinator’s.

Give your office manager the support they need to focus on what they do best: staying front and center while running the show instead of being stuck on the phone trying to reach an insurance representative.

Empower your dental office manager to do their best: choose DCS to handle your practice’s insurance billing

To recap, we answered these questions and offered a proven solution:

• What does a dental office manager do?
• What does a dental insurance coordinator do?
• What happens when one person does all the work for both roles?
• How DCS helps keep the dental office manager and dental insurance coordinator roles separate, as they should be

So what will you choose? An overwhelmed, stretched-thin dental office manager bogged down with insurance claims, or a thriving office manager focused on their talents and skillset—running your office and growing a profitable practice?

Blurring the lines of office manager and insurance coordinator only causes chaos and errors and, eventually, revenue losses. Even if you don’t choose DCS to support your office manager and your dental business, keep these roles separate and supported by the right systems with the right people.

DCS will tackle your insurance claims efficiently while your office manager focuses on your practice and your patients: Book a free 30-minute consultation with DCS today.