Yes! Outsource your dental billing—but to a company or a remote employee?

Remote work has become the norm. And when it comes to your dental billing, you know that all the steps after the submission can be handled remotely—all the follow-up, any appeals, and even posting. But should you put your practice’s cash flow in the hands of a dental billing vendor or a full-time employee who works remotely? There are benefits and drawbacks to both. Here’s what we’ve seen…

Many dental offices struggle with whether to hire an in-house insurance coordinator or outsource to a dental billing company, especially when either option means bringing on a remote worker. But this is more than a staffing decision; whoever takes this role impacts your practice’s efficiency, cash flow, and team morale.

On the one hand, an insurance coordinator feels like a role that should be in-house. Even if the coordinator works remotely, they’re a full-time member of your front desk and clinical staff.

On the other hand, outsourced billing with a company at an outside location has become a proven solution—for example, DCS has provided dental insurance billing services remotely since 2012 and grown from 3 co-founders to over 100 employees.

We at DCS understand this conundrum because we have both remote employees around the country and in-office employees at our headquarters in Savannah, Georgia, plus we are remote workers for our client-partners.

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An employee offers undivided attention, while a vendor provides consistency and scalability—and both have qualities that could seem like disadvantages, depending on your situation.

So, how do you decide which is best for your business? Here are the pros and cons to consider…

Key takeaways on hiring a remote employee versus a remote dental billing company: 

• Hiring a remote dental insurance coordinator offers familiarity and integration but comes with higher overhead.
• Partnering with a remote dental billing company provides expertise, consistency, and cost-effective scalability, though with less direct control.
• The right choice for your practice depends on your goals, budget, and staffing concerns.

Why hire a remote employee as a dental insurance coordinator?

For the record, DCS is very pro remote work. Our company has remote employees all over the United States, and we are remote workers for our client-partners. But the dental office environment is, of course, different from a third-party vendor environment. 

Here’s what we see on both sides of the coin.

Pros of a remote employee as a dental insurance coordinator

• All-day availability. A full-time coordinator dedicated to your practice is reachable for questions and clarifications throughout the workday. Although it’s important to note that if this person is only part-time, you likely will not have their undivided attention, and they likely will have other priorities—and if they have other clients, they may even have divided loyalties. 
• Fully integrated with your team. They work directly with any member of your front desk team because they are also a member of your office staff. They are free to pick up tasks that involve direct communication with patients.

Cons of a remote employee as a dental insurance coordinator

• Higher overhead. A full-time employee has the same salary, benefits, taxes, and paid time off (PTO) costs as one who works in your office. Those costs will still add up. 
• Risk of disrupted billing due to turnover or absence. If your coordinator goes on vacation, gets sick, is out on disability, retires, or quits, then your billing will be disrupted—and so will your cash flow—until they return or you hire and onboard someone new.
• Limited scalability. Whether they’re remote or not, one person can only handle so much claim work, limiting your growth. There’s a hard limit to how many dental insurance claims they can file and how many follow-up calls they can make to companies to ensure reimbursement.

We understand that a remote insurance coordinator who is part of your in-house team sounds like the best choice—and for some practices, it is! But dental billing through an an outsourced company has unique advantages you should consider before making a decision.

Why contract with a remote company or vendor for dental billing?

Many dentists turn to dental billing vendors like DCS only when they are overwhelmed by outstanding insurance claim payments, bringing us in as a “clean up crew,” then bringing their billing back in-house when claims are caught up. Others consider a company like DCS an extension of your team—we think of ourselves that way, too.

Whether you partner with a billing company for a short-term project or the long haul, here are some factors to consider.

Pros of a remote dental billing company

• Specialized expertise. When you work with DCS, the people managing your dental claims are insurance billing experts with in-depth knowledge of insurance policies, CDT coding, and submission rules. This may also be true with other dental billing vendors—be sure to ask about their billers’ skills and experience before choosing a dental billing company.
• Continuity and consistency. Billing doesn’t grind to a halt when your assigned DCS billing expert is unavailable. Instead, another member of our billing team will immediately take over your account with equal expertise and specialized knowledge to keep your revenue and collections on track.
• Often more cost-effective than a full-time employee. A monthly fee to a dental billing vendor is typically less expensive than hiring a full-time insurance coordinator, especially if you hire a skilled biller and offer benefits, paid time off, and a competitive annual salary.

Use our calculator to see if hiring DCS is less expensive than paying an insurance coordinator. 

Cons of a remote dental billing company

• Less face-to-face interaction. While DCS very much encourages regular Zoom calls (camera on!), it’s not the same as talking with a team member in person. We know some people prefer to see their employees every day, and a remote employee may be able to provide that more often. 
• Less direct control of operations. Through more than a decade of experience managing dental insurance claims, DCS has established proven, compliant processes that help collect more and more promptly.

Read more: 3 ways to grow your dental practice without growing your team

Now that you know the advantages and disadvantages, let’s put these pros and cons next to each other and think this through…

Key factors to consider when choosing

Every dental practice, dental group, and DSO has unique needs, but we can focus on the fundamental requirements for dental insurance billing. Even so, what you see as a benefit, another practice may see as a drawback, and vice versa.

So, there’s no single answer that suits everyone, but here are 5 things you need to  consider when weighing your options between a remote employee and a remote billing company: 

1. Practice size and claim volume. Is your practice growing through acquisitions or increased production? One experienced coordinator may be sufficient support for smaller practices, while growing practices or dental groups might benefit from scalable solutions like the insurance billing services offered by DCS with more than 100 dental billers across the United States.
2. Budget and financial goals. Do you want to majorly improve cash flow through consistent claims filing and follow-up, but without increasing overhead? Then an outsourced dental billing company is probably your best bet. Use our calculator to verify this with real numbers.
3. Cash flow flexibility. Can your office handle billing disruptions caused by absence or turnover? If not, a dental billing vendor with dozens of billers is a better choice than a single employee. You already know that employees miss days of work—or even a full week—for vacations, appointments, or illness. And of course, they quit and retire, too.
4. Staff bandwidth. Do you or your staff have time to train and manage a new employee—remotely? Consider what tasks the dental billing vendor could take off their plates. If your staff is overwhelmed or burned out, you might need a total hand-off of your insurance billing filing and follow-up, not another teammate who’ll merely share the load.
5. Billing and aging report backlog. Does your practice always have a billing backlog, or did claims pile up due to a temporary lapse in filing, like during turnover? If your billing workflow is usually fine, then you might need to bring on a company like DCS only for a short-term A/R clean-up project rather than anyone for the long term. But if your team can never keep up and your aging report has claims at risk for timely filing, that may be more than a single coordinator can resolve before deadlines.

The remote worker conundrum: When it works and when it doesn’t work

Remote workers can be great—our remote billers, executive team, and staff are proof of that! Productivity is higher because there aren’t the continuous interruptions that occur in an office environment, team members aren’t drained by a commute, and they aren’t limited to the typical office schedule.

Particularly when the practice owner or office manager doesn’t have time or interest in micromanaging—or a need to—then having remote workers works. It especially works when there is established trust and agreed-upon communication habits and channels. 

But here’s when a remote worker doesn’t work: if in-person communication is a priority for you, or real-time conversations are crucial, then a remote employee or dental billing company is not the best choice for you. Remote billing isn’t built for overseeing everything on the insurance side of your business, and communication will be frustrating on both sides if you haven’t agreed on turnaround time on replies, chat versus email, etc.

A hybrid solution can bring the best of both

Some practices choose both—keeping an insurance coordinator (remote or in-office) for tasks that require patient-facing interaction and continuous availability while outsourcing claims management and payer communication to a remote dental billing company. This balances control and convenience with consistency and expertise.

Whether hiring a remote employee or selecting a remote dental vendor, the priority should be ensuring the person managing your insurance billing process has the expertise and knowledge needed to handle it efficiently and accurately.

Remote workers are as effective as in-office staff, and you can choose whether to hire or contract them—or both

To recap, we covered: 

• Pros and cons of hiring a remote insurance coordinator
• Pros and cons of hiring a remote dental billing company
• Factors to consider when choosing between the two
• How to know whether remote workers are a fit for your team (it’s about your management style)
• When you may benefit from a hybrid solution

Hiring a remote dental insurance coordinator and outsourcing to a billing company both have their benefits. But when it comes to scalability, consistency, and cost-effectiveness, dental billing companies deliver the stronger solution with guaranteed expertise for short-term projects or long-term engagements.

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Each dental practice should weigh costs, growth goals, staff needs, management style, and more before deciding which path is best.

Learn more about your options after booking a free 30-minute consultation with DCS today.