What will increase productivity in a dental office? It’s a question every practice leader asks themselves at one point or another. You want to see revenue increase, but you don’t want to overwork your team. So how can you increase productivity?
DCS provides full-service dental billing solutions for teams looking to optimize revenue cycle management. Dental teams are empowered to create an amazing dental experience for patients when their systems pay them in full with ease.
Through our years of service, we’ve seen how small changes make a big difference in how productive your dental office is.
That’s why in this article, we’re sharing 5 tips for increasing productivity in a dental office. These tips will help your team work more efficiently, while also collecting more from patients and insurance companies. This also will lead to a better patient-centered experience, because patients will trust your clinical care and your billing system.
Let’s dive in.
1. Implementing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for every process at your dental office
Every place of business should have SOPs for its processes. Why? Because it makes things run smoother and makes people’s jobs easier.
At a dental office, when you have documented SOPs for each team member’s tasks, they can look at it like a checklist.
They will see the step-by-step process for how they should complete their responsibilities and will be able to move through it easily because it is laid out for them. This makes their job easier, but it also ensures their job is being completed accurately.
For example, having an SOP for creating insurance claims is a great way to make sure that whoever is creating insurance claims is doing it correctly.
This will lead to clean claim submission that will lead to easy insurance income.
Plus, if one of your team members is sick or goes out of town, others will be able to temporarily take over certain tasks easily because the SOP is available for their use. This will increase productivity, and maintain it if anyone is ever out of the office.
Related: Why a profitable dental revenue cycle depends on a good billing process
2. Move your scheduling online to have more time to reach out to patients about unscheduled treatment
Get digital! We know technology can be a little intimidating, but it will relieve your team of a lot of busy work.
A great way to increase productivity is to move your scheduling online.
Your patients will easily look at your calendar online to see availability and book their appointment. You’ll of course still need to call the patient to verify their insurance benefits, but the step of being on the phone with them to figure out a time that works for both of you is eliminated.
You’ll then have more time to call patients who have unscheduled treatment. These are patients who are in need of specific treatment but have not scheduled an appointment themselves.
Getting these patients in the office takes time on your part to go through your list of patients. And by moving regular scheduling online, you’ll have more time to do so.
3. Make sure each team member has a reasonable workload and nothing is slipping through the cracks
Do you have clear roles and responsibilities at your dental practice? Are these tasks distributed relatively evenly among your team members?
For example, if you have someone who is in charge of scheduling and checking in patients AND insurance billing - that person most likely has too much on their plate.
Creating and submitting insurance claims, working the insurance aging report, appealing denied claims, and posting payments are a lot of work. This is enough work for it to be one person’s full-time job.
To increase productivity, give everyone a reasonable workload. This way nothing slips through the cracks, everyone is able to complete their responsibilities during the work day, and you don’t have to worry about whether or not “that one claim” was ever appealed.
A great way to combat the workload of insurance billing is to outsource the entire claim submission process to a billing service. That way your team is entirely focused on providing amazing patient care.
4. Automate your systems where it makes sense (confirmations, cancellations, patient billing)
Again, technology is your friend. When you automate your systems, it will increase your productivity tenfold. Automation isn’t stealing your job - it’s making it easier!
Do you spend time sending confirmation emails to patients? This is something that could be automated while your time is spent doing something else.
In fact, you can automate your entire patient billing process. Your patients will be able to see their balances in a patient portal, and receive text and/or email reminders about their owed payments.
This way you don’t have to make those awkward calls to patients asking for them to mail you a check. You will instead focus on bringing new patients into your office.
Related: 3 reasons to automate your patient billing services ASAP
5. Add incentives for your in-house team
We know you compensate your dental team fairly. But do you ever add extra incentives to increase their productivity?
This is a fun way to connect with your team, add in some friendly competition, and increase productivity.
For example, you could have a competition to see which team member refers the highest number of new patients in a month. The person who wins could receive a gift card, a cash bonus, extra PTO, etc.
Things like this will bring your team together for some fun, but it also gives them a personal benefit to increase their productivity at the dental office.
Increase productivity in a dental office by elevating your revenue cycle management
You can see that productivity at the dental office is achieved through clear processes, automating everything you can, dividing up work evenly among team members, and providing enticing incentives.
Your productivity at the dental office starts with a well-managed revenue cycle. Collecting from patients and insurance companies doesn’t have to be a headache every time.
To learn more about how DCS’ services will help you elevate your revenue cycle management, schedule a call with one of our experts.
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