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3 Things Every Office Manager Should Automate Today

Posted September 16, 2018 by Angela S.

Managing a dental office can be stressful and time consuming! What if there were 3 easy ways you could lower your daily stress, and also increase productivity, while saving you time? By simply automating a few daily tasks, you’ll give yourself some breathing room and see positive results for your practice.

Insurance Payments 

How much time during the day are you spending processing insurance payments: opening, reviewing, entering information, filing, and depositing?

Pay Insurance_ERA

Electronic Remittance Advice (ERA) is a quick and easy way to process your EOBs electronically. Claims submitted electronically are processed and adjudicated. Instead of sending you a paper EOB, an electronic remittance is sent to your office. Once received, it comes directly into your XLDent software and links to the associated claim automatically. Payment and adjustment (for contracted plans) values auto-populate from the ERA. Payments are typically sent electronically, in the form of an EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer), saving you the work of opening checks, preparing the deposit, and a trip to the bank. A huge benefit is ERAs are stored on each patient record so looking up a past remittance is just a click away.

All of this affords you cash flow increases, greater accuracy and speed, and quick, easy access. This simple solution will easily save you hours each week freeing you up to focus your time on other responsibilities, such as acquiring new patients.

Appointment Confirmations 

Just think of how many hours you could save each week if you had something that would do the confirming and reminders for upcoming appointments. Text messaging is the MOST used data service in the world, so why not take advantage of XLDent’s automated messaging service. People greatly value their time and taking that time to answer a phone call, or calling you back, may not be high on their priority list. By offering patient’s a convenient way to respond, via email or text message, shows that you value their time while also saving you time along the way. It’s very likely you’ll see a decrease in cancellations and no shows too!

Treatment Plans 

Open spots in the schedule are one of the most frustrating parts of the day. After a plan for treatment is recommended, a patient might easily get busy and forget to schedule it. You can quickly see all treatment plans laid out by the Doctor in XLDent’s Pending and Early List. This list allows you to view the patient, value, length of treatment, and date the treatment plan was presented, giving you all the information, you need to easily fill those open spots. Plus, you’re providing your patients great service knowing you care for their well-being. Have a one-hour spot to fill, or a specific type of treatment that would work best? Filters allow you to see just that. Simply drag the planned treatment off the list into the appointment column to schedule it!

Pending and Early ListWe understand your day is filled with a laundry list of things to do, and that list never seems to shrink. These are three easy and affordable ways that XLDent helps you focus your time so you are able to answer a new patients’ phone call, attend to the patient in front of you, budget office expenses, manage emails, handle payroll, and the many other duties you take care of on a daily basis.

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Overdue Recall: Get Patients Back on Track

Posted September 6, 2018 by Jennifer G

dentist appointment on calendarLife gets really busy, and it’s easy to forget about taking care of ourselves. Patients don’t always schedule a next hygiene appointment, and in the daily whirlwind that drives our productivity for the day, we overlook this. Even more importantly than this huge lost revenue source is the fact that patient health and preventive care is declining. Establishing an effective recall system that includes current patients, as well as focusing on past due ones, is important. Specifically, reach out to patients who have been dormant for several years. You’ll be surprised at how many are eager to get their oral health back on track.

To get started, consider this when reviewing your current recall program:

What does your staff say when calling a past due patient? A personal call goes a long way, and of course, we don’t want to shame anyone for letting preventive visits lapse. It helps to use phrases like we’re concerned for your oral health and we look forward to seeing you soon. Allow team members at least an hour at a time to sit down, review patient accounts, and make phone calls.

Are your patients so busy with long work hours they can’t make it in before 6 pm? You could consider offering a special extended day (or two) when you keep the office open 1-2 hours longer for hygiene patients only. Teamwork allows for a rotation of office staff to alter their hours once per week to accommodate an evening. This option for busy patients is one more way to get the appointment set.

Is the staff feeling incentivized to bring in those lapsed patients? Think about an incentive or treat such as bringing in bagels and coffee at the end of the month if your recall visit numbers reach a new high.

Pre-appoint every hygiene patient who comes in, or at least ask. This is the first step toward improving your retention rate. Soon, patients will come to expect this at their hygiene visits and your recall rate will show it. Encourage them to get the best selection of date and time and schedule it now to get one more thing off the to-do list.

Have you considered making the switch to an automated recall system? Once set up, it can manage how you are reaching out to patients with texts, emails, or postcard reminders about unscheduled visits. This is a great way to save staff time, increase response rate, and connect with patients who have previously been difficult to reach. Automated systems like Lighthouse 360 are designed to manage your current recall and reminders, but also focus on reactivation outreach.

Taking a look at your own recall program and setting aside time each month to focus on overdue patient’s is sure to be successful!

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