Verifying Insurance For Your Dental Patients - Is It Worth It?

Working in the dental profession includes lots of multi-tasking, paperwork, and busy schedules. Often you might cut corners to make things a bit easier, especially when it comes to verifying insurance. Insurance verification might seem like an annoyance, but it can actually free up your time and make your job easier.

This promise may sound too good to be true, but below, Reach's team of insurance verification experts will cover why verifying insurance is worth your time.

How Do You Verify Insurance?

Before we dive into the benefits, let’s define insurance verification and discuss how you can do it. Confirming coverage is how you can ensure that the patient’s insurance information is valid and up-to-date. During this process, you will also find out what copays and fees the patient should expect from their visit.

So how do you verify the insurance? Simply contact the providing company to confirm the patient’s coverage. This verification must happen before the patient’s treatment to ensure that all payments and treatment information are clear before any expenses occur.

Is It Worth It To Verify Patients’ Insurance?

Simply put, yes. Patient Insurance verification is essential. But why? Let’s look into the top reasons why confirming a patient’s healthcare plan will benefit you and your dental office.

1. Insurance Verification Speeds Up the Billing Cycle

Insurance claims can be tricky. Often, healthcare providers deny claims for various reasons depending on the patient’s treatment or lack of coverage. An increase in rejected claims creates longer billing cycles.

Insurance verification lets your office receive the healthcare company’s money quicker and cleaner. You can substantially reduce the total amount of denied claims by confirming insurance. Avoid the risk of unverified health coverage so you can reduce bad debt, rejections, and denials—and increase the time it takes for your office to receive payments.

2. Verified Insurance Will Reduce Claim Issues and Wasted Time

Insurance companies adjust their coverage frequently. Your patient might have been covered by their plan for a particular exam last year, but it could cost them thousands this year. Consistently verifying the insurance coverage for a patient’s exams, procedures, or other services will help you avoid claim denials.

Working back and forth with insurance companies is a headache. These organizations often put you on hold, the calls take long, and the overall process can be very frustrating. Avoiding unnecessary denials will save you time and reduce wasted efforts.

3. Verifying Insurance Improves Patient Communication and Satisfaction

Most, if not all, patients want to know how much they will have to pay ahead of time before agreeing to any costly procedures. A patient’s worst nightmare is coming home to a massive bill for a treatment that they cannot reverse. This lack of communication leads to unsatisfied patients who may not return to the office and might even leave bad reviews.

You can ensure that all payment details are clear by determining a patient's coverage and informing them about payment details upfront. This communication will improve the patient’s experience and avoid unnecessary frustrations.

Aside from their happiness, failing to inform a patient of coverage and payments before your office treats them can also get the practice into trouble. If a patient is not pleased with a surprise bill, they may take action that can harm the office’s reputation.

4. Confirming Coverage Improves Treatments

Many different dental procedures can exist for a single problem. Say you have a chipped tooth: The dental office could treat this with a filling or bonding, or the patient could choose to ignore it since the issue is cosmetic. These treatments have different associated costs that various healthcare plans may or may not cover.

You can offer top-notch dental work by providing an adequate level of care at a low cost. Especially when undergoing a painful procedure, the patient will likely want to have any anesthetics that their healthcare provider will cover. By confirming your patient’s coverage, you can ensure that they receive the best treatment plan possible.

5. Insurance Verification Can Resolve Your Stress

Your mental health is more important than you may think. Many jobs have various small stress factors that can build up over time. When this pressure accumulates, you may operate less efficiently, not accomplish as much work, dread going into the office, and even make mistakes.

You can achieve some peace of mind by verifying a patient’s insurance and ensuring that fewer claim issues will arise in the future. Reducing smaller fragments of stress and knowing that you are doing clean, solid work can help you feel more confident. This strong mental health will improve your thinking and strengthen how the entire office operates.

Continue Learning About Insurance Verification

Insurance verification is definitely worth the time and effort. Confirming a patient’s coverage will speed up billing cycles, reduce wasted time and claim issues, increase patient satisfaction, improve treatments, and resolve stress.

The last thing you want is an angry patient spreading the word that your practice did not inform them of required payments. Avoid frustrated customers and bad reviews by ensuring that you have done everything you can on your end.

At CallForce, we want to help you create excellent treatment experiences for all of your patients. We understand how hard it can be to provide this quality service, and we want to help.

To learn more about how we can help you with insurance verification, please contact our customer success managers at 801-901-8852. You may also submit information on our online form, and we will respond within 24 hours.

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