Trainers spend their days navigating systems for different practices and advising them on how to best use their practice management software. Not an easy job. Every practice has its way of doing things for its own specific reasons, and it’s the trainer’s job to implement, teach, and sometimes create best practices that will fit with each specific set of needs. Because of this, when you ask a trainer for a great power tip, they often can’t give you a simple answer. Frustrating. However, our amazing senior trainers pinpointed a tip that they like to give to every single office: “Change your treatment plan status”
By that, she means that it’s not good enough to simply label your treatment plans as planned or pending. You can do your practice a world of good by adopting AFRX method.
A – Accepted: Schedule the patient immediately.
F – Future: The patient wants the treatment, but something is preventing them from being able to move forward immediately, so put a task in your to-do list to follow up with them on a specific date.
X – Rejected by patient: The patient doesn’t want the proposed treatment. If the treatment is important, gently follow up with them to encourage them to approve it before the issue gets worse.
R – Rejected by insurance: Follow up with the patient only if their insurance status changes.
Label your treatment plan status with these and you can save your treatment coordinator a huge amount of time since they will now automatically know which patients to follow up with first (accepted), and how to approach patients that fall into one of the other categories.
This small change can make a big difference, and those are the best changes to make! Try implementing this at your practice and let us know what you think!
Imagine a world where each patient’s insurance coverage appears before you like magic. Imagine having the correct invoice amount for every patient through automated EOB, every time. Imagine having everything ready for you in an instant!
You don’t have to imagine it… it can be yours! But first, a couple of definitions:
Explanation of Benefits (EOB) is the statement that is received from the insurance carrier with the correct amount of coverage for the patient
Coordination of Benefits (COB) is the ability to prioritize multiple insurance carriers for a patient calculate the amount of coverage from each carrier in sequence and find the total covered amount.
ClearDent has fully integrated EOB and COB into our software so that everything is completed for you in the background. ClearDent’s electronic claim feature will automatically implement the Explanation of Benefits so the correct percentage of coverage is reflected on each patient’s invoice without any need for manual recording, hence automated EOB. If the patient has coverage from multiple insurance carriers, ClearDent’s electronic Coordination of Benefits (COB) will automatically forward the EOB from the primary insurance to the secondary insurance for completely accurate coverage information, and then implement that information into the patient’s invoice. Everything happens automatically, instantly*, and correctly.
Why is this so important? By automating this process, your front desk and patients will enjoy big benefits. First, the time needed to prepare an invoice will be drastically reduced. Accordingly, this will allow you to process more patients and greatly reduce wait times. Second, the accuracy of the statement will be vastly improved. With no human interaction or estimation, the invoice will be filled in with correct information without any risk of typos, or missteps. You will never have to attempt to collect more money from an incorrectly billed patient again!
* Performance based on support of real-time adjudication by insurance carriers
All dental offices have a way of finding patients to fill available slots. ClearDent has a feature that facilitates this time-consuming process. And this is how it works: The Appointment Manager allows the receptionist to quickly fill slots in the day that have become available.
How does it work?
When a patient cancels their appointment, a pop up box appears and asks if the appointment should be added to the waiting list. If ‘yes’ is selected, the appointment is added to the pending waiting appointment list.
This particular list is a great resource to pull names from when you have a cancellation on the schedule. You can pull up the appointment manager waiting list and call the patients listed to fill the available open spot on the schedule. If the patient has more than one appointment pending you can select all appointments for that patient (by checking the box to the left) and select schedule. This will move all of the patient’s appointments into the drop box allowing you to book.
When a patient has additional appointments that need to be booked, you can also open up the appointment manager. “Add” their name to the wait list so that you do not lose track of the patient and remember to follow up in a few days to book their treatment.
Booked and Waiting & Short Notice List
Booked & Waiting allows you to book patients in the future, but by choosing the Booked & Waiting option when scheduling the appointment it adds this appointment to the Booked & Waiting list. Therefore, if you have an opening in the schedule, you can pull patients off the Booked and Waiting list to get them in sooner.
Short Notice list is also a very tool to use when you have a last minute cancellation and need someone to fill the spot quickly.
All the above functions can be sorted by specific provider as well.
ClearDent makes it easy!
Looking for more guidance? Visit ClearDent’s new online Help Centre for on-demand training videos, detailed user guides, and FAQs. Whether you’re new or experienced, our Help Centre has everything you need to enhance your product knowledge and troubleshoot issues effortlessly. Click here to learn more →
Technology is allowing industries of all types to increase efficiency. In the dental industry, the list of technological advancements that allow dentists to gain more information to diagnose issues and complete procedures more efficiently is very long. What isn’t as evident, however, is how greatly technological advancements can increase the capabilities of a dental practice’s front desk. Specifically, I’m referring to automation. More and more dental practice’s are automating their processes every year. So, what can be automated?
Automating Appointment Confirmations
The biggest offender of time wasting for front desk staff is the age old practice of manually calling each patient to confirm their appointment. ClearDent can automate this for you easily by setting up a system where patients will automatically receive an email, recorded phone message, or text message (based on their preference) where they can quickly confirm their appointment.
Automating Appointment Status
When a patient has received their appointment confirmation message, it is a very simple process to confirm their appointment. When they do this, ClearDent will automatically update the patient’s status in the system.
Recall Reminders
No more letting patient’s slip through the cracks. ClearDent will automatically reach out to patient’s who still need to book their next recall. Because of tight integration, ClearDent can see who needs to book, check their contact preferences, and send them a message to book.
New Patient Welcome Package
Make a good first impression with your new patients. Have ClearDent automatically send them a welcome package.
Happy Birthday Messages
Show your patients that you care, and further build a strong bond to increase retention. Have ClearDent send every patient a happy birthday message.
And, because this is the way of the future, ClearDent is working hard to take advantage of our dental software ecosystem to bring even more time and money saving automations to our customers. Check out our new and improved website for even more information.
