Episode 813: The Key to a Perfect Billing Department

Tiff and Dana are back with more leveling-up tips for your practices! They focus on the billing department, specifically the key ingredient to keep everything moving smoothly: calendars. Setting up a calendar to keep things on track will keep your cadence consistent — a must-do when it comes to staying on top of all that work. Tiff and Dana walk through what to include on that calendar, the importance of cheat sheets, how to train your support team ahead of time, and more.

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Transcript:

Tiffanie (00:09.643)

Denae with me. Denae has been so patient with me. I swear every time we have time in the schedule dedicated to this, to podcasting together, something comes in and just messes it up. And last time it was my internet. So we're here today. I'm so excited to be here with you, Denae. Thank you for being patient with me and for hopping on.

And really for letting me just slide this into our schedule wherever we can. So I appreciate you and I value you. And I'm so excited to be here with you today, Danae. How are you?

Denae Black (00:39.744)

I'm doing good. I'm doing really good. It's actually starting to warm up here in Michigan. So it's in the fifties, which is almost like spring for us. It's like flip flops in short weather. So I'm.

Tiffanie (00:53.307)

Oh my gosh, okay. You can tell you've been in Minnesota long enough, or you've been back East -ish long enough, in the snow long enough, where all the places that you've been that you could say something like that, because it's 80 degrees here, and I'm like, okay, it's almost time to pull out my shorts. Almost time.

Denae Black (01:12.928)

Yes, yes, it only took me a few years, but I am officially a Michigander. I've got that thick, you know, Northern blood now.

Tiffanie (01:20.269)

Yeah.

Tiffanie (01:25.307)

Oh my gosh, well, Arizona misses you, but I'm happy that you're enjoying your time there. I wanted to talk with you. I pull you, I let you decide what you wanted today. I had two topics and I love actually that you decided on the one you did because you know that I love to pull you when it comes to numbers and when it comes to financing for practices and all of those big pieces.

And today I really wanted to talk about the billing department and the billing representative and really how to take what we're doing and level up. So something we're talking about a lot this month is really leveling up the training, leveling up what we're doing in the practice and how all of these different positions, especially the front office, can take what we're doing and maybe go that step a little bit further. And so I really wanted to talk about the billing department and how that department...

can do those things. So we know like our billing department is looking at insurances and the verifications, making sure those are happening, making sure claims are happening, making sure all those things happen. But I wanted to dive into really how we can take that billing coordinator position and make it expand. And one thing I thought of, I was thinking about this a lot today, because I knew this was one of our two topic choices. And I really thought about like that.

position becoming really a leader in its own right within the practice and really kind of seeing how they can be more proactive in their position and less reactive, which sounds contradictory, right? Because they're waiting for claims to be paid. They're waiting for treatment to be done to send claim. Like they're constantly in the reactive space of life just by nature of their position. But I thought, Danae,

all of those pieces where they're like so frustrated because they're like, gosh, I didn't get a PA. I didn't get the narrative I needed. I'm waiting for someone else to give me this information so that I can get this claim paid, so that I can follow up on this, so that I can do this denial and all of these pieces. And I thought, well, how could they, maybe Denae, I don't know, maybe I'm crazy, maybe you agree, how could they start helping to train the team?

Tiffanie (03:40.347)

rather than waiting when something goes wrong, they're like, okay, got to fix this. And they're going to like, you know what I mean? So that's kind of where my brain went with it of really leveling up that position and looking at how it shows up for the practice. But what do you think about that? Am I crazy? You think the training like, what do you think? What do you think could go with that?

Denae Black (03:59.68)

You are definitely not crazy, Tiff. I would say there are so many pieces to the billing coordinator or your insurance coordinator, right? The person that manages all of the claims that are going out and really owns getting those claims paid, that it's easy for us to think, oh, our job, right, as a team is to take care of the patients and they handle everything after the fact. But if we can do things to be more proactive,

Tiffanie (04:03.195)

You

Denae Black (04:26.592)

to allow them to get the claims paid faster, it's gonna be ideal for everybody because we're gonna get the claims paid, patients don't have things pending, all that fun stuff, right? So things that the team can do to help keep everything as proactive as possible is create, and maybe the billing rep owns this part of it, right? But create a cheat sheet. Every time you do a crown, what are the things that we're going to need to bill out?

Tiffanie (04:53.595)

Yeah.

Denae Black (04:56.032)

and actually make sure that that claim gets paid. So x -rays, do we need perio charting? Is this particular treatment going to need a narrative? If it does, we can be extremely proactive, get all of that stuff while the patient's there, and then send it right to our billing coordinator so that they then can push everything through and get the claims paid faster. So things that like doctors can do to be as proactive is,

Tiffanie (05:21.051)

Yeah.

Denae Black (05:23.648)

If you know there's a certain procedure that's gonna need a narrative, already have your narratives like templated out. So all you really have to do is customize it to the patient, sign off on it and have it ready for your billing coordinator. For your dental assistants, if you know that we're not always great at getting that final PA after we delivered a crown, take the PA, right? You can give yourself a checklist of,

When I'm doing this particular procedure, I want to make sure that I'm also getting these resources for my billing coordinator. So give yourself a checklist to help with that as well.

Tiffanie (06:08.051)

You know.

Tiffanie (06:18.523)

Hey, can you hear me?

Oh, then they can't hear me.

Denae Black (08:23.236)

Thank you.

Now you're back, yeah.

Denae Black (08:35.616)

Okay.

Denae Black (08:39.712)

Yeah, let's pick it up where it's the dental assistants creating a checklist.

Denae Black (08:50.176)

Okay, so what the dental assistants, what you guys can do is give yourself some sort of reminder of if I'm doing this particular procedure, what are the things that my billing rep is going to need in order to get those claims paid? So a great example is gonna be if you do a crown, they're going to need that PA that the crown was actually delivered or seated because some insurance companies will pay on the prep date, others will pay on the seat date.

So we need that actual visual proof that the crown was seated in order for them to release funds. So if you know without a doubt that we're going to need that PA in order to get the claim paid, a quick checklist, maybe you create a stamp and you put it on your route slip. Maybe you add it into your crown templates, right? In your chart note template, maybe you add it in there as a quick reminder that, yep, we need to make sure that we take that x -ray. That way you don't have to pull the patient back.

because there is nothing worse than having to call the patient back and say, hey, Ms. Smith, I'm so sorry, but I need you to come back into the office for X, Y, and Z. There's nothing worse than doing that. So I would definitely say dental assistants, if you don't already have a quick reminder of what are you gonna need to get those claims paid, give yourself a reminder, really easy ways to do it on your route slip or add it in your chart notes.

Denae Black (14:57.088)

I think the only other thing I would add is if you are not already in the habit of confirming your patient's phone number and address every single time that you talk to them, get into the habit because we can do all of the things right. We can get all of the attachments, but sometimes the patient will still end up with a balance or sometimes we still need to get ahold of the patient. So if you can get into the habit of confirming phone number, address, so that when we do need to get ahold of them,

We know we have the right information. So any statements we send out, any phone calls we make in regards to their outstanding balance or their pending claims, we have the right information.

Denae Black (15:45.196)

Thank you.