Alleviating Insurance Verification Challenges

Alleviating Insurance Verification Challenges

If there was a better way to manage insurance verification that improved office operations and your bottom line, wouldn’t you take it?

Robert McDermott

There are few things that challenge modern healthcare for both the provider and the patient quite like managing insurance. Patients find their coverage difficult to understand, and dental practices struggle to verify coverage and benefits prior to in-office visits. For that reason, patients often rely upon their dentist offices to verify their insurance for care and procedures.

The insurance verification process should be easy but, instead, it’s often lengthy and slow, occupying resources that could be better used to improve office efficiencies and patient services.

Still, it’s a necessary task. Insurance verification and pre-approval ensures your dental practice is paid for its services. Finding ways to both improve the process and save resources is, for many dental practices, a top priority.

Most dental offices are still relying on manual insurance verification processes. True, you have patient information on file, but must go record-by-record to check any patient on the schedule. Or, you have to wait until a patient completes a form that includes all their insurance information. Most practices dedicate at least one staff member to insurance for at least 20 hours per week. You’re paying a staff member to make phone calls rather than provide support or patient services. Many dental offices are already finding themselves short-staffed.

The last thing a dental practice or patient wants is to impede this process any further or have a claim denied. Denied claims not only delay care and frustrate patients, they also interrupt cash flow to your dental practice.

How can dental practices simplify and improve the insurance verification process?

1. Verify early

Whether it’s staffing constraints or patient delays, waiting until the day of or day before a scheduled appointment can be a mistake. For instance, it limits staff to checking only new patients or patients with known insurance changes. If there are miscommunications, or other unexpected errors or delays, it may lead to a canceled appointment, unscheduled treatments or worse.

2. Create a thorough, but simple process

First, consider online forms. Manual data entry is one area with potential for human error to complicate the process. When emailed a form or a form is available online, patients can quickly fill it out. Further, many online forms will integrate with your existing practice management system to facilitate the process and improve accuracy.

3. Get a full breakdown of insurance benefits

Keeping dental insurance benefits thorough and updated means you can quickly verify whether certain dental services or procedures are eligible through the patient’s insurance.

4. Consider leveraging technology to remove the burden from staff

The newest automated insurance verification software can offer considerable advantages such as:

• Verification in seconds for every patient on the schedule each week (rather than one patient at a time)

• Built-in error reporting for quick resolutions

• More accurate estimates and higher acceptance rates (fewer denials)

• Real-time benefit information and remaining coverage data

• Robust reporting and revenue updates

Any effort that can streamline the process, help the patient and support your bottom line is an effort worth making.

Mr. McDermott is president and CEO of iCoreConnect, a NYSDA endorsed partner. iCoreVerify completes automated insurance verifications - up to seven days in advance - for every patient on the schedule. Book a demo now at iCoreConnect.com/NY12, or call (888) 810-7706. NYSDA members receive substantial discounts on iCoreVerify by iCoreConnect.