dental debt collection agency Archives ⋆ Dentists Collect

How To Avoid Dental Bad Debt

It is no secret that dental practices deal with far more dental bad debt and unpaid accounts, in comparison to other medical professionals. With this said there are steps which can be taken, and there are things which can be done to help reduce the amount of dental bad debt which your practice deals with on an annual basis.

Dental Bad Debt

These are a few steps which can be taken, to help reduce or eliminate the dental bad debt your office sees annually, and to avoid potential overdue accounts in the future when taking on new patients.

1. Gather The Right Information:
Your office should make it a regular practice to collect certain information when taking on new patients. From DOB, to address, insurance information, phone numbers, driver’s license, email, and social security numbers. The more you learn about a patient, and the more ways in which you can reach them and collect from them, the less likely it is their bill will go into collections and turn into dental bad debt.

2. Personal Identification:
Make it a regular practice to photocopy an ID. From a driver’s license to social security number and other photo documents – having this information will help eliminate the debate as to whether or not the individual in question (in the photo) is the one that owes your practice any money that could turn into dental bad debt.

3. Consent Forms and Treatment Plans:
Make sure payments sign consent forms for all work done and total payment amounts for all work done. This will eliminate the possibility that at a later date they state they did not consent to certain work. Further, detail the treatment plans, cost, and payment options, and have them sign all the paperwork. Doing so leaves no questions as to whether or not they understood what work was to be done, or how much it would cost. It leaves you with a paper trail, and ensures patients can’t say they didn’t agree to certain work at a later date.

4. Collect Early:
If you do allow patients to set up a payment plan, collect as much as possible up front. Whether it is 50% or more, or whether you set up other payment plan amount options up, make sure patients pay something, so that you don’t lose the entire amount if they aren’t capable of paying the rest of their bill at a later date.

5. Insurer Information:
If patients are insured, let patients know what portion of their bill will be covered. As a dental practice your staff knows what is and isn’t covered, and how much an insurer will cover. Let the patient know how much they are responsible for, and make sure they consent to, and sign all paperwork, which ensures they will be paying that amount. If a patient doesn’t agree, they should first speak to their insurer, so that you aren’t stuck with an unpaid account at a later date, and your practice doesn’t have to suffer from additional unpaid collection accounts or dental bad debt.

6. Notify Early:
Send notification accounts out early. Rather than wait 60 days to send out a bill, send it after 30 days. The sooner you notify patients, and the more notifications they get, the higher the chances are they will pay on account. Text, leave messages, call often; do everything possible to get in touch with patients, and to get them to pay the bill which they owe.

7. Discount Options:
Many patients are more receptive to doing work (especially costly work) when they receive a discount. So, if they pay the bill early, give them a percentage discount on the total cost. It not only creates incentive for them to pay early, it also lessens the possibility that your dental practice is going to be stuck with yet another dental bad debt account for unpaid bills.

Dental Bad Debt

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What To Expect When Making Dental Debt Collection Calls

As the owner of a dental practice, you have probably dealt with non-paying patients in the past. With high number of accounts receivable going into collections, your staff has probably made many dental debt collection calls to patients and former patients. Regardless of the reason they can’t pay, there are certain responses which patients are going to give you when they receive this call. So, what should you know, and what should you expect when making dental debt collection calls? These are a few of the most common responses given by patients who haven’t paid, or have been ignoring your attempts to collect for quite some time.

Dental Debt Collection Calls

My Insurance Covered It, Right?
One of the most common excuses you are going to hear when making dental debt collection calls from patients is that they were under the impression that their insurer was going to pay the bill. In fact, this is one of the most common reason for unpaid portions of bills, when patients don’t know how much their insurer covers, and how much they had to pay. Some forget there is a copay, while others simply believe the entire bill is covered by their insurer.

So, what should your staff say in these situations? A good way to handle these calls is to say:” We are sorry for the confusion and are happy to go over your insurance at the next visit. However, you currently owe $XXX, how would you like to pay for this today?” By simply asking how the patient is going to pay, rather than telling them you are going to send out another bill, it forces them to make a payment, rather than giving you another excuse. It is a smooth transition which typically results in having the bill paid in full, without insulting the patient. Further, it lets them know that for future visits, their insurer is not going to pay the entire bill, so you do not have to worry about another account going into past due accounts.

How Much Is The Bill?

Another common reason patients simply don’t pay, and make the dental debt collection calls so difficult is that they didn’t expect the total amount to be as much as it was. This is more common with self pay, rather than insured patients. One option for your practice to consider is to offer setting up a payment arrangement when making the call about their bill. If they can’t pay it all up front, set up a smaller monthly amount, which allows them to pay the total over a period of several months. Although it will take a bit longer to collect, at least your practice is not going to lose the total amount of the patient’s unpaid debt.

Further, you can go on to inform patients you will go over in detail with them, the full cost of a procedure, the next time they visit the office. This will in turn allow them to evaluate what they can afford, and which work they have to do right away, and which type of work can wait until a future visit.

You never know what excuse you will hear, but these two are among the most common when dental offices make the dental debt collection calls. Being prepared for these responses will not only help your staff say the right thing and collect on unpaid debts, but also avoids the potential of insulting a patient, who will completely ignore your calls in the past. Further, it ensures patients are made aware of bills, costs, and their responsibility to pay, for future visits to the office.

Dental Debt Collection Calls

If you are tired of making dental debt collection calls, and the same old response from patients with each call, our dental collection agency can step in to help. Not only do we know how to deal with these responses, we know which methods to take with patients who give us these responses, and are trying to avoid paying their past due account. We are not only going to reduce the total past due accounts you currently have, but will help eliminate the occurrence in the future as well.

Ready to find the right dental debt dental debt collection calls agency?

Save time, money and aggravation by hiring a professional who can help you collect some (or all) of your outstanding revenue.

Click the button below and get a free dental debt collection calls agency quote today. After all, you can keep doing what you’re doing (and hope for a different result), or you can work with a collection agency that can help you recover what’s rightfully yours.

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Dental Debt Collection Agencies – When Is It Time To Outsource?

On a daily basis, dental offices are having problems collecting patient bills which go into accounts receivable. Whether you can’t find the patient, you can’t get in touch with their insurer, or they are simply ignoring you due to inability to pay an account, dental debt collection agencies can step in to help. But, when is it the right time to outsource your account receivable to a dental collection agency? These are a few factors to keep in mind, if you are having troubles collecting on accounts, and can’t reach certain patients.

Dental Debt Collection Agencies

Dental Debt Collection Agencies When Is The Right Time?

For some, turning to dental debt collection agencies after about 4 months (or 120 days), it might be time to write off a patient, and try to work with a collection agency. Certain agencies advise that after a period of 2 to 3 months (60 to 90 days), it might be time to rely on a third party agency to help you collect on bills. Why? For the most part, after this time has elapsed you aren’t going to be able to reach the patient. The sooner you turn to a collection agency, the higher the likelihood of finding the patient, getting them to pay at least a portion of the bill, and collecting on accounts you thought might be closed for good.

What Size Balance Should I Send To Debt Collection Agencies?

Again, this will vary from practice to practice. But, if a bill is in collections, which is $75 to $100, or higher, it might be advisable to work with third party dental debt collection agencies professional service provider. Most agencies will not accept patient bills of smaller amounts, due to the amount of time, work, resources, and effort, required to go after the patient. So, if your practice simply has several small accounts which are overdue, it might be advisable to write them off. On the other hand, if you have several patients which are delinquent, with excessive bill amounts, a collection agency can step in to help.

Who Will Pay The Bills?

Who is responsible for the unpaid bills? It is important you have all relevant and up to date information about a patient, prior to turning the bills over to dental debt collection agencies. From their address and phone number, to social security number, and insurers if they are insured. The more information your practice has, the easier it is going to be for a collection agency to not only track the patient down, but also to get the bill paid off. Further, if you have several notices sent out to patients, and have made attempts to collect in the past, giving this information to the collection agency is also going to provide them with accurate information about all efforts which have been made, in an effort to collect on overdue accounts.

Depending on the amount of patient bills which are overdue, how long they have been past due, and the efforts your practice has made in the past, the right dental debt collection agencies are going to be able to step in to assist you, and at least collect on a portion of the bill amount. Not all patients will pay the account, and in many cases, only partial payments will be made. But the right collection agency is going to prove to be your best ally to receive at least a portion of the total amount your practice has lost.

Dental Debt Collection Agencies

If your dental practice has delinquent accounts, it might be time to work with dental debt collection agencies to help you collect on past due accounts. This is where we can help! Fill out the form below to provide us with information about past due patient bills, efforts which were made to collect, and all other patient payment information, so we can determine what the best option is for you, and whether or not we can work with you to collect on patient bills. Fill out the short form below today, so that we can begin the process, find out the best collection options, and help your dental practice collect on the past due patient bills which are in collections.

Ready to find the right dental debt collection agencies?

Save time, money and aggravation by hiring a professional who can help you collect some (or all) of your outstanding revenue.

Click the button below and get a free dental debt collection agencies quote today. After all, you can keep doing what you’re doing (and hope for a different result), or you can work with a collection agency that can help you recover what’s rightfully yours.

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How To Get Your Dental Accounts Receivable Under Control

Unpaid debts aren’t simply the ‘cost of doing business’. In fact, many dental practices lose far more than they should annually, because they simply say they can’t collect on past due dental accounts receivable, but this isn’t the case. Many practices decide to forego even contacting patients, which means a great amount of lost profits annually. Today, your practice simply can’t afford this, and has to find a way to reach out to patients with past due accounts.

Dental Accounts Receivable

Dental Accounts Receivable
So, what can be done to deal with the dental account receivable bills which aren’t being paid? There are a few things which can be done, and different tactics your office can take, in trying to collect on these accounts. Don’t simply write these bills off, rather, consider these approaches to try to collect on the dental accounts receivable which patients owe to your practice.

Create and Follow Through With A Dental Accounts Receivable Policy:

When are bills sent? 60 days or 90 days after the procedure? How long do you wait before calling a patient who hasn’t paid? Many offices don’t have concrete rules in place, and simply “play it by ear.” This is a mistake, and it is resulting in far too many patient bills going into collections and never being paid. Rather, your office has to create a policy for each and every account. If a patient hasn’t paid after XX amount of days, call them. If they haven’t responded to an email or phone calls, find other approaches to reach them. Your entire staff has to understand the policy, and billing practices. Not only will this help to reduce unpaid amounts, it will also help your practice find patients which are simply trying to avoid paying their bills.

Upfront Discounts:

A way to collect, and avoid even having to bill patients, is to offer them a discount if they pay for the entire cost of the procedure up front. But, many patients can’t afford the high cost procedures, and in these cases, your office can provide a discount for bills which are paid in full up front. This is a sure fire way to guarantee you are going to collect on the entire bill; and, offering this 3 to 5% discount for a complete payment up front, allows patients to focus on the work, rather than on how they are going to pay off the bill over time. It will reduce the total amount of dental accounts receivable in the future, and it is a simple way to guarantee bills don’t end up in collections after a few months of not being able to reach a patient.

Designate Personnel:

Not everyone can handle the task of making calls and trying to collect past due dental accounts receivable. So, have a staff member be the designated person to make these calls, have a policy in place of when they have to call, and how they should reach out to the patients. Further, many offices simply claim they are “too busy” to have a staff member make the calls. If there is a designated person in place to do the work, there is no excuse for not making these calls, and attempting to collect on the dental accounts receivable which are past due.

Dental Accounts Receivable

Your office simply can’t afford to lose out on so many patient payments which are placed in past due accounts. Try these methods to help reduce the amount of bills which aren’t paid, and help increase total revenues to your practice, which were previously written off as lost patient bills.

Work With Us Today:

You can’t control the unpaid accounts, the fact that some patients will ignore your calls, and the fact that some dental accounts receivable are never going to be collected on. With this said, we can help reduce the total amount of accounts which aren’t collected, and help your office collect on past due dental accounts receivable. Simply fill out this short form below, let us know what issues your office is dealing with, how you have tried to reach payments, and what type of accounts are passed due. From there, we will get in touch with you, and let you know how we can help you collect on past due accounts, and reduce the total amount of unpaid debts in the future.

Ready to find the right dental accounts receivable collection agency?

Save time, money and aggravation by hiring a professional who can help you collect some (or all) of your outstanding revenue.

Click the button below and get a free dental accounts receivable collection agency quote today. After all, you can keep doing what you’re doing (and hope for a different result), or you can work with a collection agency that can help you recover what’s rightfully yours.

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How A Dental Collections Agency Can Help Your Practice’s Cashflow

Are you struggling to get patients to pay on past due accounts? Did you extend your good will one too many times, and are still waiting on delinquent bills to be paid by patients? If your practice is struggling, or if you have several past due notices sent out each month, and accounts payable you are still waiting to collect on, it might be time for your practice to reach out to a local dental collections agency to collect on these accounts for you. Regardless of the size of your practice, or how many patients are not paying on the accounts, when you choose the right dental collections agency to work with your practice, you won’t be left in the dark wondering when patients are going to pay.

Dental Collections Agency

Dental Collections Agency Contact Patients On Your Behalf:

If you don’t have the staff to keep calling patients, allow us to provide the dental collections agency services to you. We will not only call patients on your behalf, we can send out letters, we can contact patients who haven’t paid in the past, and we have a team to track down phone numbers or email addresses, where you do not have the resources to collect or find their numbers. If you can’t find patients who are past due on bills, we can find them for you. If you haven’t been able to contact a patient who isn’t paying on bills, we can find them for you. We have the resources, as well as the know how, to find people who are not paying their bills, and you can’t get into contact with.

Send Out Statements:

We can send out statements to ensure your patients are receiving their bills in a timely manner. We are an dental collections agency that is cheaper than hiring an in house team, and we will do the work for a fraction of the price it would cost you to hire a full time team to find patients and collect on past due bills. We will research clients, we can set up payment plans, we can set up low interest plans, and we will find a way to collect on the statements which have been past due for several months, or even years, which your team has not been able to collect on in the past.

Why Choose Dentists Collect?

If you are searching for a dental collections agency to help you collect on past due bills, we are the company for you to rely on for services. Some things we can do, that your team can’t do for you include:

We are HIPPA compliant and will not over stretch out bounds. If patients would like information to remain confidential, it will. We never give out information, so patients can’t file complaints against your practice, simply because we are going after them to collect.
We have a professional team, with many years of experience in their industry. Our team of collection specialists not only know what they are doing, but have been in this field for so many years, so they know how to contact patients, how to go about finding them, and how to get them to pay on bills which haven’t been paid in many months/years.
We take an approach to protect the patients’ dignity. This means we won’t alienate them, we won’t push them away, nor will we make them feel as if we are scolding/punishing them when we call to collect. We know how to deal with patients and how to work with them, so as to collect, without invading their privacy or making them feel like we are punishing them for not paying on their account.

Dental Collections Agency

We know it is a difficult situation when your offices are not collecting because patients are not responding to calls, or can’t make the payments on past due accounts. Let our team of dental collections agency professionals come in, so we can help your offices, and collect on the payable, as well as past due accounts, which are making your office struggle so much. Give us a call today to find out more about the services we offer, how we can help your practice, and to learn what our dental collections agency team can do for your dental practice today!

Ready to find the right dental collections agency?

Save time, money and aggravation by hiring a professional who can help you collect some (or all) of your outstanding revenue.

Click the button below and get a free dental collections agency quote today. After all, you can keep doing what you’re doing (and hope for a different result), or you can work with a collection agency that can help you recover what’s rightfully yours.

Get a Free Quote Today

Why Use A Dental Debt Collection Agency?

Dentists Collect is dental debt collection agency to assist you in recovering your delinquent bills from dental patients who have not yet started paying.

We understand that handling unpaid accounts is possibly one of the most difficult undertakings a dental office deals with. Often, this interferes with the large number of other daily responsibilities and puts your billing staff into uncomfortable positions that could create a legal liability for your practice. Better patient self pays are just making the problem worse. In case you’ve a backlog of dental patients from the last few years that have not paid you then we are your best alternative in pursuing these delinquencies.

Dental Debt Collection Agency

Our dental debt collection agency solves this issue with proven collection solutions which recover a significant percentage of the lost revenue at a lower cost and liability than you could ever do in house. We offer a dental collection service which is professional, ethical and fast. We can help you free up the valuable time and resources of your staff, so they can spend time on your current accounts, insurance pending accounts and in uncomfortable collection situation.

We are an effective dental debt collection agency that resolves dental debt issues for small family practices in addition to larger clinics with multiple dentists. There’s a fine line between dental care and collections – and we recognize how sensitive the relationship is between patient and doctor; our systems have been built around the need for such diplomacy. Our patient-friendly approach is not only diplomatic, but we also can help you maintain the relationship with your patients – because they won’t be avoiding coming in for treatment because they owe you money.

There are multiple dental collection rates and programs that we offer to fit your practice’s needs and budget. Our dental debt collection agency can locate and contact the most up-to-date available address information for your patients. Whether you are a small sole dental practice practitioner, an oral surgeon, an endodontist or orthodontist with multiple locations, we’ve direct experience and the suitable solution for you.

Dentists rely on our dental debt collection agency services including:

Full compliance with HIPAA, FDCPA and all federal, state as well as local collection statutes
Communication with debtors is made on a continuous basis getting the most out of collection activity
We have professional, experienced and well-versed collection counselors
Analytics to increase dental debt collection; we work smarter and harder than other agencies
In-house multilingual collections, no offshore collectors.
Maintaining good will, in addition to your business or practice integrity
Non-Litigation Attorney Referral and Litigation Referral services
Litigation begins following your approval
Comprehensive skip tracing efforts to find “missing” patients
Online Tools to easily view our dental dent collection agency effort (number of calls made, number of letters mailed, etc.) on debts, submit debts, remittance statements, and generate reports in a timely manner
Skip Tracing, Internet Searches, DMV and Reporting to the Credit Bureau at no extra cost
Numerous debtor payment options which include online
Comprehensive Dental Collections activity reports

Dental Debt Collection Agency

Your practice is unique, therefore we will customize a process which works for you, your employees, as well as your patients with our extensive industry experience and innovative technologies. We work together with you to develop and implement an entirely unique receivables management process, which is tailored for your unique practice’s patient mix. We understand the nuances of charity-care and insurance reimbursement. Most notably, we pride ourselves both in our recovery rates and our ability to maintain your repute and relationship with your patients and in the community, since we understand how important that is to your dental practice.

With the assistance of our dental debt recovery strategies and experienced collectors, we guarantee positive outcome in recovering the money you are owed. We have retrieved millions of dollars for our dental clients with zero legal liability.

When it comes to collecting unpaid patients’ dental debt, sometimes the key to recovery is identifying when to call in the experts. If you are a dental practice searching for a dental debt collection agency which understands your needs and the complex nature of medical debt collections, then look no further than our dental debt collection agency. Our services will help free you and your staff up, providing you more time to manage and care for patients as well.

Ready to find the right dental debt collection agency?

Save time, money and aggravation by hiring a professional who can help you collect some (or all) of your outstanding revenue.

Click the button below and get a free dental collection agency quote today. After all, you can keep doing what you’re doing (and hope for a different result), or you can work with a collection agency that can help you recover what’s rightfully yours.

Get a Free Quote Today