Put yourself in the shoes of a dental consultant. What would you look for in a practice whose production and collections were going down each month? How could each person in the office be the cause of a failing dental practice? Perhaps the front office people are being rude or not answering the phone in a reasonable length of time. Perhaps the scheduling is not being done correctly. Look at each position in the office and try to come up with ways that could be contributing to the downward spiral that the dental practice is in. Now take a look at...

At any given time one or more of your staff are likely doing something that you would not be too happy about if discovered. It's the nature of the beast. That's why it is so important to have written policy and a formal protocol for correcting or reprimanding employees. You want to document bad behavior or policy violations for all employees. Doing so will hopefully get the employee corrected as well as provide documentation to help fight unemployment claims if you decide to dismiss them. When staff do not follow policy there is a tendency to either ignore it or get...

Tip 1: Verify you have an accurate active patient count. Often the count is greatly inflated. This is less of an issue then in the past due to practice management software. If patient info has been correctly entered for all patients then the active patient count should be good. There are different opinions as to what constitutes an active patient but counting any recall patients going back eighteen months works. Doing so takes into account patients who have slipped off the radar but can be gotten back in.  Tip 2: Has extensive dentistry already been done on most patients? If so, then...

1. Acceptable total A/R: One month of collections or less (12%) 2. A/R & pending claims. 20% over 30 days acceptable and dwindling.  >50% of AR in 0-30 days <30% of AR in 30-60 days <18% of AR in 60-90 days <2% of AR in 90+ days 3. You want to see past due balances of 30, 60, and 90 days so that you can generate the correct letter or call as needed. You should also run an Insurance Aging Report at least weekly because you don't want those going past 30 days. Start collecting after 20 days. I recommend working the...