As a full-service dental practice, you want to make the services you offer as accessible as possible and ensure the patient experience is a smooth one.
Central to this is medical insurance verification. While a small task for your office, this has a significant impact on your patients, often determining whether or not they can afford treatment.
Delays and snags with insurance verification can harm patient retention and earn your dental practice a bad reputation. At Guideway Care, we support dental practices in the insurance verification process with automated tools, human support, and accurate reporting that help patients understand their coverage limits and what they can and cannot afford.
Compared to standard health insurance, dental insurance is often a bit tricker. The limits and terms are different, and patients are less likely to have a full understanding of what their policy covers than they would with general health coverage. Additionally, these policies are typically separate and might even be with a different company than their primary provider.
Insurance verification for your dental practice is a central component of patient support. Your average patient isn’t equipped to navigate insurance jargon and doesn’t have the time to spend hours on the phone waiting to talk to a customer service representative. Many of them barely have the time to get to your office and receive treatment.
This means patients rely on your staff to complete their medical insurance verification for them and let them know how far their coverage goes and what they will need to pay out of pocket.
When you don’t, or you give the wrong answer and then they have to pay out of pocket, it reflects poorly on you.
At the same time, it isn’t always easy for your practice to take care of insurance verification themselves. This is especially true if your receptionist and billing department are one and the same.
Your support staff already has a lot on their plate, and adding verification to this list can overwhelm them, creating a ripple effect that throws off more than your billing.
This often leaves dentists in a difficult position: overwhelm the staff, hire someone just for insurance, or risk harming the patient experience? Luckily, there is an alternative.
The importance of insurance verification for dental practices cannot be overstated. But if taking it on yourself has your ship sinking, you should consider outsourcing the task.
Guideway Care offers solutions for healthcare providers that take the weight off their shoulders while ensuring patients get the well-rounded experience of a fully-staffed practice. As a healthcare advertising company, we can also take on all your marketing and branding tasks as well.
To learn more or schedule your demo, contact Guideway Care today.