How to Increase Time-of-Service Collections at Your Dental Office

If you’re having a difficult time keeping your dental practice’s outstanding accounts receivables under control, you may want to begin requesting payment at the time of service. It sounds simple, but there are a few things you’ll need to do before you can successfully request time-of-service payment from your dental patients.

Increasing Time-Of-Service Payments

The best way to successfully collect payment at the time of service is to get your staff on board. Each member of your staff will have a different idea of when a patient’s appointment is finished. For example, some hygienists or dental assistants will escort patients past the front desk to leave, whether or not they’ve already paid.

It’s normal for your clinical team to assume that all of the chair-side tasks are over, the appointment is finished. This is an easy problem to remedy if you simply instruct your staff to escort the patients to the front desk when the appointment is over. This way, follow-up appointments can be more easily scheduled and payment can be requested.

Another vital step to making sure patients are paying at the time of service is to make sure each patient is being provided with a cost estimate for treatment. If you choose to delegate this task to the front desk staff, they may need some help. If your dental practice is like most, the front desk can sometimes be quite busy. This can cause patients to feel frustrated or overwhelmed and they may simply leave before paying the office or scheduling an appointment. Instead, we suggest scheduling future appointments in the back whenever possible. When treatment plans are scheduled, entered, and sequenced by the clinical team, the front office staff can more quickly collect payment and offer cost estimates.

For help with training your dental office team, or for more tips on increasing time-of-service collections, please contact CTC National. We specialize in dental consulting, dental start-ups, and dental team training.