How your dental practice can maximize efficiency and boost revenue with an integrated A/R solution.
Outdated accounts receivable systems cost dental practices across the country millions of dollars each year. Without modern AR innovations in automation, data integration, and workflow management, your practice could be leaving money on the table and minimizing your revenue potential.
To address these common concerns for dentists, FirsTech has designed modern AR solutions to help dental practices perform more efficiently and maximize revenue.
In this article, we’ll cover:
- Why dental practices need an integrated AR payment system
- The most common AR challenges in dentistry (and how to solve them)
- Modern AR solutions that increase efficiency and boost revenue
To talk with a FirsTech payment specialist about modernizing your dental practice’s accounts receivable solution, connect with us today.
What is an integrated AR payment system?
The components of an integrated AR system are nothing new, but the modern solutions and tools utilized to manage your billing, deposits, explanation of benefits, and data provide an entirely new level of efficiency and security.
An integrated AR payment system employs automation, streamlined workflows, single-source reconciliation for EOBs, and a unified revenue and data management system.
With these four elements in place and powered by the latest technology and security measures, your dental practice eliminates extraneous costs and streamlines your AR processes.
Why do dental practices need an integrated AR solution?
Not only are non-automated AR systems outdated, but they are unnecessarily expensive to operate. Non-automated systems demand a high level of staffing. Even the most skilled team members are reduced to monotonous tasks, often on outdated and disconnected manual systems that make their role even more difficult. With these inefficiencies, your AR is prone to errors—leaving money on the table from insurance companies.
An integrated AR solution reduces these inevitable errors, streamlining your internal workflows and maximizing your revenue.
Here’s what you can expect to find from FirsTech’s integrated AR system for dentistry:
- Single Source Reconciliation for EOB and Accounts Receivable Record Management
- Centralized Digital Record Keeping and Archival System
- Multiple Location Electronic File Transfer (EFT)
- Robotic Process Automation with 100% Accuracy
This configurable solution for your accounts receivable is designed to fit your practice’s unique needs. Within this integrated system, you’ll find your accounts receivable and explanation of benefits come together in a fully indexed archive—eliminating the costs of human errors, boosting efficiency, and increasing security with a centralized archive that boasts decentralized access.
We’ll take a look at each of these components in detail below, but first, let’s look at how an integrated AR system works for your dental practice.
How does an integrated AR system work?
An integrated AR solution is built on the power of automation. To combat the common problems dental practices face in their accounts receivable department, an integrated AR system leverages automation to reduce errors, processing time, and workflow inefficiencies. Rather than hindering growth, these practices accelerate the growth of your dental practice—boosting both revenue and efficiency.
Cutting Out Manual Processes
Manual processing limits the potential of your growth and leaves you vulnerable to manual processing errors. FirsTech’s integrated AR system helps you scale your practice with the power of robotic process automation (RPA) and AI processes.
Reducing Human Error
Human processing errors are costly at any scale: from small and medium amounts left on the table from routine billings to large human errors that can be expensive to resolve and remedy. FirsTech frees your team from error-prone and time-consuming processes like manual posting issues and exception analysis while increasing accuracy to 100%.
Faster Exception Analysis
Exception management is one of the most tedious and time-consuming processing of the AR system. With FirsTech’s automation-powered integrated AR system, problem claims are located fast. With this speed, you can spend less time (or no time at all) on exception management, and spend your time resolving problem claims—accelerating the accounts receivable process as a whole and leaving no money on the table.
Efficient EOB Archival
When your EOB archive is inefficient and disconnected from your core AR system, you risk more billing and claim errors, compromised security, and redundant billing practices. FirsTech provides configurable EOB indexing and archiving with real-time EOB data intelligence. Customize the data fields you need to correlate with your AR system, and never worry about an inefficient EOB archive again.
With the systems and tools of an integrated AR solution designed especially for the dental industry, you can have peace of mind knowing your AR system is working for you…not creating more work for you.
5 Common AR Challenges in Dentistry and How FirsTech Can Help
The accounts receivables challenges dental practices face challenge efficiency, limit growth, and are expensive to maintain. Here are some of the most common AR challenges we see in dentistry and how FirsTech’s integrated AR solution can help.
1. HIPAA Adjustment Codes don’t give enough details for accounts receivable
Why it matters: Not having the necessary details requires manual processes that eat into your bottom line. When HIPAA adjustment codes don’t provide enough information, your AR team is left to track down the necessary information and fill in the gaps manually. In addition to the costly inefficiency and manual labor required, your dental practice is even more at risk of human error when relying on manual processes to complete the needed details.
The solution: A single-source reconciliation for EOB management
With consolidated resources for EOB management, you eliminate the challenges and costs associated with multi-location management. Within FirsTech’s integrated AR system, you can access the HIPAA adjustment codes, accounts receivables data, and any additional billing details you need to complete a claim without error and in less time.
2. Your EOBs and AR deposits are in two different systems and nearly impossible to connect
Why it matters: Two separate systems create unnecessary inefficiencies and increases the rate of human error
The solution: Robotic Process Automation
By switching your manual AR processing to robotic process automation (RPA), your EOBs and AR deposits are connected and archived with 100% accuracy. Here’s a little more information on how FirsTech’s RPA accounts receivable solution works:
How Robotic Process Automation Creates Efficiency in Dental Practices
First, all data files are secretly sent to FirsTech via SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol). FirsTech is both PCI and HIPAA compliant, specializing in industries, such as healthcare, where the highest level of data privacy and security is a top priority. This secure connection keeps your and your patient’s data safe through all transfers and processing.
Then, an automated bot extracts all the relevant data from the provided PDFs and traditional check payments (if applicable). This process alone increases the efficiency and speed of your AR processing with unmatched accuracy. With FirsTech’s bot, you have a team working 24/7/365, delivering the data you need at record speed. With 100% accuracy, the automated bot handles 95% of data volume without any human assistance.
Once data has been extracted, it becomes completely searchable to use for client support and inquiries on payments and invoices. Because of the speed and accuracy of RPA extraction, you can provide both your team and your clients with the most up-to-date and accurate information available. All the data you need is readily accessible and represented with 100% accuracy from RPA extraction—avoiding any costly errors.
Finally, FirsTech’s RPA processing consolidates EOBs and patient payment data into a single accessible archive that can be used for outbound posting files or client receivables. With a single integrated viewable web portal, your billing processes are simplified and your AR processing holds a standard of accuracy unmatched by any manual system.
3. Your lockbox payments leave an incomplete picture of a customer’s account
Why it matters: Lockbox payment services are part of the AR system which should reflect the most current account data regardless of the payment source.
The solution: A modernized lockbox solution leveraging the power of RPA.
The Evolution of Lockbox Payment Services for Dental Practices
For those dental practices with a check deposit volume that requires a lockbox, traditional lockbox services might seem like a distant and disconnected arm of your AR system. This doesn’t need to be the case.
FirsTech provides an integrated eLockbox solution leveraging the power of RPA to provide daily reporting that is automatically integrated into the same system with your EOB, insurance payments, and customer payments. This single index is the first time you can access all of your income sources in one place—giving you a complete picture of every account and ensuring that no money is lost to a provider.
While lockbox services aren’t new, RPA-powered eLockboxes provide a novel advantage that’s faster, more accurate, and more efficient—allowing for more in-depth patient account data without the need for additional staffing.
4. Your payment system lacks an indexed archive to see true payer details
Why it matters: Your practice is experiencing unnecessary write-offs due to manual processes caused by the lack of a central indexed archive.
The solution: An Integrated Revenue and Data Management System
A robust and centralized archive gives your AR department the data and resources they need to get paid in a timely manner. Tools like remote deposit capture and Secure File Transfer ensure that your data remains secure, yet mobile within the archive.
FirsTech’s integrated revenue and data management system provides a configurable solution that fits the needs of your practice. Get all the data you need quickly and efficiently, organize your data with your own data fields, and securely access all your data from one central location with FirsTech’s integrated AR solution.
5. Your dental practice’s workflow management is outdated and costly to maintain
Why it matters: Your dental practice is paying for inefficiencies.
The solution: A streamlined workflow that provides a better customer experience
Because of the accuracy, efficiency, and security of FirsTech’s AR system in dentistry, your office can quickly access and search indexed patient accounts with the most accurate and up-to-date data. The information feeding into the system is powered by robotic process automation, ensuring the highest level of accuracy. The data transferred within the system is moved securely and seamlessly regardless of the payment source.
With these tools in place, your team can provide a better customer experience to your patients with the confidence that the information they have is current, accurate, and all-encompassing. This enables your staff to focus on patient care and quality service, leaving the processing to automated systems.
Grow Your Dental Practice with FirsTech
At FirsTech, we are partners in your success and dedicated to the growth of your dental practice.
With our expertise in payment technologies and security, we have created a configurable AR solution to fit the individual needs of your practice and maximize your revenue. At FirsTech, you’ll receive so much more than a lockbox payment partner. Your integrated AR system can manage your dental practice’s workflow management with the efficiency of robotic process automation—freeing your AR staff from tedious and repetitive tasks, and increasing the accuracy and efficiency of your practice as a whole.
To grow your dental practice and get started with FirsTech’s AR solutions for dentistry, connect with a FirsTech Payment Specialist today.