Insurance

Warning: some football references are found sprinkled in this read! I will not bore you with play analogies for our profession or chant with a “there is no I in team” commentary. My intention is to provoke thought as you begin 2015. 

As the clock winds down on 2014, more and more patients are trying to squeeze the last pennies out of their dental insurance and make sure they have taken advantage of every opportunity to improve their oral health. With that in mind, the end of the year can be one of the craziest times for dental practices.

In this installment of What Would Dayna Do?, Dayna Johnson answers a couple of questions from a dental office manager based in Michigan.

Southland Benefit Solutions has announced coverage, effectively immediately, for a periodontal medicament carrier, an innovative tool used to deliver medication below the gums. Southland is the first carrier to announce the coverage decision. 

Dental systems research firm Software Advice recently shared the opportunity for dental practices to communicate the risk of traveling abroad for dental care to patients. As “dental tourism” becomes a growing trend in the U.S., Software Advice surveyed a random sample of 1,155 U.S. patients to see which patients are most likely to travel for dental care, and what might cause them to reconsider. Check out the survey results...

Author Robin Hobb wrote “One must plan for the future and anticipate the future without fearing the future.” At the recent 2014 Converge Session of the National Association of Dental Plans a few trends emerged that help us to plan for the shifting dental benefit landscape.

At this year's ADA Annual Meeting, CareCredit made several announcements about new offerings for CareCredit providers, including improved software integration and the offering of free custom practice performance reviews.

Traditionally, medicine and dentistry have been considered distinctly different fields, with medicine taking precedence over dentistry. However, with a better understanding of oral disease – and how it can affect the rest of the body – insurance programs and the medical system need to catch up.

FAIR Health is an independent data company that serves the healthcare system through data tools and education.

Patients expect you to know how much their insurance will cover for certain procedures, which isn’t always the case. Here’s how to have a successful conversation with patients about benefits.

Chances are you are a part of anywhere from five to 10 dental Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plans. But do you know how each of them is performing? Probably not.

Wasting time with unnecessary dental insurance verification tasks can be a tough habit to break.

Many patients have questions concerning their insurance coverage. Because we believe patients deserve the best service possible, we would like to share some interesting facts concerning insurance coverage.

A new series of reports from the American Dental Association analyzes the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or “ObamaCare,” on the dental industry.

If you took a poll of all the dental offices across America, their number one frustration would be the challenge of dealing with insurance claims.

Starting January 1st, 2014, dental offices prescribing Perio Trays can use CDT code D5994 to record, track and bill the prescription periodontal disease treatment device.

Dentalcodeology: More than Pocket Change, a new dental insurance coding guide by Patti DiGangi, RDH, BS, answers common questions for the entire dental team about proper periodontal care CDT coding.

Stephanie Pietrantonio Lodding, RDH, tells you how to get your practice prepared to grow under the new plan.

As part of its 25th anniversary celebration and unveiling of a new brand logo and tagline, CareCredit recently launched a variety of new programs and services. One of these offerings is a redesigned credit card that more closely represents the key role CareCredit has had in the lives of more than 20 million patients over the past 25 years.

Show, don’t just tell, them their dental benefits. Communicating with patients regarding their dental benefits can be frustrating and is always a touchy subject.

Make a payment plan. Allowing patients to pay whenever they want is no way to run a business. All too often they’ll find excuses not to pay, from I forgot my checkbook to I don’t carry a credit card.

Don’t let them leave without a statement. Customers like to have receipts for services rendered. Yet, in the thousands of offices Penny Reed Limoli, owner of the Reed Limoli Group, has visited, few of them make sure the patient leaves with a walk-out statement.  ?

Recently the New York Times reported that President Obama is threatening to strip the insurance industries’ exemption to the antitrust laws because the insurance industry is using “deceptive and dishonest” advertisements to derail his health insurance reform. At the same time, the Senate Judiciary Committee is conducting hearings on the antitrust exemption for insurance companies. Senate Bill S.1681 has been introduced in the Senate to prevent insurance industry price fixing, bid rigging and market allocation. 

The practicing dentist works diligently to accumulate assets and income. He or she has little time or inclination to consider that someone may attempt to take those assets or income by starting litigation. Maybe the thought of a potential lawsuit has not entered the dentist’s mind. Why should it? The dentist may think “What could I possibly do to cause someone to sue me?”