Are you reviewing reports from your dental software each week? If you’re not already, you should be. But reviewing these reports won’t do you any good if the data isn’t accurate. So how do you know if the data is accurate?
Take a look at these items, specifically:
Review the current, 31-60, 61-90 and 90+ days balances. If the 90+ days is significant, do you know why? It may be that there are aged accounts that need to be written off, or it could be something else that needs more attention. Understand and inquire upon any credit balances as well. Are the credit balances a result of overpayments from patients and are just being applied to their accounts or are they prepayments for dentistry?
What do you consider a true, active patient? Once you define this for your practice, compare it to what is in your dental software. More often than not, the active patients you think you have compared to what is shown in your dental software do not coincide, mainly because there has not been an active patient base purge in quite a while or the patient was marked as an active patient when perhaps they were just the responsible party.
Unscheduled Treatment Plans
How much treatment has been proposed to your patients but not yet accepted? Review this piece often as there are often opportunities to get patients into your practice.
Production by Provider
Are you tracking doctor vs. hygiene production separately? It’s an important factor to monitor and ensure you are tracking separately because if there are multiple doctors in the practice, then the production should be coded by each doctor (provider).
Adjustments and Write-Offs
Are you (and/or your staff) properly adjusting and writing off accounts? Does your team know the difference? If not, then your reports may not be accurate.
What is your treatment acceptance percentage? Is this being accounted for?
How are new patients hearing about your practice? Your team should be tracking this each month so you can determine if your marketing efforts are working in your benefit.
These are just a few practice indicators that should be monitored and tracked correctly in your dental software. For more ideas or additional advice on the items mentioned above, please let us know by commenting below!