Dentists are our main clients and they are difficult to collect from , they also get offended easy about collections
So you do lab work for dentists? If you post your website or some other info it might be easier to help you with the issue.
If you want to improve cash flow you can either reduce expenses or grow revenue. My experience is that it is usually way easier to grow revenue since expenses are so thin for companies like yours unless you have wasteful habits.
Figure out who your ideal customer is and develop a marketing plan. Make sure the marketing plan uses multiple marketing medians to get brand recognition with the target market. Follow up with phone calls and offer test orders or test lab work. Make sure you can demonstrate a clear advantage to working with you compared to others.
Any clients you work with should respect your professionalism to sign an agreement with their orders to pay within a specified time frame. The agreement might also clearly spell out how the collections process works. Get signatures on orders, if they can order online include info like this in your TOS.
Reorganize your invoice so instead of the traditional 'penalty' for late payment you offer an incentive for early payment. Same values, reverse labels.
You should also look at automating reminders for payment after a certain date. This should be relatively straight forward depending on the accounting system you are using.
I've provided similar automation solutions for a number of clients and would be open to discuss in more detail if you would like to schedule a call.
If you use your PPO fees for treatment planning and billing to the patient, your front office team will be able to increase the over-the-counter collections exponentially รข and we all know that payment on the day of service is worth its weight in gold. The front office team can collect more over the counter because they will not have to get out the calculator and manually calculate the patient portion. Send statements in real time. When you use your PPO fee schedules for billing the patient, you will be able to send patient billing statements in real time.
To improve cash flow, you need to be sending patient statements to ALL your patients who owe you money. Even if the patient has an outstanding insurance claim, send that patient a statement. Many practices currently do not do this because they are billing full fees to the patient and they must wait until the insurance payment comes in, make the PPO adjustment, and then send the patient statement. Most of you are sending your patient billing statements once a month.
If you are sending statements out several times a month, you are still sending out the same volume of statements, but in smaller increments at a time.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
Out of Pocket Cash Pay Products & Services - You can consider offering products and services patients pay for out of pocket or can use an HSA/FSA account for.
Products - This can include dental care products, but also non-dental related products. You can check for eligible covered products on most HSA/FSA websites. This may require a small retail presence in your office. Alternatively, you can display some products and allow for online purchase whereby you link to the Amazon purchase option and act as an affiliate collecting a commission.
Services - Consider offering vaccines, botox, cosmetic services or think outside the box and offer pain management for headaches or chronic pain issues. Consider partnering with an online platform to offer virtual care as well. Lab testing is also something to consider, this is big in the naturopathic and chiropractic spaces. Look to see what these providers offer that patients pay for out of pocket and consider it for your clinic.
A strategic framework organizing these options then prioritizing them based on your interest, market and teams capabilities would be beneficial to help you make a decision.
Happy to speak more if you like,
Jim
