Conquer Your Insurance Frustrations with These 3 Tips

Insurance can be a source of incredible frustration, so having a strategy around managing it will help to relieve those frustrations. It’s important to note that this is going to require your whole team’s effort, which means you’re going to need one crucial component: alignment. Regardless of your relationship with insurance, having alignment around it will positively impact the practice’s financial health, patient satisfaction, operational efficiency, and team development and confidence. To help your team find that alignment and facilitate dealing with insurance, use these three strategies!

1. Identify and discuss the practice’s relationship with insurance

You’ve got to have a discussion about insurance, because you cannot merely assume that every team member knows what they should. Everyone needs to be aligned, so discuss the following questions:

• With whom are you in-network?
• With whom are you out-of-network?
• What does that mean?

When your team is able to understand these questions, then they’ll be able to answer those same questions from patients in a confident and effective manner. Your relationship with insurance has an incredible impact on both your practice and your patients, so it’s imperative that the entire team is aligned around it. 

2. Align on your team’s communication

When your entire team communicates clearly about your relationship with dental insurance, it truly helps patients by minimizing any surprises or confusion. In fact, it can make or break your relationship with the patient, so finding that alignment is essential. The words we use matter, so I recommend making some changes to your team’s vocabulary when interacting with patients:

• Use “independent provider” instead of “out-of-network.”
• Use “and” instead of “but,” “however,” and “unfortunately.”
• Use “dental benefits” instead of “insurance.”

When you’re consistent with your language, it builds trust and confidence among your patients, leading to improved satisfaction. To take your communication to the next level, check out our FREE Say This, Not That and Tips for Talking Insurance Benefits tools!

3. Utilize technology to your advantage

You can use technology to really give yourself an advantage by optimizing your practice management software to support your needs. The business team often spends a tremendous amount of time verifying benefits, sending out claims, and following up on those claims, but with technology, you can not only save time, but also be more accurate. There are services outside of your practice management software that are often more cost-effective and user-friendly, so find what works best for your needs.

Insurance is often frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be! By creating alignment among your team about your practice’s relationship with insurance, you’re setting them up for success in every insurance-related interaction. This isn’t a journey that’s going to happen overnight, however. It takes time, and you have to start small, sometimes with just a single patient, but that’s how you create the progress and momentum that leads to results. Like Kirk says, “How do you build a great practice? One patient at a time.”

To learn more about how ACT can help you build a Better Practice and a Better Life, reach out to Gina!

Tune in next time and learn how one simple trick can help prevent no shows!