Outsource Strategies International (OSI), based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is an established medical billing and coding company with significant experience. They offer a comprehensive suite of dental billing services for dental practices to successfully bill for their services and assist with on-time reimbursement.
Today’s podcast by Amber Darst, our Dental Insurance Coordinator, is about an article she wrote for DentistryIQ titled “Outsourcing Dental Back Office Duties: The Ultimate Time-Saving Tool”. It explains her life experience in dental insurance and how she support outsourcing dental back office duties.
Read Transcript
Hi, this is Amber Darst, Dental Insurance Coordinator for Managed Outsourced Solutions. I recently wrote an article for DentistryIQ covering why outsourcing dental back office work is such a great option for dental practices. I thought I’d go ahead and share a little bit from that article here as well.
So when potential clients call, I like to share with them where I came from before starting with Managed Outsourced Solutions, mainly because when they call seeking to outsource they are mentioning the same struggles that I had handling the insurance tasks in-house, so I can completely relate.
When I had first been hired in as an Insurance Coordinator at a local dental practice, I knew absolutely nothing about dentistry or dental insurance. The person who had trained me was leaving the practice in less than a week, so that’s the only training I got and that was a lot of information to try to take in in that short time. So when EOB started rolling in, I was completely lost and trying to understand all of the different parts of them. There was quite a bit of information and fine print that was way over my head. So, I had found the only way to understand what the EOB is meant was to call the insurance companies and just ask them. This was extremely time consuming, but it was my only option at the time.
So as time went on I was slowly grasping the ins and outs of it all more and more. And after a few months I was finally able to do my job confidently and efficiently. Learning the hard way definitely paid off, though I feel like it gave me a deeper look into things that I may have missed just being shared once or twice during a training.
Once I was able to overcome that obstacle, there still stood one more thing in my way of being able to handle the insurance verifications properly. The office that I had worked for had an office manager working the front desk and then my office was right behind her, and we were the only 2 office staff that were available for patients. So, between the phone ringing and patients coming in and going out, the lady at the front desk often needed my help tending to those tasks. I was pulled away from my insurance responsibilities quite often to help with patients, as of course, patient care always comes first so I was fine with it, but I was also realizing that my insurance duties were hitting the back burner more and more.
When I worked in the office, I had no idea that outsourcing insurance verifications was even an option. Now working for Managed Outsourced Solutions, I see how much better my job could have been if at least part of my insurance duties could have been outsourced. Having that, out of office and with a dedicated team that has no interruptions, it could complete the insurance tasks in a timely manner would have helped me tremendously.
02:59 Benefits of Outsourcing Back Office Work
So how exactly what outsourcing the back office work have helped me and how can I help you today?
03:06 Focus on improving the patient experience
First of all, it allows you to focus more on patient care. Not having those tedious tasks hanging over your head definitely frees up your time to focus more on the patient. You want your patients to feel important and never rushed out of the office.
03:21 Frees up staff’s valuable time
And with that, it also frees up your staffs valuable time. Calling just one insurance company to verify a patient’s benefits can take anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes or more due to hold times. So having to make several of those calls each day is extremely time consuming.
03:40 Ensures hassle-free insurance verifications and preauthorizations
It also ensures that your verifications are being handled diligently. Like I had mentioned earlier when you have your insurance verifications handled out of office, that team or person is dedicated to handling that and that alone, without the chance of interruptions.
When you’re talking about verifying a patient’s eligibility and retrieving the full breakdowns, every detail matters. Missing something like a waiting period or even the missing tooth clause can mean several 100 dollars and mistakes. Patients oftentimes do not understand their policy, so they rely greatly on you to make sure that everything is covered before they come in for services. An unexpected bill due to limited or noncoverage can cause a patient to never return.
04:28 Cost savings
And then of course, another benefit of outsourcing, is that much more cost efficient. Savings for outsourcing are usually around 30 to 40 percent versus hiring in-house. You don’t have to worry about vacation time or sick time, no holiday pay, no payroll taxes, and no benefits to consider either.
So this is just a little summary of my story and what outsourcing can do for you. You can read the full article at dentistryiq.com (https://www.dentistryiq.com/) titled “Outsourcing Dental Back Office Duties: The Ultimate Time Saving Tool)
Thanks for listening in!
