Kinzie Hess- Broxson is the cofounder of Dental Logic. During office closures, this is a great time to clean up the outstanding insurance claims to bring income into your office. Insurance build in is the first aspect to clean up. By putting group numbers together, updating plans for all patients is simplified so that changes apply to all the applicable patients at once. This makes verification even easier. While it may seem tedious, now is a great time to do it.

How do you organize it on Dentrix? Most of the platforms are the same. It’s not a matter of learning the software, it’s linking group numbers together. There may be duplicate insurance locations listed as well. Merge those together for simplification.

Also, make sure that all of your claims are being sent. Sometimes claims will be batched, but unsent. If it hasn’t been submitted, do it because things such a prohpys are simple to send and bring in payments to help you weather the closure.

To send a claim in Open Dental, go to reports, standard, go-to monthly- outstanding insurance claims. Print the entire list by date of service and export. Work your way down. It is easier to group them by the insurance companies to be more efficient. Go by over 90 days first. Make sure the ID, date of birth and payer are correct or it will automatically be rejected. Look at the narratives on the clearinghouse if they have not been accepted. Send any information they requested now so that you don’t have to fight the influx that will happen when the office is back at full capacity.

There may be a claims not sent report that you can pull to check for other claims you can file. It’s a great time to make sure your payment plans are accurate. You can also create great insurance builds for your plans.

Is there a limit on how long you have to send a claim. It varies by the insurance company. Ameritas is 90 days, but many have up to a year. If you are working on an appeal that runs past the claim submission time, you can still work on the claim to collect.

If you submit a nonemergency claim during this time, will they reject it? They will typically do a courtesy. Keep in mind that people who have been laid off may not have coverage or have not paid for COBRA. You risk not being paid if you can’t reach the company. The suggestion is to collect upfront. Honor the in-network fees and you may get a refund check.

How do we know that the information won’t change after you build it? When you verify, check if there are any changes. Most of the time that happens at the end of the year. When you update one plan, you can apply it to the other members of your group.

Training can be very important right now too. If you don’t submit online claims, now is a great time to start that process. Audit your notes, make templates for auto notes for simplified narratives.