Guides
Dental billing and reporting guides
Plain explanations of the reports, claims and payer rules your office deals with every week. Written for the person who has to work the list, and every figure in them carries its source. That habit is why we also publish our research on dental insurance data.
Reading your reports
What the numbers on your practice software's own reports actually count, and why two of them disagree.
Start hereYour insurance aging report, decodedWhat the report counts, why it disagrees with your A/R report, and the four things that quietly inflate it.Read the guideReading your reportsWhy two reports in your office give two different A/R totalsTwo reports, two totals, and neither one is broken. What each is counting, and how to reconcile them.Read the guideReading your reportsEstimated insurance, and why it moves your A/R without anyone touching itThe number behind most unreconcilable A/R totals, and the one that decides who gets a statement.Read the guideReading your reportsHow old is that claim, reallyThree dates, three answers, and the one basis a resubmission cannot reset.Read the guide
Claims and payers
Why claims come back unpaid, what the words on the remittance mean, and what to do about each one.
Start hereWhy dental claims get deniedThe real reasons claims come back unpaid, which ones are yours to fix, and which are the plan working as written.Read the guideClaims and payersPreauthorization and predetermination are not the same thingWhich one binds the payer, which is only an estimate, and when each is worth the wait.Read the guideClaims and payersA rejection is not a denial, and the difference decides what you do nextThree places a claim can stop, only one of which is a denial, and the fix is different for each.Read the guideClaims and payersDenied for timely filing, and what can still be doneThe one denial that is usually permanent, what still works against it, and how to prevent the next.Read the guideClaims and payersDenied for coordination of benefits, and how to unpick itTwo plans, one claim, and a denial that is usually about order rather than about coverage.Read the guide
Insurance and verification
What to capture before the appointment, what an eligibility check will not tell you, and where the answers belong.
Working with your software
The reports your own system gives you, what each column counts, and what to settle before anybody gets access to the database behind them.
Your practice softwareThe Eaglesoft outstanding claims report, read correctlyWhere it lives, what each column counts, and why the status codes behind it are different in every office.Read the guideYour practice softwareSubmitted and estimated are two different numbers about the same claimTwo columns, two meanings, and the case where one of them is zero on a claim that plainly is not.Read the guideYour practice softwareTwo ways Open Dental shows unpaid insurance, and why they disagreeTwo views that both look like a list of unpaid claims, and the job each one is actually for.Read the guideWorking the listWhen a payer says there is no claim on fileWhat to check before you resend, what counts as proof, and how not to create a duplicate.Read the guideWorking the listGiving a vendor access to your practice database, safelyWhat read only really means, how to verify it, and the questions to ask before you hand over access.Read the guide