Category: News

The State of Dental

As we head into 2023, DSOs are quickly approaching the crossroads of a perfect storm formed by COVID, The Great Resignation, and a looming recession. How groups handle the next 12-18 months will, in large, determine who comes out on top, and who is swallowed up. The economics driving this shift is due in part to rising inflation and the cost to borrow. Debt is becoming more expensive and riskier for DSOs to continue the explosive growth they’ve experienced over the previous 18 months. A primary vehicle for increasing cash flow has been to add practices to a DSO’s portfolio, but as the winds of change blow, a buzz word floating around the DSO space is “same store growth.”

Recession and Same Store Growth

Same store growth, as it pertains to a dental office, is the primary focus on maximizing efficiencies and increasing cash flow compared to the previous year. There are many aspects of an office to look at to accomplish this: optimizing your supply procurement, utilizing AI to diagnose treatment more often and accurately, and converting more patient calls to appointments. While all aspects of an office should be looked over with a fine-tooth comb, for most offices revenue cycle optimization is the largest source of untapped cash flow.

Importance of RCM

Revenue Cycle Management, RCM, has gained traction from a buzz word to a realized crucial function at the office and DSO level. Anywhere from 60-90% of an office’s patients have some level of dental insurance coverage. This means that most “production” will not be paid by the patient, but that the office will be submitting a claim for insurance payment. The tracking of claims, payments, and outstanding balances due from insurance or patients is the management of an office’s revenue cycle. Unfortunately, this process today is quite manual, time intensive, and difficult to track for a single office. RCM becomes exponentially more difficult when you are dealing with 10 locations, or 50 locations. There are very few tools or reports available within a practice’s management system that allow for the tracking or working of these claims, and it’s made especially difficult when multiple systems are used across an organization (i.e. a few offices on Dentrix, Open Dental, or Eaglesoft). When you look at and understand the steps required to manage and follow up on claims, it’s not surprising that most offices struggle to keep up.

Tools and Solutions

The saying goes, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” This is what leaders are thinking, and currently are looking for new technology as an answer. There are companies, like InsideDesk, that are turning the tables, and providing RCM data that finance and operation leaders have been looking for. While the analytics and insights are powerful, it’s only half the solution. InsideDesk also provides a platform to help RCM teams become more effective and efficient, at a time when the cost of labor is at a premium. Automation of tedious tasks like EOB collection and claim statusing allow team members to work more claims per day. The daily guided claims list prevents time wasted from printing out AR reports or creating cumbersome excel sheets. These tools allow offices to increase cash flow, and senior leaders to track progress at a time when “same store growth” is becoming top of mind for all.

The Dental Support Organization world is expanding and evolving constantly. There has been a surge of new groups that have come into the space this year to plant their flag and grow their vision of a DSO. There have also been a handful of large acquisitions, like Mid-Atlantic Dental Partners becoming a part of the Sonrava Health organization; consolidators of individual dental practices consolidating with other DSOs. Dental executives and leaders are realizing that the processes that turn production into realized revenue are becoming more complex and difficult to manage. It takes “a village” of people, often distributed & remote, each accountable for their step in the revenue cycle to ensure success. The more you scale, the more interdependencies and handoffs there are.  Managing a revenue cycle process requires focused leadership.

Revenue cycle teams take on many different shapes and structures depending on the DSO’s business model, personnel, and maturity. The three most common RCM models are centralized, decentralized, and hybrid. These teams are often led by a regional manager, someone in operations, or a more distant finance executive. The leader usually has a list of responsibilities and teams reporting to them outside of the RCM team. Sometimes, they don’t have RCM or claims management specific experience. This is challenging because from the outside looking in, the claims lifecycle seems like it should be straightforward. Anyone doing the job knows that insurance is anything but straightforward. This can create friction when leaders are looking to improve their revenue realization performance, but don’t fully understand why their collections aren’t increasing.

Enter the much needed and necessary revenue cycle leader. This is a vital member to the team that brings claim and revenue specific knowledge. They help to bridge the gap between your frontline employees and your senior leadership. The need for and importance of a designated revenue cycle leader has never been greater than today. They know how to organize the team to optimize for maximum revenue collection. They have the experience to know what to look for in a successful RCM technology solution. Your RCM leader also will understand the importance of visibility on their team’s work to deploy resources effectively. This leader will also know that KPI’s like “90+ days collection” or “revenue realization rate” are going to have the largest impact on increasing collections. These differences produce immediate outcomes that determine whether your team realizes 70% of dollars owed or 95% of dollars owed. Having someone specifically designated to oversee and guide the department that, as mentioned previously, brings in the revenue for the company is an absolute necessity. Most DSO’s have “someone”, but that person needs to be a revenue cycle leader with experience to effectively move the needle. DSO leaders are realizing the importance of this position and should be one of the top priorities going into 2023 if it doesn’t exist in their organization today.