Dental Patient Aging Reports In Detail
What Are They?
Dental patient aging reports are computer generated reports. These reports show the patient balances owed to the dental practice. You might also find some insurance claims hiding out in this report. But for the most part, this report shows unpaid patient balances. It displays the total amount owed as well as a breakdown of “aged” amounts.
At a glance, you can see the total amount owed to the dental practice. It’s critical to understand what is current and what is past due. These are important numbers to monitor and track each month. Understanding the report will help the dental front office team or billing team better use the report. My Dental Office Collections Course focuses mostly on dental insurance management and claims. Take a closer look at this course by clicking the link below.
Dental Office Collections Course
The aging breaks down the total amount owed into separate categories. The categories run from current to past due amounts. You will see “Current 0 – 30”, “Past 31-60”, “Past 61-90”, “Past >90”. Listed under each aged category, is a dollar amount owed. You can find even individual accounts with balances in more than one aging category.
You’ll also find other important information. The guarantor’s last name, phone number, last statement date, and last payment amount are also listed. You may even have a column that shows if there is an estimated insurance payment expected and what the patient amount due is. Some aging reports even show if there is an agreed payment amount.
Why Are Dental Patient Aging Reports Important?
Dental patient aging report show us which patients to schedule carefully. Flag any account with a patient balance over 30 days. Check their scheduled appointments to see what they have on the books. It’s important that patients with unpaid balances don’t come in for treatment that will add to their balances.
Sometimes patient statements don’t go out. Every now and then, you’ll find a patient’s statement didn’t even go out. I’ve never figured this one out. It’s some kind of glitchy thing, I think. But it seems like there must be some scientific explanation for it. Whatever the reason is, it happens. You will need to watch that “last statement date” column carefully.
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Tracking collection is important. Both the dentist and dental front office team want to track these numbers. Keep these reports for a year and create a spreadsheet or monitor of some kind. Make sure that your accounts that are past due are not going up.
They are a piece of good accounts receivable management. Run patient aging reports each week. A whole lot can change in a week! You’ll find weeks when you’ll be surprised at what turned up in your report. I’ve had times when I’ve thought there wasn’t going to be anything I wasn’t expecting. Times when I thought I could skip it for one week. But then when I ran the report, I saw why I didn’t want to skip it even one week!
When To Print Dental Patient Aging Reports
Each week, print the patient aging report. I print these reports on Tuesdays. Larger dental practices would focus only one category of this aging report each week. Or if you have a large patient aging report, start with just one aged category each week.
My Weekly Management Systems explains it all! And you can get your own copy of my Weekly Management Systems, as well as a plan for how you can create your own! There is a Weekly Management Systems e-book with a workbook section available for you in my Dental Collections Training Bundle. This bundle also includes the Dental Office Collections Course (insurance billing) and Dental Accounts Receivable e-book (patient billing and account management) as well as a Dental Insurance Training Video Course and Calculating Dental Benefits Course! See more by clicking the link below:
Dental Collections Training Bundle
My goal is to keep accounts from ever reaching that over 90 category. I’m really good at it and make it a game or a goal. It adds a little fun into the mix. Consistently working the dental patient aging report each week will help you have great collection results!
How To Work Dental Patient Aging Reports
Highlight the category and column you are focusing on. So, let’s start with the over 30 category and highlight that column. Now, follow down that column and review patient by patient. Be sure to check a statement shows under the “last statement date” column. Also review when the last payment was received.
Call your patient. Especially in this over 30 category. So, when you see that no payment was received and a statement was sent, make a call. Keep the conversation light. “Hi Jane. This is April at Dr. Brown’s dental office. I’m checking in to make sure you received our statement dated (date). Great! I can take your payment now over the phone, if you’d like.”
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If no statement was sent, send it right away. Make a note on the patient’s account that you noticed a statement wasn’t sent right away. Note the date that the first statement was sent. This way you can avoid any embarrassing phone calls to your patient. And if your patient calls in to say they’ve just received a statement you can verify that. Sometimes patients get upset when they receive a statement that says “over 30 days due” without receipt of a previous statement.
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Additional help is available to you and your team. Sometimes, we need more than e-book or a course can offer. If you would like some personalized help with something in your dental world today, I’m here for you!
