Dental Office Collection Calls Improve Patient Relations
Dental office collection calls help our collection numbers. And maintain great patient relations. Yes, collection calls do improve patient relationships. But only if the collection calls are handled well by the dental office team. The calls must be made from a great mind set and attitude.
Consistency is also crucial. We want to communicate more to our patients than just a collection attempt. But an expectancy or opportunity to discuss whatever is on their mind regarding their treatment.
And I’m here to help you get a handle on it all.
Weekly Management Systems Create Consistency
Let’s focus first on patient accounts over 30 days due. The idea is to keep patients’ balances under the 60-day mark. And to do that we need to focus more on that over 30-day category. So, in order to do that, we run the patient aging report twice a month for this aged group. Yes, that’s right! It’s twice a month for the over 30-day aged accounts.
Dental Office Collection Calls On Tuesdays
Look at the over 30 on the first Tuesday of the month. And then again on the fourth Tuesday of the month. Of course, we do so much more than just look at the accounts. And, you may have all the patient aging balances on one report. But let’s look only at the over 30 days group right now.
Dental Office Collection Calls & Scripting
Here’s what I say. When a balance is over 30 days and I know it to be the patient balance. I’ve checked and knew what the balance is from. And I know it’s been 30 days since a statement went out.
“Hi John. This is April from Dr. Brown’s dental office. Sorry to bother you today. I’m just a little concerned we might not have the correct address for you. We haven’t received anything back from the post office. But we did send a statement out to you last month. And I don’t show we have anything back from you. Could I please check that with you now?”
Assume & Expect The Best
Most likely, the address is fine. And your patient may say a couple of different things. Certainly, answer any questions they have.
And you can offer to email a new statement if they would like that. But it’s important here to offer to take payment while you have them on the phone. If they are able to pay you now, let’s do it. Then we can just move on, and you won’t have to follow up on this again.
Give Your Team The Tools They Need To Do The Job Well!
Dental office collection calls improve when our team members know just when and how to handle this task. And exactly what we expect from them. This is not a task to leave to individuals to figure out on their own.
