Resources for dental offices
Outstanding balances pile up when your billing systems break down. Missing follow-ups, coding errors, and delayed submissions push payments weeks past due. Each day money sits uncollected costs your practice opportunity and strains cash flow. Common bottlenecks slow collections and inflate aging balances, but practical fixes can speed up payments and improve your financial health. Here's how to identify what's holding up your revenue cycle and apply solutions that get money in the door faster.
Sep 13, 2025
1. Delayed Claim Submission and Follow-Up
Understanding how submission delays cost your practice money is the first step to fixing them. This section covers the hidden costs of slow filing and gives you a clear process to speed up collections.
Clean claims take 15–30 days for payment, but delays in submission can double that timeline. Each day between treatment and filing pushes the first payment opportunity further away. Missing attachments, wrong payer IDs, or inconsistent follow-up create costly delays that compound over time.
Late submissions often coincide with missing documentation or incomplete information, leading to denials that restart the payment clock entirely. Faster filing gets claims into payer queues sooner and reduces the risk of missing documentation deadlines.
Build a submission workflow that speeds up payments:
File within 24-48 hours by making immediate claim submission your practice standard
Track unpaid claims at day 14 using software alerts that flag overdue payments automatically
Follow up on day 21 with phone calls to payer customer service before claims age further
Use electronic submission with real-time eligibility verification to catch errors before filing
Quick submission gets your claims in the payer queue faster. Consistent follow-up prevents forgotten claims from aging into write-offs.
2. Poor Aging Analysis and Collection Prioritization
Learning to prioritize collections by value and age can dramatically improve your recovery rates. This section shows you how to focus your team's energy where it pays off most.
Many practices treat all outstanding balances equally, but smart collection strategies focus energy where it creates the biggest financial impact. Without proper aging analysis, teams waste time on small balances while large accounts slip into uncollectable territory. The math is simple: collecting a $2,000 balance beats chasing ten $50 copays.
Collection work requires understanding which balances deserve immediate attention and which can wait. Insurance claims less than 30 days old need different handling than patient balances over 90 days. Focusing collection efforts on higher-value, older balances often produces better results than treating all outstanding amounts equally.
Focus your collection efforts for maximum impact:
Pull aging reports weekly and prioritize balances over $200 that are 30+ days old
Set collection goals by category: insurance claims under 45 days, patient balances under 60 days
Assign different team members to insurance follow-up versus patient collections based on skills
Track collection rates by age bucket to identify which timeframes need more aggressive follow-up
Create collection workflows that match the urgency to the opportunity. Large insurance claims get phone calls, while small patient balances might only warrant automated emails until they age further.
3. Coding Errors and Insufficient Documentation
Clean coding and complete documentation prevent costly claim denials and speed up reimbursements. This section helps you identify common mistakes and build habits that keep claims moving smoothly.
Documentation mistakes create immediate delays and long-term collection problems. Payers reject claims for inaccurate codes, mismatched diagnoses, or missing supporting materials. Each denial not only delays payment but often results in reduced reimbursements when claims are corrected and resubmitted weeks later.
The financial impact extends beyond single claims. Reworking denials pulls front-desk staff away from patient calls, slows follow-up on other balances, and exposes the practice to audit risk from payers. Clean claims with proper documentation typically collect faster than those requiring corrections or appeals.
Reduce denials through better documentation practices:
Update code sets quarterly before new fee schedules take effect
Match diagnosis codes to procedures and verify relationships before submission
Include required attachments for periodontal therapy, oral surgery, and major restorative work
Document medical necessity clearly in treatment notes, especially for complex cases
Train your team to think like insurance reviewers. When documentation clearly supports the treatment provided, claims move through payer systems faster and with fewer questions.
4. Ineffective Patient Collections and Payment Policies
Modern patient collection strategies can dramatically improve your patient portion recovery. This section covers payment systems and policies that make it easier for patients to pay and harder for balances to age.
Patient portions of dental bills require different collection strategies than insurance claims, but many practices use the same approach for both. Patients respond to different communication methods, payment options, and timeframes than insurance companies. Without clear policies and consistent application, patient collections lag and aging balances grow.
Structured patient collection protocols can improve patient portion collections. The key is removing barriers to payment while maintaining clear expectations about timing and consequences.
Build patient collection systems that work:
Collect estimates upfront and require payment of patient portions before treatment when possible
Offer multiple payment methods including online portals, automatic payments, and payment plans
Send payment reminders at 10, 30, and 60 days with clear next steps
Establish write-off policies that balance compassionate care with business reality
Train your front desk team to have confident money conversations. When patients understand their financial responsibility upfront and have easy ways to pay, collections improve dramatically.
5. Inconsistent Write-Off Policies and Bad Debt Management
Clear policies for when and how to write off uncollectable balances protect your practice from endless collection costs. This section helps you establish criteria that balance compassionate patient care with sound business decisions.
Many practices avoid establishing write-off policies, hoping every balance will eventually get paid. Without clear guidelines, teams spend excessive time and resources chasing small, old balances that cost more to collect than they're worth. Meanwhile, legitimate hardship cases linger without resolution, creating patient relations problems.
Bad debt management requires balancing several factors: the age of the debt, the amount owed, the patient's payment history, and the cost of continued collection efforts. Practices need consistent criteria that staff can apply fairly across all situations.
Establish clear write-off and bad debt policies:
Set age limits for active collection efforts based on balance size and collection costs
Define hardship criteria with income verification requirements and partial payment options
Calculate collection costs including staff time, postage, and collection agency fees
Document all collection attempts before writing off any balance to support business decisions
Train your team on when to escalate collection decisions and when to recommend write-offs. Clear policies reduce staff stress about difficult conversations while protecting practice revenue.
6. Weak Financial Reporting and Performance Tracking
Tracking the right metrics helps you spot collection problems before they become cash flow crises. This section shows you which numbers matter most and how to use them to improve your revenue cycle.
Most practices track total AR but miss the detailed metrics that reveal collection opportunities. Days in AR, collection percentages by payer, and aging bucket trends provide actionable insights that global numbers hide. Without proper reporting, practices can't identify which parts of their revenue cycle need attention.
Good AR management requires understanding trends over time, not just current balances. A practice might have stable total AR while insurance collections improve and patient collections deteriorate—information that changes collection priorities completely.
Track the metrics that drive better collections:
Calculate days in AR monthly by dividing total AR by average daily production
Monitor collection percentages by insurance carrier to identify problem payers
Track aging trends to spot deteriorating collection patterns before they worsen
Measure collection costs including staff time, collection agency fees, and write-offs
Set benchmarks for each metric and review them monthly with your team. When everyone understands the numbers, collection improvements become team goals rather than just management objectives.
Take Control of Your Accounts Receivable
Outstanding AR doesn't have to drag on for months. File claims faster, prioritize collection efforts, clean up documentation, modernize patient payment systems, establish clear write-off policies, and track performance metrics that matter. Each improvement compounds over time, shortening collection cycles and improving cash flow.
Remember that consistent execution matters more than perfect systems. Start with the changes that address your biggest current pain points, then build additional improvements over time.
The most overlooked factor in AR management is maintaining consistent workflows when your team faces coverage gaps. When your hygienist calls out sick or quits mid-week, your team scrambles to reschedule patients, production drops, and billing tasks fall behind. Those delayed claims and missed follow-ups create the very receivable problems that hurt your practice's financial health.
Teero connects dental practices with qualified dental hygienists who can fill shifts on short notice or provide long-term coverage. When your hygienist coverage stays consistent, your team can focus on billing workflows instead of patient rescheduling. Your production stays steady and your revenue cycle keeps moving.
Ready to protect your revenue cycle from hygienist coverage gaps? Sign up for Teero today and keep your practice—and your collections—running smoothly.