The Administrative Tasks That Are Drowning Dental Practice Productivity

Dental practices revolve around chair time – those productive hours when dentists and hygienists are in their zones effectively rendering patient care. However, more and more productive chair time is lost due to administrative tasks that seem to plague practices like a never-ending hamster wheel.

The problem isn’t just that administrative processes suck time out of clinical workflows, but that they invariably interrupt productivity at the worst possible times. A dentist in the middle of a filling needs to approve an estimate. A hygienist has to take a moment during a cleaning to answer an insurance inquiry.

These interruptions take away valuable time from patient care but also are disruptive to what it takes to do a quality job in the first place. Administrative burdens include everything from:

Insurance Verification

Insurance verification requests have exploded and expanded since the heyday of the 20th century dental practice. Where insurance calls used to suffice to determine coverage, modern administrative requests involve multiple steps, online verification, wait times and extensive paperwork to justify why someone even needs insurance in the first place.

For example, every time new patients come in, their insurance coverage needs to be confirmed before work begins. Even patients who’ve been coming for years require insurance coverage. Yet frequently, insurance information changes as people age or switch jobs, or complicated family dynamics prompt new coverage complexities that even the best family members cannot identify on their own.

But that’s the easy part.

Today, pre-authorizations for treatments that dentists have performed thousands of times now require additional justification in writing. Staff from across the board spend hours making calls and writing messages before insurance companies actively respond to approve what they would have previously approved with a simple thumbs up.

Yet with prior authorizations also comes the ability for insurance companies to decline. The administrative burden doesn’t even end with approval; staff now has to track approval numbers, timelines, and specific authorizations before communicating limitations and caveats back to patients and clinicians. Repeated discussion of what will not be provided takes away from educated staff resources who could be engaging more fully with patients instead.

Patient Communication

Patient communication has exploded beyond what it used to be just five years ago. From appointment confirmations to insurance adjustments, treatment plan inquiries, and discharge instructions, every patient leads at least two or three calls a day for necessary information.

Dental portals also consume staff time – portal messages need responses, items need to be uploaded, and technical issues abound with navigation that requires troubleshooting. Each portal engagement sounds simple enough but over ten or fifteen per day and reduced operational staff leaves critical hours wasted on communication.

For many practices that are struggling under the weight of administrative burdens, staffing private support services can alleviate some of this necessary communication. My Mountain Mover dental assistants can help facilitate much of this informational training and coordination from a remote environment while keeping on-site support teams focused on patient care.

Treatment Plans and Financial Arrangements

It takes time for staff to present treatment plans and financial arrangements without confusing patients further than their dental anxiety may present. For example, when a dentist provides a plan or suggested treatment during a visit, it takes additional administrative support time to explain the process, gauge financial flexibility and procure any additionally required financing options.

The same goes for families or children; treatment plan presentations may require family involvement or additional parties without prior notice that are not available in the moment, extending required appointments beyond reasonable limits.

Multiple Scheduling Complexities

Appointment scheduling alone has become more complicated as efficiency reigns in keeping chairs full while trying to honor patient preferences, insurance limitations and desired treatment plans. Staff must cross-reference other providers, confirm insurances before financial arrangements are approved, align with patients’ schedules, and find capable teams that all have excellent time management skills.

In addition, certain treatment plans require scheduling coordination for proper implementation – root canals lead to crowns; braces lead to retainers; oral surgery leads to follow-up appointments at various parts of the mouth – all required careful alignment that also takes time away from patients actively receiving care.

And although urgent appointments are unavoidable, they’re also unnecessary interjecting forces that take time away from consistently scheduled patients. Patients with questions about their fillings or those wanting second opinions interrupt treatment for all involved as staff jump out of their focused roles in crowded mouths to explain resolutions they would not otherwise get if they had scheduled their own appointment ahead of time.

Regulatory Compliance

As if documentation wasn’t complicated enough across a variety of practices – now regulatory compliance requires documentation as well. HIPAA asks practices to maintain records beyond what’s clinically necessary – and just because it’s required doesn’t mean staff members enjoy completing it or have time to document properly at the same time.

For example, OSHA compliance requires extensive regulations that only complicate mandatory documentation efforts from governing boards. Quality assurance programs don’t often find successful implementation through overwhelmed practitioners but instead seek hard evidence down the line from those who didn’t maintain oral care responsibilities throughout preferred timelines. This means progress reporting takes away from strictly focused patient care activities.

Patient record management has also evolved as paper files are increasingly incompatible with electronic health records unless certain specifications are carefully managed for appropriate data entry which exceeds patient engagement needs in the first place.

Collections

As patients are asked to take on more fiscal responsibilities per dental care received – collections become increasingly burdensome on staff with no decisive volume at all. When difficult discussions regarding anticipated costs over updated fees occur despite approval from other sources such as family or minors unaccompanied by drivers – we’re left with dental staff delving deeply into fiscal negotiations without support.

Payments need processing whether through third-party financing companies or credit card transactions – and it’s not easy to access these portals without leave time involved for research plus online complications further impact what’s required. Compiling this information into one manageable format is nearly impossible – assumptions must be made without compliance expected – and staff penalized accordingly when time is wasted on misinformation found elsewhere.

Similarly collections of late payments require equally invasive phone calls; they eat up office minutes asking for something highly unavailable unless a census is taken based on socioeconomic grounds; those struggling due to inflation cannot manage timely payment efforts, which fall on dental team members who’ve now taken on additional work that should be reserved for business agents outside of patient-facing roles as well.

Downstream Impact Creating Opportunities for Inconsistent Care

Each administrative burden presents subsequent problems in creating productivity and comprehensive patient care quality. When clinical providers need answering emails while responsible for injections; when clinicians need paperwork to be approved between appointments; when staff regularly find themselves interrupted thanks to miscommunication – quality of care is prevented based on paperwork protocols unexpectedly needing resolution instead of focused integrity.

Furthermore, attempts to engage other professional-required regulations without necessarily delivering more confidence feed provider burnout as well – all thanks to staffing changes and high turnover increases lost productivity value.

As providers become overwhelmed by high turnover expectations and decrease due diligence, no one cares about efficiency anymore when everyone expects subsequent manual achievement. Patients realize there’s unnecessary lag time when meetings make people late for next scheduled patients because they’re carelessly engaged elsewhere without clear protocols in place either.

Administrative Burden Solutions

Decomposing administrative overload requires strategic means through which routine tasks can be taken off clinical team members’ plates without compromising holistic decisions. This might involve hybrid options or greater technology solutions where dedicated purposes responsibly meet clinical challenges without loss in diagnoses treatment plans expectations.

It’s crucial that proper differentiation is made between what tasks must remain on-site for success versus those easier handled by supporting knowledgeable systems outside of intentional pitfalls even available during downtime hours should reduce future stresses.

Successful dental practices thrive when administrative efficiency allows success; without it, quality patient care suffers cumulatively meant to make practice successful beyond charge per diagnosis implementation realized as collateral damage instead by additional paperwork availability missing upon initial interactions with unaware stressors imploding within themselves needing assistance all along.