When asked if they handle dental insurance for their patients, the dentists who responded yes to handling dental insurance were the clear majority in this survey.
On March 23, 2010, the Affordable Care Act became law and as states begin to deal with the implementation of the act, several are looking to adapt their own version of the plan.
California is just one of those states.
As reported in The Sun, Democrats in California have recently revived Senate Bill 810, which would create a public-private partnership to provide every California resident with medical, dental, vision, hospitalization and prescription drug benefits.
The California universal care plan would provide comprehensive dental care – something largely not addressed in the federal plan.
Here at The Wealthy Dentist, we were curious how dentists are currently handling dental insurance in their practices. Many of the dentists surveyed felt handling dental insurance for their patients is an important part of providing superior customer service.
“Not only do we handle insurance claims for our patients, but we also fight insurance companies for our patients until a claim is finally paid,” noted one dentist. “I believe its part of how much do we as dentists want to give customer service.”
In this survey, 85% of dentists handle all insurance claim forms for patients with dental insurance, 8% don’t accept insurance, and 7% don’t handle insurance claims, but do help patients fill out the forms.
Here are some dentist comments:
- “Many of my patients would go elsewhere if they had to pay up front for services themselves.” (General dentist)
- “I think its a matter of customer service to handle insurance for your patients.” (Indiana dentist)
- “I pride myself on customer service and I believe it’s an absolute no-brainer as part of my truly great customer service. My team (including me) file ALL insurance claims for our patients.” (General dentist)
- “As a specialist where one-time emergency visits are common, we find it necessary to research insurance benefits for our patients in order to present and collect estimated co-payments at the time of service.” (Ohio specialist)
- “I would like to see better tools for educating patients about dental insurance benefits and liabilities, as well as setting better expectations with dental insurance verses medical insurance models.” (Massachusetts dentist)
- “Dental insurance is one of the most aggravating things about dentistry. What I would like to do is collect from the patient, then help them submit the claims.” (California dentist)
For more on this survey see: Dental Insurance: Most dentists handle insurance claims for patients
