Patient Payments

As a dentist's office, you need to make sure you have a secure and easy way for your patients to pay for your services. Collecting and making payments should be easy for everyone so that your patients and staff can feel confident when it comes to paying.

This guide will cover the best policies and practices when it comes to patient payments and dental marketing.

Make Sure to Educate Your Office Staff

Sometimes asking for payment can be hard or awkward for the office staff depending on their past work experience and the types of customers they have faced in the past. You need to make sure you educate all your office staff on how to discuss payments appropriately with the patients.

Keep in mind that sometimes the patients can be stressed at the payment counter depending on the services they received or news they got about their oral health. This can cause the patient to treat the receptionist poorly.

Make sure your office staff always treats all the patients with professionalism and courtesy. They need to ensure they can understand the patient’s financial situation and treat everyone with respect.

Communicate Better

One of the best things you can do for your practice is to discuss payments with all patients well in advance. Some patients do not know the difference between coinsurance and copay for example. Your office staff needs to be able to explain things like this in simple terms to help patients understand.

When a patient schedules an appointment, you need to be upfront about the insurance you accept and the deductible that the person should be expected to pay. Let the patient ask any questions they may have.

Make sure the patients also know what the payment covers and what it does not cover. You can also use automated platforms like texts and emails to help remind patients that a payment is due and how they can pay it.

Make sure you also let patients know when the payment is due. Do they need to pay before receiving the services? Can they pay after? Can you make a payment plan to make high bills easier to pay?

Offer Payment Plans If You Can

Dental services can be out of reach for some people if they do not have dental insurance or if their copay is very high. One of the best things you can do is offer payment plans to your uninsured patients. Every payment plan is different but most of the time, they require a down payment, and the rest can be paid monthly.

Some people also offer types of plans at the dentist's office that work similarly to insurance. For example, patients can pay a small fee monthly, and then their regular cleanings are free and other services are discounted. This can help you get more business because you can gain more patients that are not insured or underinsured.

At DentalROI, we offer dental membership plans. This allows you to increase your revenue while also helping your patients get the care they need. They will have the options to pay monthly with certain services included and other ones discounted.

We also offer dental payment plans. This allows people to get high-cost services or cosmetic procedures and pay them back monthly. You’re able to get customers the quality services they need and your patients can worry less about money.

Collect Payments On-Site If Possible

For copays, you need to collect payments on-site when the person is standing in front of you. Otherwise, bills move to collections if the patient does not pay. This can be a huge loss for your practice because you are waiting for the payment from collections at this point. Make sure to let the patient know ahead of time that they will need to make their copay payment so they are not caught off guard when they get to the office and you hand them a bill.

Make Payments Easy

One of the best things you can do to make payments easy is to offer many forms of payment. Most businesses recommend you accept at least three different payment methods. You should also try to accept different credit cards if possible.

Some dental clinics also offer a small discount if the patient is paying in cash. You can also allow patients to pay their remaining bills online so that they do not have to come into your office each time they want to pay. At DentalROI, we have online bill pay. You can text or email the bills and payment links to your patients making it super easy for them to pay all their bills with just one click of a button.

Be Reasonable

Most cities have hundreds of dental offices that people can go to for their preventative and cosmetic care. This means you need to offer reasonable and competitive pricing. This will make you stand out to patients because they know they are getting good quality dental care but at a lower cost than what some of the other dentists offer. This along with payment plans can draw in many more patients and make your practice one of the best ones in the city.

Send Reminders

You should set up a system where you send payment reminders. Try not to be annoying about it, but it should be enough reminders to ensure that the patient does not forget. This also allows your office staff to ensure the patient knows about the payment that is due before they come in so there are no excuses for the person not to pay.

Have a Payment Policy

You need to make sure you are using a payment policy for all patients in all your locations. The payment policy should be clearly put on your website for everyone to see. You should also have it posted in the office reception area somewhere.

Make sure the payment policy or the link to the payment policy is on every invoice and receipt so the patient can clearly reference it. Your office staff can also refer patients to the link when needed to make the expectations clear for everyone.

Use Credit Checks

Here at Dental ROI, we have software that can do a soft credit check on your patient. This allows you to see if a payment plan could work for them or not. You can also offer different terms for each patient depending on their credit score. We call this our Health Credit Assessment tool. The tool is easy to use, and you only have to pay for the features you want.

This allows you to accept new patients more easily since they can feel confident that they can get the services they need now and slowly pay back the amount.

Use Dental Marketing

Sometimes setting up your own payment portals and plans can be complicated. Consider using dental marketing and AI platforms so that everything is automated and done for you. If you are looking for dental marketing options, check out DentalROI today. We include many different services including secure forms to help your patients with payment and things like membership plans and payment plans.

All of the software we have can help your patients pay more easily and on time which is better for both your employees and patients! Reach out to us today!