Pricing
Dental Billing, One Flat Fee
Your fee is set once, based on where your practice is today. When your collections climb, it stays exactly where it is. From $1,500 a month, no contract, no setup fee, 30 days notice if you ever want out.
US-based team. We work inside your practice management software. No offshore call centre.
How it works
How Your Fee Gets Set
Three steps, and the number stops moving after the second one.
1
Free billing audit
We pull your day sheets, insurance aging, unsent claim report and rejection report, then tell you what your real collection rate is and where money is leaking. No cost, no obligation to hire us.
2
We set your number
Based on your collections and how much work the account actually needs. It works out to roughly 2% of total collections, insurance and patient combined, with a $1,500 monthly minimum.
3
It stays there
Same figure every month. Have a record quarter and it does not move. The only thing that changes it is you adding locations or services, and we agree that with you first.
The difference
Your Collections Grow. Your Fee Doesn’t.
Most billing companies charge a live percentage, so every good month costs you more. We set your fee once and leave it alone.
Practices we take on typically see collections rise 20% to 40% in the first few months. The worse the starting AR, the bigger the jump. That increase stays with you, and your effective rate quietly falls as it does.
What you pay for
Services And Starting Prices
Start with one and add more later, or hand over the whole thing. Most practices bundle, and bundling brings the overall rate down.
Most practices start here
Full Billing
Insurance and patient billing, handled end to end.
From $1,500/month
Around 2% of total collections
Insurance side
- Claim submission, electronic and paper, and we cover the postage
- Claim tracking and follow-up with payers
- Denial management and appeals
- Payment posting for checks, cards and EFTs
- AR follow-up on anything sitting past 30 days
- Insurance aging review
Patient side
- Account audits
- Patient statements
- Every account gets a call at least once a month
- Payment plans set up and monitored
- Past-due balance calls
- Patient billing questions answered
- Patient responsibility reconciled against insurance
Reporting comes on whatever schedule suits you. We agree the reports with the doctor and the team at the start, then send them daily, weekly or monthly.
Patient Billing Only
For practices keeping insurance billing in house.
From $500/month
Around 0.5% of collections
- Account audits
- Statements and balance follow-up
- Monthly call on every open account
- Payment plan setup and monitoring
- Past-due collection calls
- Patient billing questions answered
Insurance Verification
Benefits confirmed before the patient sits down.
From $250/month
Priced on patient volume
- Full benefit breakdown: annual max, deductible, remaining balance, coverage by category
- Completed 2 to 3 days before the appointment
- Entered straight into your software
- Frequency limitations checked
- Waiting periods flagged
- Coordination of benefits verified on dual coverage
Recare Calls
Filling hygiene columns without pulling your front desk off the floor.
From $400/month
Priced on list size
- Outbound calls to patients due or overdue for recall
- Booked straight into your schedule
- At least one call every month
- Monthly reporting on reached, scheduled and declined
- We call as your practice, not as an outside company
What’s Never On Your Invoice
The complaints people bring us about their last billing company are almost always about a line item nobody warned them about. So here is the whole list of things we do not charge for.
- Setup or onboarding fees
- Per-claim charges
- Appeals and denial work
- Long-term contract lock-in
- Access to your bank accounts or payment processing
Rough numbers
Estimate Your Monthly Fee
Move the slider to your average monthly collections, insurance and patient combined. This is a starting estimate, not a quote. Your actual fee gets agreed after the audit.
$25k
$400k
Estimated monthly fee
$1,500
Per year
$18,000
An in-house biller runs $55,000 to $75,000 a year once you count benefits and payroll tax.
Your collections fall under the point where 2% clears the minimum, so the $1,500 monthly minimum applies.
The real comparison
Against Hiring In House
A single biller at $55,000 to $75,000 fully loaded is one person, on one schedule, with one person’s knowledge. Here is how that stacks up.
| In-house biller | Smart Dental Billing | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual cost | $55,000 to $75,000+ fully loaded | From $18,000 |
| Cover during sickness or leave | Nobody, work stacks up | Continuous, the team covers |
| If they leave | Recruit, hire, train, lose months | Not your problem |
| Specialty knowledge | One person’s experience | Team with 10 to 20 years each in dental offices |
| Commitment | Employment contract | 30 days notice |
| Cost when you grow | Second biller eventually | Same fee |
Above roughly $230,000 a month in collections the two figures start to converge, but a practice at that level would need more than one biller in house anyway.
Optional add-on
Clean-Up, $500 One Time
Before we take over the day to day, we can go back through everything already sitting there. Unsent claims, rejected claims nobody reworked, appeals that were never filed, balances aged past the point most people give up on. We fix them and resend them.
Practices typically get back between $10,000 and $100,000 from it.
It is a one-time charge at sign up, entirely optional, and separate from your monthly fee.
$500
one time
typically returns
$10k to $100k
Proof
What This Actually Buys You
From a recent account
A practice came to us with billing that looked fine on the surface. The doctor was not trying to fix a problem, she just wanted her front desk focused on patients instead of insurance.
Two weeks in, our reports showed almost no insurance payments posting. Nothing was being reconciled against what had been submitted. Once we flagged it, around $50,000 in insurance checks turned up in the office, received and never deposited.
The following month we collected over $100,000 she had not budgeted for.
Collections above 100%
Our offices run over 100% collection rate. That reads like marketing until you do the arithmetic: we collect what you produced this month plus balances that have been sitting for months or years. Clearing the backlog pushes total collections past current production. It is the clearest sign billing is genuinely being worked rather than just processed.
Who is actually on your account
One or two named specialists who know your office, your patients and how you like things done. The owner works part of the billing or supervises it closely every week, and has been in dental billing for 25 years. Everyone on the team has spent 10 to 20 years inside dental practices, so nobody needs the day to day explained to them.
15
practices, deliberately
5
states covered
2,000
claims a month
25
years in dental billing
We do not advertise. The practices we work with came from referrals, and we have kept the client list small on purpose so every account gets worked properly rather than processed in bulk.
Straight answers
Pricing Questions
What exactly does the 2% apply to?
Total collections, insurance and patient combined. It tells us how large the practice is and how much work to expect, which is how the fee gets set in the first place. Once it is set it becomes a fixed monthly figure rather than a live percentage.
Does my fee go up when my collections do?
No. The fee is agreed at the start and stays the same each month. If collections climb 30% over the year, you pay what you agreed. The only things that trigger a new conversation are adding locations or adding services, and we agree those with you before anything changes.
What happens in a slow month?
The fee is the same. When the daily billing load drops, we push that time into outstanding claims and older AR until the normal workload picks back up. You are not paying for idle time, you are paying for the account to be worked.
Is there a contract?
No long-term contract. Month to month, 30 days notice to end it, no setup fee, no exit penalty.
Which practice management software do you work in?
Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend, Eaglesoft, Open Dental and Archy, plus most other cloud and server-based systems. If yours is not on that list, ask. The software all does the same job, it is only a question of where the information sits.
Is pricing different for specialty practices?
The structure is the same. Oral surgery, perio and ortho sometimes carry a higher minimum depending on complexity, but the percentage the fee is built from does not change. It gets discussed on the discovery call so there are no surprises later.
What does onboarding involve on my side?
A two-page information form and logins to your insurance portals. That is the whole ask. We handle reviewing your current AR, setting up internal tracking and agreeing how we will communicate. Most practices are fully onboarded in one to five business days, and we suggest starting the week before your actual go-live date.
How quickly can you start?
The current wait is usually 30 to 60 days. We keep the client list small on purpose, so we only take on what we can genuinely work. If you need to move sooner than that, say so and we will usually find a way.
How fast do you reply?
Usually within a few hours. If something comes in late in the evening it may be the next day. You are emailing, texting or calling the people who actually work your account, not a ticket queue, so nothing sits waiting to be routed.
Can I start with one service and add others later?
Yes, that is common. Plenty of practices start with verification or patient billing and hand over the rest once they see how it goes. When you add services or locations we rebuild the package, and bundling more brings the overall rate down.
Do you need access to our bank account?
No. We handle the billing side only. No bank access, no payment processing, no control over your money.
Do you handle credentialing?
No, that is outside what we do. Everything listed on this page is included in your fee, and credentialing is not something we take on at all.
Are you HIPAA compliant?
Yes. We sign a Business Associate Agreement with every client and the whole team completes HIPAA training annually.
How much will my collections actually improve?
Practices typically see 20% to 40%, and the worse the starting position the larger the early recovery. We will not guarantee a number, because the result depends on your team as much as ours. What we can tell you after the audit is what is currently recoverable and what is not.
Start here
Get Your Free Billing Audit
Before you decide anything, find out what your billing is actually doing. We look at a year of day sheets to work out your real collection rate, then go through your unsent claims report, how long submissions are taking, rejected claims, insurance aging past 30 days and patient balances.
You get a straight account of what we found and what is fixable. No charge, and no obligation to hire us afterwards.
What we need from you
- Temporary access to your software, or
- We tell you exactly which reports to pull and you send them over
What you get back
- Your actual collection rate against production
- What is sitting unsent, rejected or aged
- What is realistically recoverable
Or reach us directly at info@smartdentalbilling.com or (630) 449-2889