The questions practices actually ask before outsourcing dental billing

Dental billing is the full process of getting a dental practice paid for the work it does. It covers verifying patient insurance, submitting claims to insurance carriers, posting payments, working denials and appeals, managing accounts receivable, and collecting balances from patients.

When done well, it keeps cash flow steady. When it slips, even a busy practice can quietly lose tens of thousands of dollars a year in unpaid claims and aged AR.

Outsourced dental billing is when a practice contracts an external team to handle some or all of its billing work instead of doing it in-house. The outsourced team logs into your practice management software remotely and works your claims, denials, AR, and patient billing the same way an in-house biller would, except they do it as their full-time job and they don’t take vacation at the same time as your front desk.

We offer four core services. Take any one of them, mix them together, or take them all:

Insurance billing covers daily claim submission for primary and secondary, payment posting, denial review, missing-information follow-up, and AR over 30 days.

Patient billing covers ledger audits, statements, customized payment letters, and patient collection calls.

Insurance verification covers eligibility checks and full benefit breakdowns ahead of appointments.

Recare calls are outbound calls to bring patients back in for hygiene and overdue treatment.

You can take any of these as a bundle or pick the ones you need. Weekly and monthly reports come standard.

Most days look like this: we log into your practice management software, submit the day’s claims, post payments that came in, work any denials, follow up on aged claims, run verifications for upcoming appointments, and send patient statements on the schedule we agreed.

Your front desk keeps doing what they do. We send weekly and monthly reports, and you can check the numbers in your own software whenever you want.

Pricing depends on practice size, claim volume, and which services you need. As a starting point:

Insurance billing starts at $1,500/month. Patient billing starts at $500/month. Insurance verification starts at $250/month. Recare calls start at $400/month.

For most practices, the all-in cost works out to less than employing a single in-house biller once you factor in salary, benefits, payroll taxes, and turnover. We give you a clear quote after a short conversation. No vague estimates, no hidden fees.

Usually, yes, once you account for the full cost of employment. A full-time in-house biller in the US typically costs $50,000-$70,000 a year in salary alone, plus benefits, payroll taxes, software, training, and the cost of replacing them when they leave.

Outsourcing also gives you a small team rather than one person, so you don’t lose continuity when someone is sick or out. The catch: outsourcing only works if the team you bring in is good. Bad outsourcing is more expensive than a decent in-house biller.

There are no hidden fees. The one thing we sometimes recommend is a one-time clean-up fee (around $500) for practices with a significant backlog of unworked claims and aged AR. That fee covers resubmitting old claims and chasing them down to make sure they actually get paid.

It’s optional. Most practices recover the cost of the clean-up many times over in the first month or two of recovered claims.

Flat monthly fee, scoped to your practice. We don’t charge per claim because it can punish busy weeks and creates the wrong incentives. Flat-fee pricing means you know your number every month, and we are paid the same whether the claim is easy or whether we have to fight a denial three times to get it paid.

Most practices are fully up and running within a few days of our first conversation. We handle the setup on our end – software access, workflow agreements, communication preferences. Your team doesn’t need to prepare much. The faster you can get us access, the faster we can start working your claims.

Three things:

1. Remote access to your practice management software.
2. A short onboarding form so we know how your office runs.
3. Login credentials for the insurance portals you use.

That’s the bulk of it. We handle the rest from our side.

We work with all major dental practice management systems, including Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental, Curve Dental, Denticon, ClearDent, EasyDental, and SoftDent. If you’re on something less common, we’re almost certainly familiar with it. We work in your software, not ours, so nothing changes for the front desk.

No. We work in whatever practice management software you already use. The front desk keeps their normal workflow. You don’t migrate data, you don’t retrain staff on a new system, and you don’t pay for any new software on our account.

No, and we don’t want to. Your front desk handles patients, scheduling, and the in-office experience. We handle the back-office billing work that gets pushed aside when the lobby is busy. The split usually feels obvious within a couple of weeks: they do what they’re great at, we do what we’re great at.

We work alongside in-house staff all the time. Some practices bring us in to handle the AR backlog while their biller focuses on day-to-day submissions. Others use us to cover specific services their team doesn’t have time for – verification, denials, recare. We aren’t here to replace anyone. We’re here to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

Usually 1-2 dedicated team members per office, with backup support behind them. The point of the dedicated assignment is that the same people are working your claims week after week. They learn your fee schedule, your insurance mix, your patients’ patterns. You’re not getting passed around a call center.

Whatever works for you – email, phone, secure messaging, or a shared task tool. Most practices land on a mix of email for routine updates and a quick call when something needs a real conversation. You’ll know who your contact is by name, and you should never feel like you have to chase us for an answer.

Yes. HIPAA compliance is non-negotiable in this work. Our team is trained on PHI handling, we use encrypted access to your software, and we sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with every practice we work with before we touch any patient data.

We use secure remote access tools that connect into your existing systems without copying patient data out of your environment. Access is logged, credentials are unique per team member, and we use multi-factor authentication on every login. If your office has its own preferred remote access setup, we’ll use yours.

Always, and before any work begins. A signed Business Associate Agreement is part of the standard onboarding paperwork. If you have your own BAA template you’d like to use, we’ll review and sign it.

The first thing you’ll notice is activity – claims going out, old AR being worked, denials being actioned. That starts from day one. Actual cash hitting the account follows the normal insurance payment cycle, typically 14-30 days depending on the payer.

Practices with a real backlog usually see the clearest jump between months two and three, once aged AR starts clearing.

Less than you might expect on the surface, more than you’d hope underneath. The front desk keeps their workflow. The software stays the same. What changes is that claims go out faster, follow-up happens consistently, and the billing tasks that were getting pushed to the end of the day actually get done.

Most practices tell us the biggest change they notice is that billing stops being something they think about.

You get regular updates on claims submitted, payments received, and outstanding balances, on whatever cadence you want (weekly is most common). You also have full access to your own practice management software, so you can check anything at any time.

You should never have to chase us for information. If you ever feel like you don’t know what’s happening, that’s a problem we want to hear about immediately.

We don’t lock you into long-term contracts. If something isn’t working, tell us, and we’ll fix it or part ways cleanly. We’d rather earn your business month by month than hold you to a commitment that isn’t delivering. Cancellation is by written notice, no penalty.

No. Our agreement sets clear expectations on both sides, but it’s cancelable any time with written notice. We don’t believe in long lock-ins. If we’re doing the job, you’ll stay. If we’re not, you shouldn’t be stuck.

Yes. Cancel any time with written notice. We’ll work with you on a clean handoff back to in-house staff or to whoever is taking over.

Invoices go out on the 20th of each month and are due on the 1st. Services are billed in advance. Payment is by bank transfer or check (no fees) or credit card (small processing fee). We’ll set up whichever is easiest for your practice.

Yes. We offer a free billing audit before you commit to anything. We look at your current claims, AR, and collections, and give you an honest picture of where the gaps are and what’s recoverable. There’s no obligation to proceed. Most practices find it useful regardless.