Patient billing

Dental Patient Billing Services

After insurance pays, someone has to collect the rest. We audit the accounts, send the statements, and call every past-due patient – under your practice name, from a number that matches your office, inside your own software.

Patient billing runs alongside our insurance billing service. A patient balance is only right if the same team posted the insurance payment.

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Are you a patient with a question about your dental bill? Please contact your dental office directly – we cannot access individual patient accounts from this page.

Practices working with Smart Dental Billing collect above 100% of net production.

US-based team. Works inside Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental, Dentrix Ascend and Archy. Month to month, 30 days notice.

The problem

The Balance Nobody Owns

Patient balances are the portion of dental revenue most likely to be written off, because the person responsible for collecting them is also the person responsible for the patient relationship.

Insurance pays, and then it stops

The payer portion posts. The remainder sits on the account with no owner, no deadline and no next step. Nobody decides to ignore it. It just never becomes anyone’s job.

Statements go out when there is time

Which, in a full schedule, is never. A month gets skipped, then two. By the time a statement lands, the patient has forgotten the appointment it refers to.

The front desk will not make the call

This is not a discipline problem, it is a role conflict. The person who greets a patient warmly at 8am cannot be the same person demanding money from them at 4pm. So the call does not happen.

Ninety days turns into a write-off

Balances age quietly. Past 90 days the odds of collection fall sharply, and the practice ends up writing off money it already earned and already paid staff to produce.

Confused patients call you instead

A patient who does not understand their bill calls the office. The front desk stops mid-checkout, guesses at the answer, promises to look into it, and nothing gets collected either way.

The default alternative is worse

When it gets bad enough, most practices reach for a collections agency. That is the point where the patient relationship actually breaks, and where the practice loses most of the money anyway.

Scope of work

What Patient Billing Includes

Smart Dental Billing’s patient billing service includes patient account audits, statements sent by mail, email and text, past-due follow-up calls made under the practice’s name, payment plan setup and monitoring, a billing line patients can call back, and coordination with insurance on patient-responsibility portions. All of it happens inside the practice’s existing practice management software.

Patient account audits

Before anyone is contacted, we check the balance is real. Misapplied payments, unposted credits and insurance portions billed to the patient in error all get corrected first.

Statements by mail, email and text

Generated and sent on the cadence you set, through the channel each patient actually responds to. You pay the statement cost, we handle everything else.

Monthly follow-up calls

Every past-due account gets a call at least once a month, made under your practice name. Not a mailing list, not an automated dialer.

A billing line patients call back

Caller ID matches your office, and the person who answers knows the account. Your front desk stops fielding billing questions mid-checkout.

Payment plans, set up and watched

You set the terms. We put the plan into your software, track it, and follow up the moment a payment is missed so plans do not quietly lapse.

Insurance coordination

The patient’s share is calculated against what the payer actually paid and what the plan actually allows, so the number on the statement is correct the first time.

What the patient receives

A statement they can read without calling anyone

Most past-due balances are not refusals to pay. They are people who cannot tell what they are being charged for. Every statement shows the treatment, the date, what the insurance paid and what is left, in that order.

When a patient can answer their own question from the page in front of them, they pay. When they cannot, they call your front desk.

Your Practice Name

Patient statement

D2740 Crown, porcelain

$1,240.00

Insurance paid

– $744.00

Payment received 14 Mar

– $150.00

Balance due

$346.00

Questions about this statement? Call us directly and we will walk through it with you.

Not included: credentialing, access to your bank accounts or payment processing, and third-party collections agencies. We handle the billing side only, and uncollectible accounts come back to you rather than going to an agency.

Fit

Who This Is For

Practices already using Smart Dental Billing for insurance billing who want the other half closed
Practices evaluating outsourced billing who want the full revenue cycle handled by one team
Practices where the front desk is doing billing between patients
Practices carrying patient AR past 90 days with no follow-up system
Practices that stopped sending statements consistently and know it
Solo through DSO, plus ortho, perio and oral surgery

Who this is not for

Practices looking to outsource patient billing while insurance billing stays in-house or with another vendor. We do not take patient billing on its own. A patient balance is only accurate if the same team posted the insurance payment and applied the write-offs, and splitting that across two vendors means every balance on every statement is a guess. If that is what you are after, we would rather tell you now than on a discovery call.

How it works

The Follow-Up Cycle

Statements alone do not collect money. What collects money is somebody calling, every month, until the balance is resolved one way or another.

Every past-due account gets a call at least once a month.

Audit the account

We verify the balance before a single patient hears from us. Credits, misapplied payments and incorrect patient portions get fixed first, because nothing damages trust faster than chasing someone for money they do not owe.

Send the statement

Mail, email or text, on your cadence. Clear enough that a patient can see what the treatment was, what insurance paid and what is left, without calling anyone to translate it.

Make the call

At least one call per account per month, under your practice name, from a number matching your office. The caller knows the treatment and what the insurance paid, so the conversation starts with an explanation rather than a demand.

Take the call back

Patients who want to talk it through reach the person who knows their account. No phone tree, no front desk scrambling to pull the ledger while three people wait to check out.

Payment or arrangement

Paid in full, or onto a payment plan on the terms you set. The plan goes straight into your practice management software so your team sees exactly what was agreed.

Monitor and re-contact

Plans are tracked. A missed payment triggers the next contact rather than sliding for another quarter until someone notices.

Return it to you

When an account is genuinely uncollectible it comes back to you with the full contact history, and you decide what happens next. No collections agency, no credit reporting, no surprises landing on a patient you still want in your chair.

Getting started takes one two-page form and your portal logins. Most practices are fully onboarded within one to five business days.

The real objection

What Your Patients Actually Experience

Outsourced patient billing reduces friction with patients rather than creating it, because your front desk stops being the one who has to ask for money and patients finally get a billing contact who can answer the question.

Incoming call

Your Practice Name

(630) 555 0142

Mobile

Decline

This is what the patient sees. Your practice name, your area code, your office.

It is your practice callingCalls go out under your practice name with caller ID matching your office. To the patient, this is their dental office getting in touch. Because it is.
The caller knows the accountThey know the treatment, the date and what insurance paid. Nobody is reading a name off a list and asking for a number.
Confusion gets an answer, not a demandMost past-due balances are not refusals to pay, they are people who do not understand the bill. That conversation takes four minutes and usually ends in payment.
Cannot pay in full means a planNot a threat, not a warning letter. A payment plan on the terms you set, entered in your software so your team can see it.
Nothing goes to an agencyNo third-party collections. No credit bureau reporting. An uncollectible account comes back to you with the full history and you make the call.

Compare it to the actual alternative

The question is rarely “outsourced billing or nothing.” Practices that let patient balances age long enough eventually reach for a collections agency, because at that point it feels like the only option left.

That is the moment the relationship breaks. An agency has no interest in whether the patient comes back, no knowledge of the treatment, and no reason to be gentle. The practice recovers a fraction of the balance and loses the patient permanently.

Consistent monthly contact from your own office, starting when the balance is 30 days old rather than 300, is what stops that from ever being necessary.

Results

What Changes

Placeholder figures – replace with real numbers before publish

68%

of past-due patient balances collected within the first 90 days

$41,000

recovered from aged patient AR in six months at a single-location practice

52 to 19

days from statement to payment, before and after

94%

of payment plans still current after six months

Two-doctor general practice, anonymized

The practice came to us carrying roughly $60,000 in patient balances, most of it past 120 days. Statements had gone out inconsistently for over a year and nobody had called anyone.

We audited every account first. About $8,000 of that turned out to be credits and misapplied payments that should never have been billed to a patient at all. The rest went into the monthly call cycle.

Within six months, $41,000 was collected and the practice had 23 active payment plans running. Two patients left over it. Both had balances more than two years old.

Why us

What Makes Smart Dental Billing Different

A US-based team, one or two named specialists per practice, month-to-month terms, and work done inside your own practice management software rather than a system your team has to learn.

US-based, no offshore

Every person who speaks to your patients is based in the United States and has worked inside dental offices for 10 to 20 years.

One or two named specialists

You know who works your account and they know your office. This is not a call centre rotation where a different voice picks up each week.

Month to month

No setup fee, no long-term contract, 30 days notice to cancel. We would rather earn the month than hold you to a year.

Inside your existing software

Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental, Dentrix Ascend and Archy. Your team keeps their workflow, nobody learns a new portal.

HIPAA handled properly

A signed BAA with every client and annual HIPAA training for the whole team. We never need access to your bank accounts or payment processing.

The owner is in the work

Over 25 years of experience, involved in day-to-day billing and in direct contact with the doctors. Problems get resolved the same week they surface.

Pricing

What It Costs

Patient billing runs alongside insurance billing, so the figure below is the combined cost. Both are month to month with no setup fee.

Patient billing

0.5%

of collections, $500 per month minimum

Account audits
Statements by mail, email and text
Monthly follow-up calls on every past-due account
Payment plan setup and monitoring
Billing line for patient questions

Insurance billing – required

of collections, $1,500 per month minimum

Claim submission and tracking
Denial management and appeals
Insurance payment posting
AR follow-up on claims past 30 days
Aging report review and reporting

No fees beyond the percentage

No setup fee, no per-statement fee, no per-call fee. You pay the cost of the statements themselves, nothing else sits outside the monthly figure.

One-time cleanup: $500

An optional add-on at signup to work through everything already sitting in aged balances and unresolved claims before the regular cycle starts.

Bundling

Adding insurance verification or recare calls improves the overall rate. Multi-location practices get a package built during the discovery call.

See full pricing

Start here

The Free Billing Audit

Before you commit to anything, we look at what is actually happening in your numbers and tell you what is recoverable. Most practices find the exercise useful whether or not they go ahead.

Request a free audit

What we look at

Patient balance report, aged by bracket
Insurance aging over 30 days
Day sheet reports showing production against collections
Unsent claims, and how long they sat
Rejected claim reports

You can give us temporary access to your software, or we will tell you exactly which reports to pull and you send them over.

Questions

Patient Billing FAQ

What is dental patient billing?

Dental patient billing is the collection of the balance a patient owes after their insurance has paid its portion. It covers verifying the balance is correct, sending statements, following up on past-due accounts, setting up payment plans, and answering patient questions about their bill.

What is included in outsourced patient billing services?

How much does outsourced dental patient billing cost?

Smart Dental Billing charges 0.5% of collections for patient billing, with a $500 per month minimum. It runs alongside insurance billing at 2% of collections with a $1,500 per month minimum. There is no setup fee, no per-statement fee and no per-call fee. The practice pays the cost of the statements themselves.

Will outsourcing patient billing upset my patients?

Calls are made under the practice’s name from a number that matches the office, by someone who knows the account and what insurance already paid. Patients who cannot pay in full are offered a payment plan on terms the practice set. Nothing is sent to a collections agency. In most practices the patient experience improves, because the front desk stops being the one who has to ask for money.

Do you call patients as my practice or as a third party?

Calls go out under the practice’s name with caller ID matching the office. To the patient, it is their dental office calling.

How often do you follow up on a past-due balance?

Every past-due account receives a call at least once a month, on top of the statement cycle, until the balance is paid, a payment plan is in place, or the account is returned to the practice.

Do you send accounts to a collections agency?

No. Smart Dental Billing does not use third-party collections agencies and does not report balances to credit bureaus. When an account is genuinely uncollectible, it is returned to the practice with the full contact history and the practice decides what happens next.

Can I use patient billing without your insurance billing service?

No. Patient billing runs alongside Smart Dental Billing’s insurance billing service. A patient balance is only accurate if the same team posted the insurance payment and applied the write-offs, so the two are not split across vendors.

How are patient statements sent?

By mail, email and text, on the cadence the practice sets. The practice pays the statement cost.

Who sets the payment plan terms?

The practice sets the terms. Smart Dental Billing sets the plan up in the practice management software, monitors it, and follows up when a payment is missed.

Stop Writing Off Money You Already Earned

One conversation about your practice, your software and what your patient AR actually looks like. No contract, no obligation, and a free billing audit either way.