Healthcare practice guide
Billing, Books, and Payroll for Dental Practices and DSOs
Production versus collection, plan maximums, and the write-offs nobody tracked.
Dental practices track production obsessively and collections loosely. The gap between the two is where the money goes: contractual adjustments taken without checking the fee schedule, benefit maximums exhausted mid-treatment, and patient balances that age past the point anyone will pay them.
Your practice
Set once — every healthcare tool below pre-fills from it and it stays with you for this visit.
- Collection ratio target
- 98%+
- Days in A/R target
- Under 30
- Over-90 A/R
- Under 12%
Collections against adjusted production
Dental settles faster than medical
Share of total A/R aged past 90 days
Where the money leaks
Fee schedule drift
Adjustments posted to the old contracted rate after a plan renegotiated. We reconcile allowed amounts to the current schedule.
Benefit maximums
Treatment planned past the annual maximum becomes a patient balance nobody warned the patient about.
Unposted patient balances
Statements that stop after one cycle turn collectible balances into bad debt.
How we run it
- 1
Breakdown of benefits
Verified per patient before treatment planning, including remaining maximum and frequency limits.
- 2
Claim submission with attachments
Radiographs and narratives attached up front so the claim is not held for records.
- 3
Adjustment audit
Every contractual write-off checked against the current fee schedule.
- 4
Patient balance cycle
A real statement cadence with a defined escalation point, not a single reminder.
- 5
Production-to-collection reconciliation
Monthly report showing what was produced, adjusted, collected, and still outstanding.
Payers we bill every month
- Delta Dental
- MetLife
- Cigna Dental
- Guardian
- State Medicaid dental programs
- Discount plan contracts
State rules we work under
Medicaid programs, payer portals, and payroll rules change at the state line. Pick your state for the specifics.
AHCCCS (Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System) · Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa
State billing detailMaineCare · Portland, Bangor, Lewiston-Auburn
State billing detailNJ FamilyCare · Newark, Jersey City, Princeton
State billing detailNorth Dakota Medicaid · Fargo, Bismarck, Grand Forks
State billing detailOregon Health Plan (OHP) · Portland, Salem, Eugene
State billing detailApple Health · Seattle, Bellevue, Tacoma
State billing detailTexas Medicaid · Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, Austin
State billing detail