Updating Payment Tables with Insurance Coverage for PPE

Last month, I wrote about charging a fee for personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic. The American Dental Association has suggested the use of the code D1999 to bill for the charge of additional PPE. In that blog post we talked about the best ways to set up that code in Dentrix. 

Recently, some dental insurance companies have announced that they will compensate providers for the cost of PPE. Whether an insurance plan will pay this charge or not, I do think it’s a good idea for practices to charge patients this additional fee. Although some PPE is the norm in dental offices, the additional requirements of gowns, face shields, and N95 masks are an additional cost that practices should be compensated for. 

The average of what offices are charging for PPE is around $10. If you expect dental insurance to pay a portion of the charge for PPE using code D1999, I would highly suggest using the payment table in Dentrix in order to collect accurately from patients.  

The payment table in Dentrix is a great way to enter in the exact dollar amount that an insurance plan will pay for a particular ADA code. By entering in the dollar amount that the insurance will pay for code D1999, you can collect accurately from the patient at the time of service. 

For example, if the insurance will pay $7.00 for code D1999, you should enter that information in the payment table. You can edit the payment table by double-clicking the Insurance Information block in the patient’s Family File. 

That way, when the code is set complete in the patient’s Ledger, Dentrix will estimate the insurance to pay $7.00 and the patient portion at $3.00. You can then collect the patient portion at the time of service. It’s always best to collect from patients at the time of service in order to reduce outstanding accounts receivable. Also, it wouldn’t be cost effective to send a patient a statement for a $3 balance. 

Another great thing about updating the payment table is that when you enter new information into it, the insurance estimate will be used for all patients who are covered under that same insurance group plan. This will result in less data entry for your team.

I’m hearing from offices that patients are understanding of the cost for PPE, and even if their dental insurance isn’t going to cover the fee, they are willing to pay a reasonable fee to offset the cost for the office. 

If you expect dental insurance to pay for a portion of the code, use the payment table to enter that information into Dentrix, so you can accurately collect any patient portion at the time of service. If you don’t expect any insurance payment for code D1999 for a particular group plan, you should enter $0 into the payment table, which will result in the charge being added to the patient portion in both the patient’s Ledger and in the Treatment Planner. 

If you have questions about how using the payment table can help you accurately collect for D1999 for personal protective equipment, please e-mail me at  vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

Charlotte Skaggs, Certified Dentrix Trainer

Charlotte Skaggs is the founder of Vector Dental Consulting LLC, a practice management firm focused on taking offices to the next level. Charlotte co-owned and managed a successful dental practice with her husband for 17 years. She has a unique approach to consulting based on the perspective of a practice owner. Charlotte has been using Dentrix for almost 20 years and is a certified Dentrix trainer. Contact Charlotte at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

from  The Dentrix Office Manager Blog https://ift.tt/38B8W7Q