It should be an annual occasion. Think of it like taking your significant other out on a date for your anniversary. It’s a chance to celebrate another year and a chance to refresh everything. And just like an anniversary, this annual occasion is something your office should not miss. The important process I’m referring to is:
UPDATING YOUR OFFICE FEE SCHEDULE
I make a point to ask every office that I encounter a single question: “When was the last time you reviewed your office fees?” More often than not, the answer is that this process was last considered years ago. That’s understandable—updating the office fee schedule is a process which is easily overlooked in normal day-to-day business operations.
What exactly is your fee schedule?
The “office fee schedule” can be defined using a few key identifiers:
- The charges for all patients without insurance, or those patients with insurance where you do not hold a contract with that insurance plan
- The fees (AKA charges) associated with ADA billing codes and, if you use them, the internally created non-ADA billing codes
- The office fee schedule should not be lower than your lowest insurance contract fee schedule
Using automatic fee tracking and adjustment
The Fee Schedule Maintenance tool in Easy Dental makes it easy for you to gradually increase or decrease your office fees. The Fee Schedule Maintenance utility, located in the Reports module in Easy Dental, provides quick access to all of the fee schedules you have entered into the program.
The Auto Changes feature allows you to automate an increase or decrease of your office fees with very little effort.
Select the options for your change:
- The Select Procedure Code section lets you select a range of codes or leave <ALL> to change all codes
- The Change Amount is indicated by a numeric value
- The Change Type allows choices for decreasing or increasing a percentage or dollar amount
- The Round To option allows you to choose dollar, dime, or penny rounding increments
- The Minimum Amount to Increase allows you to capture all codes by selecting the minimum change for your lower priced procedures
Review the proposed fee change results. The table displays the procedure code, fee BEFORE the change, fee AFTER the change (in yellow) and the difference between the BEFORE and AFTER (shown here in green).
You may click to highlight the AFTER fee adn type the desired amount into each individual code. Once you have reviewed the new (AFTER) fee, save and then close this window.
So, I ask you just as I ask the offices I encounter: When was the last time you considered your office fee update? Will you follow these steps to simplify and maintain your office fee schedule?
David Broom is Senior Director of Product and Business Development. David has a master’s degree in Information Technology (IT) from the University of Texas in Dallas and has more than 35 years of experience from many global companies such as Hitachi Vantara, Methode Electronics, and Keane, Inc. In his current role, he is responsible for all aspects of the product management and field service teams at Henry Schein TechCentral, which identifies the ideal advanced technologies to meet the unique needs of the dental market and ensure that dental offices are using the right IT to be more efficient and effective.
