Collections Dashboard Dental Intelligence Analytics Guide
AR Aging
What is this?
AR Aging with Dental Intelligence: It’s like upgrading your tools for tracking down payments owed by your dental practice’s patients. Unlike traditional practice management software, Dental Intelligence adds precision and efficiency, turning a complex task into a streamlined process.
Simplifying AR Aging:
- Accounts Receivable: Easily view the total amount of money your patients owe you, all in one place.
- Past Due: Dental Intelligence alerts you to balances that have been outstanding for more than 30 days, ensuring timely follow-ups.
- Patients Past Due: Identify the number of patients who have not paid their balances within the 30-day window, with quick access to their detailed information.
- Est. Patient & Est. Insurance: With a clear display of the patient’s ledger balance minus any outstanding insurance claims, managing the numbers has never been simpler.
- AR Aging Report & Credit Balance Report: Export vital reports to Excel with just a click. They provide comprehensive information about all patient account balances, how long they’ve been outstanding, and who has a credit balance.
Why is this Important:
If payments are taking too long to collect, it could signal a problem. Dental Intelligence doesn’t just alert you to slow business or greater credit risk; it provides actionable insights and automation that traditional practice management software lacks. AR Aging with Dental Intelligence helps you quickly identify late payers, allowing you to make swift and informed decisions.
In Summary, AR Aging with Dental Intelligence isn’t just about managing and understanding the money owed to your practice. It’s about doing it smarter, faster, and with greater insight, ensuring that you maintain financial health while saving time and effort. It’s the next-level tool your dental practice needs to stay ahead in the game!
Claims Aging
What is this?
Claims Aging refers to the monitoring of outstanding insurance claims, which represent money your dental practice expects from insurance companies. It’s important to note that this doesn’t always directly relate to patient balances or AR aging.
- Avg. Age: Average time it takes from submitting a claim to closing a claim.
- Claims: These are like IOUs from insurance companies. Sometimes, they might promise to pay but end up not doing so because of issues like maxed-out coverage.
- Past Due: This is the dollar amount on claims, where the claim more than 30 days.
- Past Due Claims: The count of claim more than 30 days.
What to Watch Out For:
Be mindful that this will include all open claims. Even if the insurance claim has been received and payment has been entered into the ledger, the claim might still be counted if the office hasn’t officially closed it out.
Why is this Important:
- Claims Aging is like tracking a specific set of promises from friends for a group vacation; it focuses only on money related to insurance claims. AR Aging, on the other hand, is the bigger picture of all money owed to you, like tracking all financial promises, including loans and dinners.
- Claims Aging doesn’t always align with AR Aging. For instance, insurance might say they’ll pay but don’t, or a patient might have already covered their share. It’s akin to a friend promising to pay for dinner but has already paid for movie tickets.
In essence, Claims Aging is a specialized tool for understanding and managing insurance-related payments within the larger financial landscape. It’s like focusing on one specific aspect of your personal budget, connected but distinct from the overall financial tracking.
Annual Patient Value
What is this?
The Annual Patient Value (APV) represents the average monetary value that your active patients contribute to your practice each year. It’s more than just a financial measure; it’s a key indicator of your dental practice’s overall efficiency and care quality. Calculating the APV involves:
- Sum the Collections: Total the collections from the last rolling 12 months.
- Calculate the Average Value: Divide the 12-month collection total by the number of active patients at the end of the prior month.
Formula: APV = 12 months of collections / Active Patients at end of prior month
Why is this Important?
- Patient Care Quality: High APV indicates comprehensive diagnosis and treatment compliance, providing insight into patient care.
- Efficient Production: Fewer patient visits with higher Production Per Visit means you’re maximizing the value of each encounter.
- Practice Health Indicator: APV is tied to recall success, case acceptance, and AR procedures. A low APV can reveal inefficiencies or weaknesses.
- Balancing Patient Flow: Higher APV lets you achieve goals without overwhelming patient flow, emphasizing quality care.
In summary, the APV helps you gauge how well your practice is performing financially, operationally, and in patient satisfaction. It’s an invaluable tool to align strategies, fix problems, and foster a thriving, patient-centered environment.
Collections
What is this?
Collections are the amounts of money that a dental practice actually receives from its services, distinct from Gross Production (total amounts charged) and Net Production (total amounts agreed upon).
Categories of Collections:
- Collections: Money recorded in the patient’s ledger.
- Collections Insurance: Total of insurance payments received.
- Collection Patient: Total of patient payments recorded on the ledger.
Why is this Important?
- Cash Flow Management: Collections are like the water in a home’s plumbing, essential for keeping the practice running smoothly.
- Factors Impacting Collections: Various elements can reduce collections, similar to unexpected expenses in a personal budget.
- Analysis by Payer: This analysis helps the practice adapt, akin to adjusting plans based on friends’ behavior.
Summary: Collections in a dental practice represent the actual earnings from provided services, distinct from the initially charged or agreed-upon amounts. It’s similar to planning a budget for a household. You might estimate earning a certain amount, but unexpected expenses or changes can mean you end up with less. Understanding collections is like tracking money in and out, helping you make smart decisions for your dental practice’s financial health.
Suppose a dental practice’s annual production totaled $1 million. That sum would represent its gross production. The amount the practice actually receives after sending the invoices to its patients and their insurance companies might be $800,000; this is the practice’s collections.
One way dental practices can analyze their performance is to look at their collections by payer. Typical payers include Medicare, Medicaid, private health insurance and individual patients. If a medical practice saw that its net collections were unacceptably low for one of these categories, it might stop accepting those patients or start requiring those patients to pay all or a portion of fees up front before seeing the provider or having any procedures performed.
90-Day Collection Percent
What is this?
90-Day Collection Percent is like tracking how well you retrieve items lent to friends. It calculates how much money your dental practice has collected compared to what was owed over 90 days. This percentage shows how efficiently your practice is at getting paid for services.
Formula: 90-Day Collection Percent = 90-Day Revenue Collected / 90-Day Gross or Net Production
What to Watch Out For:
- Large Difference Between Gross % and Net %: If the Gross Percentage is low and the Net Percentage is high, this indicates that you have a substantial number of write-offs and/or adjustments.
- Production Settings: The Net % is calculated with the Net Production setting that you have selected within Dental Intelligence.
Understanding Gross & Net %:
- Low Gross & Net %: Trouble collecting AR from patients/insurance.
- Low Gross %, High Net %: Many write-offs/adjustments; not necessarily bad but worth investigating.
- Similar Gross & Net %: Few write-offs/adjustments; typically positive.
- Targeting High Net %: Over 100% indicates pre-collecting, a sign of effective financial management.
Why is this Important:
- Knowing How Fast You Get Paid: The 90-Day Collection Percent tells you how quickly your dental practice gets paid by patients. It’s like keeping track of when friends pay you back.
- A Check on Your Business Health: If you’re getting paid for most of your work within 45 days, that’s good! It means your practice is doing well with money.
- Helps You Plan: Want to know how much work you need to do to make a specific amount, like $100,000? This number helps you figure that out.
- A Money Thermometer: Think of it as a thermometer but for money. It helps you see how much money is coming into your practice and whether things are going well or not.
AR Days
What is this?
AR (Accounts Receivable) Days is like lending money to a friend and waiting to be repaid. It shows the average number of days your dental practice waits to receive payment from patients and insurance. A low number means quick payment; a high one may signal delays.
Formula: AR Days = Avg. AR / Avg. Net Daily Production
What to Watch Out For:
- Data Delays: AR Days won’t appear until Dental Intelligence syncs with your system for 30 days. It builds from the day you start using Dental Intel, rather than looking at old data.
- Production Settings: This metric is calculated with the Net Production setting that you have selected within Dental Intelligence.
Why is this Important?
- Understanding Production and Payments: It’s like a report card on how much work your practice does and how fast patients pay.
- Patient Satisfaction and Credit Issues: AR Days might uncover patient happiness levels or if you’re extending credit unwisely.
- Cash Flow Trends and Patterns: Monitoring changes in AR Days helps predict potential cash flow problems.
- Seasonal Variations: Regular monthly changes may be normal, but erratic patterns might be a warning sign.
In essence, AR Days is a snapshot of your practice’s financial health, providing insights into payment speed, patient satisfaction, and financial stability. Like waiting for a friend to repay a loan, this metric tells you if you’re being paid in a timely manner and can alert you to potential issues. It’s a practical tool to help you make informed decisions and stay ahead of problems.
AR Ratio
What is this?
AR (Accounts Receivable) Ratio is like a report card for how well your dental practice is handling payments from patients. It tells you if you’re collecting money on time or if there are problems. Let’s break it down:You find the AR Ratio by taking the average amount of money patients owe you (Average Accounts Receivable) and dividing it by the money you expect to collect (Net Production) during the same time.
Formula: AR Ratio = Average Money Owed By Patients / Money You Expect to Collect
What to Watch Out For:
- Hidden Problems: Since it’s an average, some details might be hidden. Think of it like grading a group of students; one failing grade can be offset by all the others doing well.
- Data Delays: It will take 30 days of actively syncing with your system to show this metric. Unlike some other numbers, it doesn’t look at the past data stored in your Practice Management Software. Instead, it builds up over time using ongoing, cumulative data. Think of it as starting a fresh count from the day you begin using Dental Intelligence, rather than using old scores.
Why is this Important?
- Check Your Efficiency: The AR Ratio helps you see if you’re good at collecting money that patients owe.
- Look at the Big Picture: Tracking this number over time lets you see trends, like if you’re getting better or worse at collecting payments.
- Understand Your Money: It can help you figure out if the way you handle credit is helping or hurting your business.
- Past Performance: You can look at the AR Ratios for the last 36 months to understand how things have changed.
In summary, the AR Ratio is like taking your dental practice’s financial temperature. It helps you understand how well you’re managing money owed by patients. It’s not just about one number; it’s about seeing how that number changes and what it means for your practice.
