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While the nursing shortage has gotten much attention over the last decade, outside of industry circles, the shortage of dental office staff has gotten much less press. However, in an ADA study, nearly 70% of dentists report struggling to find and hire dental hygienists. For dental assistants, nearly 60% of dentists find hiring a challenge.
While the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on healthcare workers, specifically dental workers who were required to be around unmasked patients, it’s easy to understand why we saw a drop off. However, where nursing schools saw enrollments increase, the ADA reports that dental hygiene programs have seen enrollment declines. That doesn’t put much hope on the horizon for staffing challenges to decrease anytime soon, at least not for dentists and dental practices.
So what’s the real impact of staffing shortages? First and foremost, patient capacity is significantly impacted. You simply cannot see or care for as many patients without the staff to assist. And the patients you do have? Nearly 30% are already willing to leave a practice because making an appointment is difficult. Without staff to answer calls, make and verify appointments, and handle cancellations, scheduling appointments will become even more challenging.
In addition to patient care issues that arise from being short staffed, vital services and administrative tasks can also take a backseat to patient priorities. Unfortunately, for patient care as well as practice efficiency and continuity, these tasks cannot be ignored.
In fact, one of the other significant reasons patients seek out a new provider is a failure to communicate, especially when it comes to billing and understanding what dental insurance covers and what expenses will be out-of -pocket. Recent research suggests that concerns about billing and costs is something patients would much rather discuss with their healthcare provider than, perhaps, insurance companies.
That means that, for your practice, finding ways to maximize efficiency and automate business office responsibilities can help mitigate staffing challenges as well as offer additional benefits such as reducing overall administrative costs.
One of the most time-consuming tasks your staff is required to conduct and manage day after day is dental insurance verification. Given the importance of insurance verification to your patients and your ability to generate revenue, it’s a business critical task, and one that cannot be reprioritized.
Automated dental insurance verification takes that task off their plates through an automated process. Automation not only verifies the dental insurance coverage for all the patients on your schedule, for the week, but does so much more in terms of ensuring your patients, and your practice, get the most out of their coverage.
In addition to myriad other benefits, sophisticated yet simple automated dental insurance verification can save you a significant amount of time and allow you to reallocate resources to support your existing staff, your practice, and your patients.
When conducting manual dental insurance verification, research suggests that every single verification takes a minimum of 12 minutes, and that’s if everything goes smoothly. Estimates suggest that, over the course of a week, handling insurance verifications, from initial checks and calls to clarifying issues, can take 20-30 hours a week. That’s almost a full-time employee and, again, that assumes there are no denials, no questions, no changes in plans, or additional challenges that plague the dental insurance verification process.
In addition to alleviating the time and resources needed to complete the insurance verification process, you’re freeing up your staff to focus on other tasks, like scheduling, that can help keep your patients happy and returning.
You’re not alone in struggling to staff your dental practice, but you don’t have to be alone in seeking solutions. iCoreConnect’s iCoreVerify is designed to help you free up resources and improve revenue while ensuring your patients receive the care they need and the coverage they’re entitled to. If you’re ready to talk about how our solution can help you and your staff, book a demo today!