Maximizing Patient Balance Collection
Collecting patient balances efficiently is key to maintaining a healthy cash flow for your dental practice. Here are some best practices and features you can leverage to streamline the collection process and reduce outstanding accounts receivable.
1. Automate Balance Imports
Use Vyne Sync to ensure all outstanding patient balances are automatically imported from your practice management system (PMS). Vyne Sync automatically pulls in patient balances and contact information–saving you time and increasing accuracy. It also allows you to post the payments that you have received directly to your PMS ledger. This keeps your records up to date, eliminates manual data entry, and reduces data errors.
2. Utilize Filters to Send Requests as Soon as Possible
Patients’ propensity to pay decreases with time. In general, balances older than 90 days will lose 7% of their value monthly (Dental Collection Statistics), eventually leading to unexpected write-offs.
Many practices wait 60 or more days after a patient visit to send out billing statements. They do this in an attempt to ensure that there are no outstanding claims associated with the patient visit.
You can easily use a VyneTrellisⓇ filters patient balances by age (30, 60, 90, or 90+ days past due). However, Vyne Trellis also provides a filter for excluding visits with outstanding claims (which is turned on by default). That filter allows you to send payment requests out for visits the moment that their insurance claims have been processed.
Reaching out to patients as soon as possible after their appointment increases the likelihood of payment since the visit is still fresh in their minds and paying the balance seems like a priority. We recommend that you batch your requests on a daily basis or at least weekly, with a focus on your 30 day aged accounts (rather than allowing them to age 60 or 90 days past the day of visit). Doing so will greatly reduce your collection costs while increasing your likelihood of receiving full payment.
3. Leverage Omnichannel Communication
Sending the same payment request over and over again via the same medium (SMS, email, or printed communication) can annoy and/or alienate patients. Using multiple mediums for your payment requests, on the other hand, can help them feel like a courtesy.
Create a holistic billing strategy that incorporates all of the following:
- SMS Requests: Studies have shown that SMS payment reminders boast a 98% open rate, indicating that patients are highly likely to read these messages. (Mobile Marketing Watch)
- Email Requests: These messages allow a greater degree of practice branding to assure the patient that the request is not a phishing attempt. When combined with SMS requests, the two messages give validity to each other.
- Printed Billing Statements: These communications act as an excellent reminder by remaining physically present on desks and tables until paid. They also proactively answer questions about a patient’s balance without requiring a patient to login to a portal–thereby reducing inbound calls and voicemails.
4. Prominently Display Online Payment Options in Billing Statements
Many patients treat billing statements as notices of what they owe when they return to the practice on their next visit. Why is that? Because it is so hard to pay outside of the office.
Checkbooks have become a thing of the past for many consumers. They are also leery of writing down their sensitive credit card information on paper and mailing it off to a business–where they don’t know how it will be disposed of after opening. In terms of calling in to pay, most practices miss 30% of their inbound calls. (Oral Health Group)
In order to prompt a patient to pay before their next visit, it is important that your billing statements prominently display online payment options. Those options (such as QR Codes and Payment URLs) need to capture the responsible party’s attention immediately upon opening the statement–letting them know that payment will be easy. The purpose isn’t to simply provide them options when they go looking for them (after they have sat down and decided to pay). The purpose is to prompt them to actually make the decision to pay by helping them to quickly see that doing so will be a breeze.
This will expedite payment for your practice and decrease the likelihood of unexpected write-offs. It will also save you money on billing statements by actually getting paid rather than sending the patient 5 to 7 statements between office visits.
5. Automatically Send Digital Payment Requests with Paper Statements
If your practice is signed up for our Billing Statements, enable the option to automatically send a text or email payment request alongside paper statements. This ensures patients receive multiple payment reminders across different channels, increasing the likelihood of payment (at no extra cost to your practice).
6. Enable Automated Payment Reminders
Implementing automated payment reminders can significantly enhance collection rates for your practice. Regular reminders keep payment obligations at the forefront of patients’ minds, increasing the likelihood of prompt payments and enhancing your practice’s financial health. Leverage the automated reminder feature in Vyne Trellis to send SMS and email payment reminders to patients without any additional effort on your behalf.
7. Use Your Office Phone Number for Text Messages
Vyne Trellis has the ability to use your office phone number when sending patient communications. Whether these communications are payment requests or insurance correction requests, sending them from your office number adds validity to the request and alleviates patient concerns about phishing attempts.
8. Upload your Practice Logo
Vyne Trellis will display your practice logo in emails and initial SMS messages when sending payment requests. The presence of your logo adds validity to the request and alleviates patient concerns about phishing attempts–increasing the likelihood of payment.
Upload your practice logo for payment requests.
9. Collect Cards on File
When patients make in-office payments, ask them if they would like to keep that card on file for future payments. After obtaining the responsible party’s consent, check the box for keeping the card on file when processing their payment (for copays, previous visits, or other expenditures). Doing so will allow patients to pay SMS, email, QR code, and Pay-by-URL requests with just 2 clicks! This streamlined experience increases the patient’s probability to pay immediately upon receipt rather than procrastinating payment to a future occasion when they have time to enter their credit card details.
A patient will pay with 2 clicks when standing in line or watching a sporting event. However, they are unlikely to pull out their credit card to start entering payment information in such a setting.
Having a card on file also allows your staff to take a payment over the phone without requiring the patient to read their sensitive credit card information out loud and over the phone (something that they have been told to never do).
Having a card on file is particularly beneficial for patients that use HSA cards for payment.
10. Conduct Weekly AR Reviews
By making AR reviews a routine part of your practice’s operations, you can minimize overdue balances, reduce unexpected write-offs, and improve overall collection efficiency.
What a Good AR Review Looks Like:
- Consistent review cadence – Set a weekly or monthly schedule to assess outstanding balances.
- Categorization of overdue accounts – Identify accounts by age (30, 60, 90+ days) and prioritize accordingly.
- Clear follow-up plan – Define when and how reminders are sent and who follows up on outstanding balances.
- Actionable insights – Identify patterns in overdue accounts and adjust billing processes to improve collections.
Regular AR reviews help dental practices stay on top of collections, minimize aging balances, and improve financial stability.
