The Missing Connection Between Insurance Claims and Patient Payments

Getting paid is about more than submitting insurance claims and collecting patient balances. It’s about what happens between the two.

In dental practices, insurance reimbursement and patient billing are often managed as separate workflows. Insurance claims are processed, balances are reviewed, and billing specialists determine when it’s appropriate to request payment from patients.

That process takes time. And when the work depends on manual account reviews, balances that are ready to collect may sit waiting for the next billing cycle.

What if your revenue cycle could help identify when it’s time to request payment—without requiring your team to review every account manually?

That’s the idea behind Automated Payment Requests in Vyne Trellis.

The Hidden Work Behind Patient Billing

Most dental billing teams already have established processes for collecting patient balances.

But before sending a payment request, there’s important work to be done.

A billing specialist may need to determine:

Are there outstanding insurance claims?
Is the patient on an existing payment plan?
Has a payment request already been sent recently?
Does the balance meet the practice’s minimum billing requirements?
Are there other account conditions that should prevent a payment request?

These checks help ensure patient billing follows the practice’s policies.

But completing them manually across a large number of accounts creates a significant administrative burden.

For many practices, the practical solution is to review accounts and prepare payment requests in scheduled batches.

That approach organizes the work, but it can also create delays.

A balance may become eligible for collection shortly after one billing cycle ends, yet remain untouched until the next review.

The opportunity isn’t necessarily to send more payment requests. It’s to remove the unnecessary work between a balance becoming eligible and a request being sent.

Introducing Automated Payment Requests

Automated Payment Requests is a Vyne TrellisⓇ feature designed to help dental practices connect insurance processing to patient collections.

Instead of relying entirely on manual account reviews, the feature evaluates accounts against practice-defined criteria and automatically sends payment requests when balances qualify.

Importantly, these criteria can account for insurance claim status.

That creates a direct connection between what’s happening on the insurance side of the revenue cycle and when a patient payment request should be sent.

For billing teams, it means less time repeatedly reviewing accounts to identify which balances are ready.

For practices, it means eligible balances don’t have to wait unnecessarily for the next manual billing batch.

Automation That Follows Your Practice’s Rules

Every dental practice has its own billing policies.

Some practices exclude accounts with outstanding insurance claims. Others have minimum balance requirements or specific guidelines for patients on payment plans.

Effective automation needs to accommodate those decisions.

Automated Payment Requests uses configurable rules that allow practices to determine which accounts qualify.

These include:

Insurance claim status
- Establish criteria related to outstanding claims and certain accounts where insurance is present but a claim hasn’t been created within a specified period after a balance update.
Account exclusions
- Exclude accounts based on conditions such as Medicaid coverage, payment plans recorded in the practice management system, nonresponsive accounts, or recently sent payment requests.
Balance requirements
- Establish minimum balance amounts and select eligible balance-aging ranges.

These settings help ensure payment requests are automatically sent according to the practice’s billing policies.
Your practice maintains control over the criteria. Vyne Trellis helps execute the process.

Early Access Results: 89% Fewer Manually Sent Payment Requests

The operational value of automation becomes especially clear when looking at the work it can eliminate.

Among 11 early access practices with at least one full week of post-launch data, Automated Payment Requests was associated with an 89% reduction in manually sent payment requests.*

That’s a meaningful reduction in repetitive billing activity.

Instead of preparing each qualifying request manually, billing teams can rely on automation to handle requests that meet their established criteria.

This isn’t about replacing the expertise of billing specialists. It’s about making better use of it.

Their knowledge and judgment help establish appropriate billing rules. Automation helps put those decisions into action.

Better Timing Starts With a More Connected Revenue Cycle

Patient collections aren’t simply about how often a practice sends statements or payment requests.

Three principles help explain a more effective approach.

When you ask matters.

Requesting payment at the appropriate time helps practices avoid unnecessary delays. Automated Payment Requests supports this principle by identifying eligible balances and acting according to the practice’s rules.

How you ask matters.

Patients have different communication and payment preferences. The broader Vyne Trellis Payments experience supports a digital-first, not digital-only, approach to patient collections.

Fewer steps, better results.

Reducing manual work for billing teams and friction in the payment experience makes the process easier to manage. Automated Payment Requests supports this effort by reducing repetitive account reviews and request preparation.

Together, these principles help connect patient collections to a broader revenue cycle strategy.

Bring Insurance and Patient Collections Together With Vyne Trellis

Insurance reimbursement and patient payments are two parts of the same revenue cycle.

When they’re managed without a clear connection, billing teams are left doing the work of bridging the gap.

Automated Payment Requests helps make that connection by using claim status and practice-defined billing criteria to identify eligible balances and automatically request payment.

The result is a more connected workflow, less manual preparation, and greater confidence in when your practice is asking patients to pay.

The right balances. The right time. Less manual work.

[See How Automated Payment Requests Works]