Utilizing Dental Intelligence to streamline dental office systems and improve timely payments by 50%

Executive Summary

‍Bellevue Dental Care and Implant Center streamlined and modernized its patient communication with Dental Intelligence, an all-in-one solution. Their system improved the collection of forms and payments, helping the office focus on quality relationships with its patients. This made it easier for staff to manage daily schedules and helped them receive payments more quickly.

• 50 percent improvement in collecting timely payments
• Most payments are complete within 48 hours of service

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About Bellevue Dental Care and Implant Center

Bellevue Dental Care and Implant Center is an established practice that has been in business for more than 20 years. Its dental team specializes in general, cosmetic, and restorative dentistry services.

Situated in downtown Bellevue, Washington, the office’s community includes families, as well as the high-tech companies in the area. This patient base tends to come from a technical background and prefers electronic communication: appointment confirmations, digital forms, electronic signatures, and more.

After years in business using an outdated patient relationship management system, it became clear that Bellevue Dental needed to update their workflow and software to meet their patients' demands.

When Office Manager Anna Shearer joined the team, her first recommendation was to use new software to better support office staff and improve patient communication.

Challenges and Objectives

Bellevue Dental wanted to eliminate daily patient flow challenges that bogged down the office staff's productivity and efficiency:

• Manual Activities: The staff was spending too much time on manual paperwork and time-consuming phone calls. Each patient needed updates for health history, insurance billing, and personal information. End-to-end, this process required initial contact and follow-up to make sure the I's were dotted, and T's crossed before an appointment began.
• Scheduling Delays: Even when patients arrived on time, the dental office had to manage scheduling delays caused by routine patient forms and paperwork.
• Missed Details: In the daily workflow, forms, paperwork, and small details inevitably got lost in the shuffle. Bellevue’s office staff spent valuable time chasing down this missing information, often after the patient had left the building.

Enter Dental Intelligence

If you’ve spent time behind the desk of a dental practice, you’ll know how tedious patient communication can be. Most office staff spend a large chunk of their day on the phone confirming appointments, chasing payments, and collecting patient information.

When Anna Shearer recommended the office bring on new software to help alleviate the workload, she had a very specific one in mind: Dental Intelligence.

After using Dental Intelligence at her previous office, Anna insisted Bellevue implement it as well: “I won't work without it again, having had it,” Shearer shares. “It’s like hiring another teammate for payroll, but they don’t take up office space. [Dental Intelligence] helps me that much.”

With Dental Intelligence, the office streamlined their system — gathering essential information before their patients even entered the front door. With text and email notifications, the software now handles the majority of their pre-appointment reminders and paperwork.

“Getting treatment plans, forms, and estimates signed electronically has been huge. I just send them digitally to a patient, they sign, and then Dental Intelligence emails them a copy. Patients love it too because nobody loses their estimates anymore. It’s a tight system and such a time-saver throughout the day,” added Anna.

Bellevue also happened to bring on Dental Intelligence during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic when practices were grappling with the added paperwork and safety requirements. In addition to the standard health history updates, the office needed to collect patients’ COVID-19 questionnaires ahead of their appointments, all while limiting the amount of people in the building.

“One of the things that is easily overlooked is keeping up with health history updates. Sometimes we realize we are years behind on the forms. Dental Intelligence has taken that worry off our plate, as well as the COVID questionnaire. It's automatic,” said Anna. “ I hear other office managers wondering how other teams keep up with health updates. I tell everybody it's Dental Intelligence.”

"It's like hiring another teammate...but they don't take up office space. Dental Intelligence helps me that much." -Anna Shearer

Results

After implementing Dental Intelligence, Bellevue Dental Care and Implant Center freed its staff members to focus on what matters most: relationships with the patients. Instead of spending hours on the phone or sifting through paperwork, the staff can manage communication more efficiently and focus their attention on the patients in front of them.

Gone are the days of manual check-ins and lost paperwork. Appointments start on time, and any changes that used to surprise the dental team are handled ahead of time, eliminating patient-flow bottlenecks.

In addition to improving their workflow, Dental Intelligence streamlined Bellevue Dental’s payment process. If a patient couldn’t pay for their treatment in the office, they now receive a payment request which they can pay via their preferred method — Apple Pay, credit card, etc.

“We’ve seen at least a 50 percent increase in next-day payments received after a visit. It’s been huge. That’s way better than waiting until the next billing cycle,” shared Anna. “All of the other Patient Communication Software that I've used didn't quite deliver the value they advertised, whereas Dental Intelligence really does. It made my life way easier.”

Bellevue Dental Care's Future Plans

Bellevue Dental Care and Implant Center has seen remarkable results by investing in patient-management software. It all comes down to peace of mind: the dental team loves knowing the technology integrates into their workflow seamlessly. Now that they’ve laid the foundation, Bellevue Dental is working to optimize these processes to provide a better patient experience.

As the team members turn their attention to quality relationships with each patient, Dental Intelligence runs in the background undeniably boosting the office’s bottom line.

Think your office could benefit from better patient relationship management? Don’t reinvent the wheel. Schedule a demo to learn more about Dental Intelligence’s proven solutions every dental office needs.

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