Dental Profit Killers

Lucy Dio of DentalEonomic.com wrote a great article worth your read. She identifies five hidden profit killers for dental practices. These profit killers create owner stress and can hurt cash flow. They are:

1. Untracked insurance write-offs.

   Lost income from uncollectible insurance payments and from the patient for services provided.

   
   

2. Patient and insurance credit balances.

   Credit balances can overstate the accounts receivables owed to the practice.

   
   

3. Forecasting revenue from unscheduled treatment plans.

   This can create a false sense of expected revenue and mask actual practice cash flow.

   
   

4. Not tracking provider-level production and collections.

   You need to understand where the revenue is coming from so you can properly staff for it.

   
   

5. Misreported income from third-party financing and prepayment.

   Third-part financing and prepayment plans sometimes get misclassified as revenue. These errors can inflate revenue in one month and under report it in others. The better practice is to match recongnized revenue in the month services get rendered.

For more, read Ms. Dio's article.