Addressing Dental Billing Issues with Alyssa Kimmins

welcome to the automatic patient podcast where we help your dental practice create a kickass recurring Revenue model here are your hosts Mr Jordan and Justin comto this podcast is powered by boomcloud create manage and grow your dental membership program schedule a demo on Boom cloud.com [Music] what's up everybody and welcome to another exciting episode of the automatic patient podcast I am your host today Jordan comto with me my trusty co-host Bentley fulman what is up Bentley how you doing man I am doing great it is

getting warm outside kind of not not compared to where our guest is from but yeah warm enough where I can see the Sun every now again and I can wear a short sleeve shirt in the afternoon so yeah I'm excited that's was good yeah cold weather sucks don't know why I living here in Utah I'm sure all of our listeners know why and how much I hate the snow uh in the cold weather so we have an awesome guest today her name is Alyssa kimmons she

is the owner of lighter ledgers Alysa what's up and welcome to the show hey gentlemen thank you so much for having me on excited to be here definitely Sunny gonna be 91 degrees today in Scottdale oh man yeah that sounds nice actually um I know it gets really hot there I one time I was in Scott and I think tires were melting literally they'll they'll catch fire if they're sitting out in an open L yeah it was like aund man 118 degrees or whatever when I

was it was crazy and my wife's family is in you know lives in Arizona so we go down there quite a bit um but holy smokes yeah it gets toasty yeah yeah so it's hard to stay pale and pasty in this weather but somehow I manage you you have to have a swimming down there if you live down there in my opinion definitely so cool so um love that you're on the show today today we're going to be talk talking a lot about billing practices I

know there's look my mom's an office manager uh I've been in dentistry for a long time I've seen so many problems with with billing but let's uh you're new to our audience so let's start with introducing yourself introduce yourself to our audience tell us how you got into d D and how you got into the the billing space and then we'll go with the Tactical questions here in a little bit sure so I originally got into Dental because um as a kid I didn't go to

the dentist very often unless there was a problem my parents saw it as a luxury and so when I went and got my teeth clean for the first time I love the way it felt when I was done so I'm like I want to do that so I started in Dental Assisting for the experienc dental hygiene from there and I've been in the field for coming on 26 years and so over the course of time I recognized some some issues with the front desk and my

back didn't allow me to do hygiene anymore so I switched over to billing instead nice yeah how how long how long were you in dentistry I didn't I don't know if I caught that um I'm coming up on 26 years this year 26 years in dentistry and once you're in dentistry you can never get out is what you can't yeah it's Hotel California you just don't leave it is a hotel California exactly awesome no so and you're just barely starting your your your business right now

which I know I know the feelings that you're you're you're having right now I'm sure feels a little crazy but congratulations for starting your own business and leaving clinical to help uh you know with with bigger problems in dentistry I think that's really cool so um what from your perspective being in the dental industry for 26 years what are some of the biggest challenges of of billing and and like why is that your passion to help this this industry fix these issues sure yeah there's several

reasons that feed into it and I would say oh gosh complacency is a big problem with whoever's at the front desk is going to be a big part of it I front office there's no real official training for it so the people who are given those roles are only as good as the person who trained them how good are they we don't know it's like playing the game of telephone yeah the you know how it just at the end of it just is all messed up

that's pretty much that's exactly right absolutely right yeah and it's just like it Gets Lost in Translation sometimes they're staffed and they don't follow up with the billing like they could do good you know when the payments come in from insurance but they don't necessarily follow up the monthly reports after that point and so there's just so many places that you can drop the ball in Billing and unfortunately it doesn't take long for things to get in rear it can happen just a matter of months

that things can fall behind and then it's hard to catch up on it yeah absolutely and I think I remember seeing this even at you know when I managed my my dad's dental lab we had that was one of our biggest problems is billing and accounts receivable um it's not a fun problem to have what um I remember having a lot of cash flow issues because of it I don't like cash flow issues I'm sure practice owners don't want cash flow issues like how how can

they avoid having those issues the big thing is for dentists that we all know they're they're great clinicians they are not necessarily educated in business so they need to pay attention they need to say pay attention to what's going on with those aging reports make sure whoever's taking care of it is doing a good job um and these days there's plenty of businesses out there like mine where we can do it for them and that way they know they're always caught up um it it just

kind of makes sense for the dentist to be in tune of what is going on um for instance I just did a claim or a a client where they had an embezzlement problem and they didn't know they knew something was wrong but they didn't know what and it was because they did start paying attention to the deposit slips they're like this isn't making sense and so in five weeks this lady stole over $3,000 in her own pocket and um sent off insurance claims in the amount

of $32,000 like it was a big deal in just five weeks yeah yeah and so I got to go in there get it all cleaned I was like a detective it was awesome I got her dead to rights I can't wait for the charges to be brought up oh yeah I bet no that's too bad and that's a very common compliment Dentistry so common yes and they're just if they're not paying attention they don't know and I wish I know the stats of like how many

how many practices you know have the embezzlement problem because of their billing issues um it's pretty absolutely yeah and so many won't report them yeah they just just assume it's being done or they're embarrassed so they're like you know we're past this let's not even do anything with it you goodness yeah that's not cool so so there's the Mal feance Alissa but like I'm assuming just the negligent of negligence of billing improperly or just not following up like you said do you have horror stories of

like accounts receivables that just get everybody's everybody means well but however yes I have multiple stories so this is kind of what brought my eye to it I recognized over the years I'd make a great forensic accountant if I Wen a high jist so here we are nice so anytime the office where I was working had the front desk leave I would pull the reports and I'd see we were on three different occasions one time we were 60 Grand behind one time we were 80 grand

behind one we were 100 12 Grand behind one of one um lady she was afraid to collect money from patients or send out patient bills it made her uncomfortable asking for money another one she was trained over in London with that insurance um system versus America it works a little differently so she didn't know how to follow up with insurance to get those things paid if they didn't receive the payment um and the last one he just got complacent and over the course of a couple

years just let it fall to $120,000 so I took it as my yeah took as my personal mission to get it cleaned up I would stay after hours of hygiene and then do all of that that way the next person who came in didn't come into a train rack and so each time I got those collections up cleared up and I loved it getting those ledgers to zero makes me so happy you think it's my own money it's like a game yeah it is it's a

puzzle yeah it's great well it's good to have people like you in the industry for sure yeah I didn't realize I be so passionate about it on average um this just got me thinking what like the Aging the 30 60 90 days in a practice like what's what's an average practice um is it like 60 days is it 30 is it 90 because I know insurance companies really influence the the cash flow of the practice and can put it in a real bad spot absolutely so

what do you seeing out there yeah you well what I've seen and what it should be are two definitely two different animals so typically you should have all the insurance claims paid the 30 days if it's clean claim sent in properly the first time that should all be caught up there's going to be exceptions that do fall into the 60 days if there's you know complications they want for their narratives that's fine but really you shouldn't have more than an insur an ortho Insurance claim out

more than 90 days and so what I see completely is they just fall through the cracks and the 90 plus days are the ones that are the highest and that is it's completely ass backwards it's not s my FR it's not good you're fine yeah yeah okay good so yeah yeah it's it's it's it gets like I said it falls behind quickly and the dentists oftentimes have no idea and what drives me nuts with this is they've now paid somebody to send in these claims maybe

follow up with it they don't fully follow up with it so they've paid them to do that job but they're not doing their job so now they have to pay me to do it so it would make more sense to have somebody like me in the first place pay me once not goodness twice yeah so that's actually really interesting you bring that point up because um one thing that really bothers me if I were a practice owner um from a business standpoint the cost to there's

always a cost to and I'm going to go a little bit out there from uh from the billing conversation we're going to talk business as a whole sure the the cost to acquire a patient uh there's always going to be a cost if a if a practice wants to acquire a new patient there's you know I think that's the number one thing practices once is I want more patients right um there is a cost to acquire it and then the after working with insurance there's a

there's a cost to to manage um and acquire the revenue produced right meaning the billing side of things so what you're saying is a lot of practices will pay somebody to do it they don't do a good job on it they're paying them so the cost the cost to generate that Revenue in my not in my opinion but in what I've seen in in any business there is is such a thing as bad Revenue um and so that that sounds like that practices allowing bad Revenue

to creep into their practice because they're paying staff and they're like oh we need to pay more money to acquire that and make sure that Revenue gets into our in our bank account that seems really crazy to me so yeah and your point is well it's way more efficient to hire somebody that's just going to do it the right way are you are you I'm imagining that's this the scenario in most practices because our first comment of office managers aren't being trained it's the game of

telephone and by the time they they become an office manager there's so much important tasks that just get forgotten or not are trained uh are trained uh correctly so these practices are getting into these these weird ruts with collecting money I is that is that kind of what you're seeing that's kind of that's exactly right 100% correct yes yes the the cost to acquire and then the cost to uh maintain money is really high in practices uh so we got to fix that yes exactly absolutely

it's a huge problem like I was talking about earlier the the lady who was trained on insurance in London with one claim that didn't get paid instead of her even just picking up the phone calling for it she resubmitted a claim 13 times so every time she submitted it we had to pay a claim fee for it how much is a claim fee I don't remember what it was at that point I want to say it was like 50 cents a claim with that system and

that goes back you years ago it all adds up and so again it's like she's wasting the time to see oh it hasn't been paid let me do this again like 13 times what are you doing you just had to call them and give them a date I don't know yeah yeah that's that's actually fascinating the the the world of dental billing has always fascinated me because of all these uh issues and the what it does to the profit margin of the practice also concerns exactly

right you're spending all this money trying to collect all that means is your profit margins are being reduced even more and on top of that you got the insurance companies that are reducing your profit margins and then there just another layer of that so having proper having proper billing is so critical in so many practices that that fly by the seal their pants on the the billing side or are are neglectful like that yeah we gotta you got to change that practice owners out there listening

yeah so Alysa on that front I mean you You' mentioned a couple of scenarios where uh maybe it's the front office staff or someone who uh like you said in that previous example where they're they're just sending in the claim over and over and over again which is you know if you don't know better you're just going to do well I'll do this till it works you know exactly um but what what are some other bad practices that you see out there that offices are doing

that that are really hurting them that they may or may not even be aware of oh goodness that's a great question you're gonna make me think on that one sorry no no no not at all the the bad practices so this is I don't I don't want to bash dentists but they're kind of cheap and so the problem is is that to me is a bad practice because you're putting bad money after good you know it's like why do you keep making the same mistake again

and again and again and again it's like you're recognizing there's a problem so let me give you an example I've cleaned up several offices and they're like okay great we're all caught up we're good to go and I'm like okay it would make sense to keep me on monthly so we never get here again but then they're hesitant they're like oh I don't really want to pay that $500 a month to keep you on you know I'd rather just have my office do it I'm like

okay I'll see you in six months you know it just doesn't make sense to me so those are some of the bad practices yeah I have to redo it all over again you know so those are some of the practices that I'm I'm seeing I feel about saying it it makes sense and it's a mentality thing right um I I had a family member that I helped with business at one point I won't say who to keep them from being embarrassed but um uh at one

point we had a really hard conversation this was not in medical or dental or anywhere completely different industry where they had a hard time with some of the accounts receivable issues asking for money uh doing the automated systems and hoping they worked even though they never did and at one point at one point we had this hard conversation they're like well if I get aggressive with this I'm going to lose customers and my response to that is these aren't customers they hav't you're not running a

charity if they don't pay you they're never going to be customers and if you can't get them to pay you then you don't want them anyway you don't want them yeah yeah and I think that there's a mentality there with small business owners because as Jordan put it's so and I'm the marketing guy it's my job to go acquire customers right or acquire patients I I understand the Sweat Equity alone of what it takes to to to get someone in the door in a practice that

being said if they come in the door and they never pay their bill then that's just that's doubly bad so just because you've invested in getting them in for treatment doesn't mean that you want them they have to pay their bills you have to be mindful that this is a business transaction um and I I think that mentality with all small business owners but especially with uh I've seen it on the medical side a lot too where they're just afraid they're afraid because they're they're providing

a service towards someone's health and they don't want to make it a about money they monetary they don't want to they don't want to have that conversation but at the end of the day you can't run this practice without having cash in the door exactly well there definitely is a a fine balance right if you if you run into a practice owner you know a dentist that is more money driven right you could you can read it right so I when we talk about money or

at least when I talk about money I always say well money is just a byproduct of the value that you bring to somebody exactly it's an energy yeah it's just a byproduct it's not it never should be the the Forefront of of your mind it it definitely should be uh something you think about to operate your business right but in order to receive great sums of money you need to bring great sums of value to that that person first right and even identify as Bentley said

identify the right types of of patients because that could be a huge problem when it comes to the the post I've done procedures now it's time to collect money if you're if attracting the the wrong patients you can it sounds like you could run into a lot of AR problems because of the wrong patients 100% yeah when it during goad I was gonna say or the wrong po plan right if that you signed the dotted line you don't want to get me going down that Avenue

yeah we're on the same page with insurance I could go all day about that yeah I one of the things that I try to stand out for with the accounts receivables because money is funny and people are emotional about it and especially if it's a past due balance like during covid I couldn't see patients for six weeks and so I switched to The Upfront roll and immediately pulled up the Aging reports and saw that we were uh $177,000 in AAR on our collections at that point

you know we had somebody that was doing a decent job not bad and so I just started calling literally calling picking up the phone call hey yeah I'm like hey you owe us money you know and talked about what it was and everyone I was like oh my gosh I'm so sorry I knew I owed something like let me get it paid and literally in four days I got $177,000 paid it was so so fast and so the key of what I try to do is

I you get more flies with honey you know I kill them with kindness I explain the situation I make it non-emotional like it is a fact I understand where you're coming from and then I get the bills paid you know and so it it's nice that I can keep that patient Rapport and keep patients happy even if they've been ignoring this or in the case where they haven't received a bill in a year you know it's like it's key to keep those patients because in your

case like you said if they're not paying they're not your patients but if they don't know they have a balance why would they have pay a balot they don't know they have yeah if nobody's talking to them about it and maybe they're bad patients like me that uh I never checked my mail like exactly oh it happens all the time I just I I actually had a dental practice do that very thing I I had an HSA plan with my last job and so we just

set up auto payments like I had a crown and I said yeah I'm putting this much in just take this much out every month well I switched jobs and the H HSA ran out of money and I completely forgot about it and I had a leftover balance and had they not called me I never would have known because I was out a side out of M soon as they called they said hey you still owe us like 250 bucks can we take care of this and

I'm like yeah it was they were polite about it they were pleasant and I was happy to pay it's like yeah you did a great job I love my crown I'm not gonna I'm not gonna stiff you on the bill you know yeah exactly yeah and they like I said they don't know they're not gonna pay so yeah it's such an easy way to go about it so great communication is key it sounds um especially is there like well send them an invoice last year how

come they haven't paid it yeah I can't believe this jerk man hasn't paid yeah let's communicate communication is key here and there's a lot of tools out there to allow that to be a lot easier you know absolutely oh no this has been awesome so what um re remind me what made you want to be do remote billing for practices because oh yeah like you said money is funny and I'm sure there's odd calls have patient that you know but like what what really made you

from go from to go from hygiene to this side of the house of Dentistry like what was the motives right the motive really was how excited I got about getting those patients to pay or the insurance claims caught up to take an aging report from like 35 pages to two just makes me so internally happy and so when I recognized I couldn't do the job I'm like wait I can do something with this and remotely I can do it from anywhere you know have a home

office but I want to travel my kids are out of the house you know I'm I'm an empty nester and I want to go see the world so why not do it from wherever I want so it's so many it's gonna be great yeah you've you've you've gone from cleaning teeth to cleaning AR yeah I'm just a cleaner Financial AR yeah you're just Financial Financial AR yeah yeah it's good to be detail oriented better than a hygienist you know Financial hygienist that's what it is you're

the financial thanks that's my next marketing strategy thanks appreciate it you're welcome no this is awesome so as our audien has listen to this episode and and connects with you um as a person and and enjoys your your tips and everything you shared here what what's the best place uh our audience can find you and um yeah yeah about you and your business absolutely on Facebook it's lighter ledgers l i g h t r ledgers and then my website is um lighter led.com cool lighter lg.com

go check that out we'll leave everything in the show notes Bentley so yeah um or you if you're if you're listening or driving stop and then you can click the link after you stop but Eliza we really appreciate you coming on the show today talking billing I know it's a huge problem in a lot of our practices um with the with that said visit our website and we hope you all have a rocking day thank you guys so much inter [Applause] [Music]