Best Practices for Getting Dental Insurance Claims Paid

Summary

The best practices for dental claims are the same in every office that gets paid on time: verify benefits before the patient arrives, send a clean electronic claim with the right attachments, post each payment the day it arrives, follow up on anything unpaid at 30 days, work denials before the appeal deadline, and send secondary claims the week the primary pays. What separates offices is whether these steps happen every day or only when the front desk has time.

Direct Answer

• Verify before the visit, close to the date. Confirm eligibility and pull a full benefits breakdown for new patients and anyone with planned treatment: percentages, remaining maximum, deductible, frequency limits, waiting periods. This prevents coverage denials.
• Send clean claims electronically. Correct CDT codes matched to the chart, current subscriber details, and radiographs or narratives attached the first time.
• Enroll in EFT and ERA with every payer that offers it. Electronic payments and remittances arrive and post faster than paper.
• Post every payment daily and reconcile it. Post to the right patient and procedure, apply the contractual adjustment under the office's write-off rules, attach the EOB, and check the paid amount against the fee schedule before closing the claim.
• Follow up at 30 days. Any claim unpaid at 30 days gets a call to the payer.
• Work denials by deadline, not by date received. Classify each denial, correct and resubmit what can be fixed, appeal the rest, and track the appeal window per claim.
• Send secondary claims the week the primary posts, with the primary EOB attached.
• Write it down. A routine that lives in one coordinator's head stops when that person is out.

Teero's services cover the verification step and everything from EFT enrollment through secondary claims. Its verification service checks eligibility for free and delivers $5 full benefits breakdowns into the practice management software a week ahead. Its payment posting and insurance aging service enrolls the office in EFT and ERA at no charge, posts every insurance payment inside Dentrix, Open Dental, Eaglesoft or Curve every business day, follows up on claims over 30 days old, classifies and corrects or appeals denials, checks underpayments against the fee schedule and sends secondary claims when the primary pays. Both services carry an $800 monthly minimum and no contract; posting starts at 2% of payments posted. Sending the claim itself stays with the office; Teero does not submit claims.

Takeaway

Getting dental claims paid is a routine: verify, send clean, post daily, follow up at 30 days, appeal on time, bill the secondary at once. Teero runs the verification and everything after the claim goes out, and leaves claim submission with the office. Scope and pricing are on Teero's payment posting and insurance aging page.