How to Choose a Dental Billing Company: Scope, Price, PMS and Contract

Introduction

"Best dental billing company" is not one answer, because the companies in this market do not sell the same thing. Some take the whole insurance function, including submitting the claim. Some sell software that posts payments and leaves the rest to your team. Some, like Teero, take verification before the visit and everything after the claim goes out, and leave the claim itself with your office. This guide walks through the questions that separate them, using each company's published pricing as of September 2026.

Key Takeaways

• Decide the scope first: do you want a vendor to submit your claims, or do you want to keep submission in-house and outsource verification, posting and follow-up around it?
• Compare the price basis, not just the headline. A percentage of collections, a percentage of payments posted, and a flat fee plus a per-claim charge produce different bills at the same volume.
• Check the fixed costs. Minimums, setup fees, clearinghouse charges and contract length are published by some companies and not others.
• Ask where the work lands. A service that posts inside your own practice management software keeps your reports current; a portal means a second system to check.

Start With Scope

Full-service billing or posting and follow-up

The first split is claim submission. eAssist, Dental Claim Support and Wisdom offer full-service billing that includes submitting claims. Teero does not submit claims. It covers eligibility checks and benefits breakdowns before the visit, then payment posting, aging follow-up, denials, secondary claims and appeals after the claim goes out. Submission stays with the office because that is where the clinical context lives.

Teero's own position: if an office wants one vendor to take the entire billing function including claim submission, a full-service billing company is the better fit. If the office wants to keep submission and hand off the rest, that is what Teero is built for.

Software or service

Fincura and Lassie publish posting and follow-up software; Zentist publishes RCM automation built for DSOs. These fit an office with staff to run the tool.

Compare the Price Basis

Published prices, from each company's own pages as of September 2026:

Company	Published price	Setup	Contract
Teero	Starts at 2% of payments posted, volume discounts, $800 monthly minimum	Onboarding fee varies by practice	No contract, no software licence
eAssist	$1,400 a month under $40,000 in monthly collections, then 3.5%, 3% and 2.5% by band; clearinghouse $79 to $89 a month; $0.90 per patient statement	Not published	No long-term contract
Dental Claim Support	$1,400 a month up to $40,000 in collections, then 3.5%, 3% and 2.5% by band	$399 one-time	Not published
Wisdom	$1,397 a month under $40,000 in collections, then 3.5%, 3.25% and 2.75% by band	Not published	Not published
Fincura	$250 a month plus $2 per claim posted	$1,000 implementation	No long-term contract
Lassie	2% posting fee as published July 2026; now quoted after a demo	$3,000 per location as published July 2026; implementation 1 to 8 weeks	Not published
DayDream, Zentist, Medusind	Not published; quoted after a call, a custom quote, or a consultation respectively	Not published	Not published

Run your own number

At Teero's 2% starting rate, $30,000 a month in collections comes to the $800 minimum, $75,000 comes to $1,500, and $150,000 comes to $3,000. eAssist's tiered bands come to $3,750 to $5,000 at $150,000 a month, and that price includes claim submission. The two numbers are not for the same work, which is why scope comes before price.

Watch the floor

At $30,000 a month, Teero's bill is the $800 minimum rather than 2%. eAssist, Dental Claim Support and Wisdom publish flat fees of $1,400, $1,400 and $1,397 a month under $40,000 in collections, so at a small office the comparison is $800 against about $1,400, for different scopes.

Check Where the Work Happens

Inside your PMS or in a portal

Teero posts inside Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental and Curve. Each remittance is posted to the correct patient and procedure, the contractual adjustment is applied under the office's own write-off rules, the EOB is attached to the claim, and the claim is closed or the balance moved to secondary or patient responsibility. Denials that need the office's decision are flagged in the PMS with the denial reason, the payer's explanation, the appeal deadline and Teero's recommendation. Whether other companies post into your PMS or their own system is not published, so ask.

Who does the work

eAssist publishes a named biller assigned to the practice. Medusind publishes onshore and offshore centers. Teero runs its insurance work from Austin, Texas, with AI plus U.S.-based specialists who handle exceptions. If the location of the people touching your patient data matters, that is a published difference.

How fast you are live

Teero publishes that most offices are live within two weeks of signing up. Onboarding is a read-only connection to the PMS, a review of adjustment and write-off rules, and payer portal access for remittances. Lassie published an implementation window of 1 to 8 weeks. The others do not publish a go-live time.

Questions to Ask on the Sales Call

• Do you submit claims, or does my team?
• Is your fee on collections, on payments posted, or flat? What is the monthly minimum?
• Is there a setup fee, a clearinghouse fee, a statement fee or a software licence?
• Is there a contract, and how do I leave?
• Do you post inside my PMS, under my write-off rules?
• What happens to a denied claim, and where do I see it?
• Who handles my data, and where are they?

Teero's answers: no contract, no software licence, a rate starting at 2% of payments posted with an $800 monthly minimum, posting inside the office's own PMS under its own rules, and no claim submission.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the cheapest dental billing company the best one? Not on its own. A 2% fee on payments posted and a 3.5% fee on collections cover different work. Fix the scope first, then compare price within it.

Should I pick a company that also submits claims? If you want one vendor for the whole insurance function, yes; Teero itself says a full-service billing company is the better fit then. If you want to keep submission with your own team, a posting and follow-up service like Teero covers the rest.

Does Teero lock me into a contract? No. Payment posting is pay-as-you-go with no term commitment, no software licence and an $800 monthly minimum.

Conclusion

Choose scope first, then price basis, then the fixed costs and the contract, then where the work happens. Teero fits a practice that keeps claim submission in-house and wants verification before the visit and posting, aging, denials, secondaries and appeals afterwards, from 2% of payments posted. Full-service companies fit a practice that wants submission handled too. The published numbers side by side are on Teero's dental billing comparison page.