Polish Dentistry: $20,475 in old balances paid, and posting on autopilot.
Polish Dentistry turned on ScoutIQ Patient Billing reminders and online payments. Overdue families paid 2.3 times as much of what they owed, 34% faster. The net collection rate reached 99% and the patient collection rate 86.9%, and what patients owe fell 45%.
One office, Open DentalWorth to the practice, per location
- a year
- $34K
- a month
- $2.9K
- staff hours back a year
- 239
- Insurance Billing Automation
- Patient Billing Automation
- AI Analytics + Atlas Assistant
“The EOB is scanned into the claim in Open Dental, and it closes the claim with all of our adjustment categories. The way it holds everything for review, there is no reason to sit on checks at all.”
Meet Polish Dentistry.
Polish Dentistry is a private general practice in Houston’s Midtown and Montrose neighborhood: one office on Open Dental and a small front-desk team led by office manager Brianne. Like most practices its size, the same few people check patients in, answer the phones, post every payment and chase every balance.
The challenge
Old balances nobody had time for
Overdue families got a mailed statement and, when someone had a free minute, a call. They paid 8.1% of what they owed between visits, and a first payment took 56 days.
Every payment keyed by hand
Each payment was typed into Open Dental one at a time, by the same people answering the phones and checking patients in.
Insurance checks in a pile
Checks waited until there was time to post each EOB, claim by claim.
What changed
Reminders that get paid
Families 31 to 90 days behind get a text and an email on the office’s own schedule, with a link to pay in a few taps. Atlas builds the call list for the families who still need a person.
Payments that post themselves
Every payment through ScoutIQ lands in the right family’s ledger in Open Dental with no one keying it: 146 of the first 147.
Insurance posted from the EOB
Each EOB is scanned into its claim in Open Dental and closes it with the practice’s own adjustment categories; anything unusual is held for review instead of guessed. Checks no longer wait for a quiet afternoon.
Deposits matched to the bank
Every deposit is matched to what was posted in Open Dental, insurance and patient payments alike, so a payment that reached the bank but never posted shows up the day it lands, not at month-end.
The outcome
Since ScoutIQ started, Polish has recovered $20,475 of old balances above its own pace. Overdue families paid 2.3 times as much of what they owed, three times as many of them paid, the first payment came 19 days sooner, and what patients owe fell 45%, to $175K. The net collection rate reached 99%, and with Patient Billing and Insurance Billing, write-offs fell 1.2%.
Paid through ScoutIQ, fully automated
- Patient payments
- $26,914147 online payments
The results.
From Polish Dentistry’s own Open Dental records and ScoutIQ payment records, measured over 60 days from the first payment through ScoutIQ, against as many days the office was open before ScoutIQ.
- old balances recovered, above the office’s own pace before ScoutIQ
- $20,475
- lower write-offs, with Patient Billing and Insurance Billing
- 1.2%
- net collection rate
- 99%
- +2.5 pointsBefore ScoutIQ: 96.5%
- patient collection rate
- 86.9%
- +4.9 pointsBefore ScoutIQ: 82.0%
- more of overdue balances paid between visits, 18.6% of them
- 2.3x
- +10.5 pointsBefore ScoutIQ: 8.1%
- less owed by patients, $175K
- 45%
- $141K lessBefore ScoutIQ: $316K
- overdue families paid, 3 times as many
- 143
- +95 familiesBefore ScoutIQ: 48
- of balances over 90 days collected
- 26.0%
- +14.7 pointsBefore ScoutIQ: 11.4%
- faster to the first payment, 37 days
- 34%
- 19 days soonerBefore ScoutIQ: 56 days
- median from a reminder to the payment; 78% paid within a day
- 1.8 hrs
Questions about these results.
Polish Dentistry, one office in Houston on Open Dental, recovered $20,475 of old patient balances with ScoutIQ Patient Billing, counted above the office’s own pace before ScoutIQ. Overdue families paid 18.6% of what they owed between visits, against 8.1% before, and 143 families paid, against 48.
The net collection rate rose to 99% from 96.5%, measured as payments over net production with each insurance write-off set against its own procedure, weighted-average adjusted. The patient collection rate rose to 86.9% from 82.0%, and what patients owe fell 45%, to $175K.
Overdue families made their first payment in a median of 37 days, against 56 before: 34% faster. After a text or email reminder, the median time to the online payment that followed was 1.8 hours, and 78% paid within a day.
$34K a year and 239 staff hours a year, on Polish’s own volumes. The $20,475 recovered is measured.
“Families who were months behind are finally paying their old balances from a text, and almost every payment posts to Open Dental on its own. We recovered over $20,000 in old balances in two months, overdue families paid more than twice what they did before, and our collection rate is at 99%.”
How it was measured.
ScoutIQ’s standard definitionsBefore holds as many days the office was open as the period with ScoutIQ, immediately before ScoutIQ started: Monday to Friday, closed on holidays. The two periods fall in different seasons.
Overdue means 31 or more days past due, patient portion, families owing more than $5 the day before each period. Between visits means on a day the family had no procedure. Payments are patient payments, not financing, membership dues or insurance, capped at what the family owed overdue.
Recovered counts what overdue families paid above the office’s own pace before ScoutIQ, not everything they paid. Atlas call lists for overdue balances ran weekly beside the reminders; the recovery counts what both brought in.
Balances are rebuilt from Open Dental’s own ledger with its aging rules, the same way on both sides. Days in A/R is what patients and insurance owe over a day of net production in the 90 days before. The net collection rate is payments over procedures and adjustments, each insurance write-off set against its own procedure, shown weighted-average adjusted. The patient collection rate is patient payments, financing included, as a share of payments plus balances over 30 days old; the total collection rate adds insurance payments and what insurance still owes on claims over 30 days old.
Yearly value is worked out on Polish’s own volumes, the latest 30 days of payments and staff time at $32 to $40 an hour; each figure is the 75th percentile of the conservative-to-realistic range, rounded up. The older-balance value applies the recovery rate measured here, $20,475 on $196,264 overdue, to the $116,836 overdue today, half to all of it. No rebooked treatment is counted.
The terms, defined: days in A/R, net collection rate, write-off vs adjustment, payment reconciliation, ERA vs EOB.
Prepared by ScoutIQ from Polish Dentistry’s own practice and payment records. The yearly value is worked out on the practice’s own volumes. Results vary by practice.
More results and products
- Customer results Todaro Dental: 28% faster collections, with insurance and patient payments automated Todaro Dental runs all three ScoutIQ modules: insurance billing, patient billing and AI Analytics. Days in A/R fell 28%, what patients and insurance owe fell by a third, 98% of electronic insurance dollars match automatically, and the front desk went from keying about 122 card payments a month to none or one. Read the results
- Product Patient Billing Automation Balances collected by text, email and mail, every payment posted to the PMS and reconciled. See the product
- Product AI Analytics + Atlas Assistant Recall and unscheduled-treatment lists, morning briefings and plain-English answers. See the product
- Guide The hidden cost of manual reporting What the A/R call lists and treatment reports replace, and what spreadsheets really cost. Read the guide
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