Mastering the Open Dental Batch Billing Workflow

You have a stack of completed procedures sitting in your system, and manually creating and sending claims one by one is eating up your entire morning. If you don't follow a consistent open dental batch billing workflow, you risk missing claims, delaying reimbursement, and creating a headache for your front desk staff when it comes time to reconcile payments.

Before You Start

Before you begin batching claims, ensure your practice is set up for success:

1. Insurance Plans: Verify that all insurance plans are correctly entered in the Family Module under the "Insurance" section.
2. Clearinghouse: Ensure your clearinghouse is configured in Setup > Family/Insurance > Clearinghouses.
3. Procedure Codes: Confirm that all completed procedures have been set to "Complete" in the Chart Module and that the "ProcDate" is accurate.
4. Insurance Estimates: Ensure insurance estimates are attached to the procedures in the Account Module so the claim amounts calculate correctly.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Follow these steps to process your claims in bulk:

1. Navigate to the Manage Module: Click on the "Manage" tab at the top of the screen.
2. Open the Send Claims Window: Click on the "Send Claims" button. This opens the "Send Claims" window, which displays all claims currently marked as "Waiting to Send."
3. Filter and Review: In the "Send Claims" window, you can filter by insurance carrier or date range if needed. Review the list to ensure all claims are accurate.
4. Select Claims: Check the boxes next to the claims you wish to send. You can click "Select All" if you are ready to send everything in the queue.
5. Send Claims: Click the "Send" button at the bottom of the window. Open Dental will communicate with your clearinghouse to transmit the claims electronically.
6. Verify Status: Once the transmission is complete, the status of these claims will automatically update from "Waiting to Send" to "Sent" in the Account Module.

Common Mistakes

• Forgetting to set procedures to "Complete": If a procedure is still marked as "Treatment Planned," it will not appear in the "Send Claims" window. Always check the Chart Module before billing.
• Ignoring Claim Status: If you manually change a claim status to "Received" without actually entering the payment, you will lose track of the money owed to the practice. Always use the "Unfinalized Insurance Payments" report to catch these errors.
• Incorrect Secondary Claims: If you do not set a secondary claim to "Hold until Pri Received," the secondary claim may be sent to the insurance company before the primary insurance has paid, leading to immediate denials.

Related Scenarios

• If you need to adjust a claim after it has been created, use the "Split Claim" button within the Edit Claim window to separate procedures.
• When receiving an ERA or EOB, ensure you use the "By Procedure" button to accurately allocate payments to specific line items.

Track all your outstanding claims at a glance with DentalCanvas — a visual dashboard that shows your insurance aging, pending claims, and collection trends in real time.

This article is provided by opendentalsupport.com, an independent community resource. We are not affiliated with Open Dental Software, Inc.