Cost Comparison – Inhouse Dental Billing Vs. Outsourced Billing

Managing a dental office is pretty much exhausting. There’s a lot on your plate as a dental practitioner, and as your practice begins to expand, you’ll sure have to hire a few administrative staff at your clinic. They would be responsible for scheduling patient appointments, entertaining them as they appear, and so on.

However, handling a clinic’s entire dental billing process calls for an entirely dedicated individual. You cannot just put that responsibility on your administration. Neither they have the experience to manage dental billing the right way nor time. And so, you’d be forced to think about either hiring a dental billing officer in-house or outsourcing the operation to some professional dental billing agency.

After all, the core objective of your dental practice must revolve around earning maximum revenue. And that can only be achieved if there’s a proper dental billing process in place. No matter how much effort and time you put into production and how good you treat your patients, there’s hardly any chance for revenue generation unless you have command over dental billing.

As a remote dental billing company, DentalRevu has seen multiple dental practitioners struggling to choose the best option between the two – an in-house dental billing officer or an outsourcing dental billing company. As a bunch of professional dentists ourselves, we can closely understand the struggle. The truth is – there’s no definite answer to the question of whether hiring a dental billing officer or outsourcing the operation to a professional agency is best for dental clinics. Depending on the size, structure, requirements, and other important factors, it could be either way.

Take a look at this comprehensive comparison and get inspired to make the righteous decision for your dental practice!

The Cost Comparison For Dental Billing – In-House vs. Outsourcing

A survey article by Ziprecuiter published back in the year 2020 revealed that an in-house dental billing officer’s average salary ranges around $18.26 per hour. In addition to the salary, in-house employees also come along with an overhead cost that varies based on their hourly rates or salaries. A common understanding is that in-house employees tend to cost almost 2.25 to 1.4 times more than their actual salary. This additional percentage comes from multiple employer taxes forms. They might include Medicare, social security, federal and state unemployment, payroll costs, workers’ comp insurance, and all the other benefits you may offer to the employees.

The outcome is – in-house employees end up costing you 30% to 40% more than their basic salaries. A dental billing officer that charges $18.26 per hour would end up costing you something between $43,824 and $49,082 every year.

Wondering how a small figure turned into something massive? Well, here’s the math to help you understand the depths –

This is the average cost of hiring an in-house dental billing officer per year. And it excludes any bonuses you might give to your employees once or twice a year.

Now let’s look at how much the outsourcing dental billing cost!

On average, dental billing companies usually charge around $12,00 to $16,000 based on the needs and requirements of a clinic. Let’s do some math to determine the annual expense –

Now, this is the average cost of outsourcing dental billing operations to an agency for a year. It comes inclusive of all the taxes and renewing costs, etc.

Let’s compare these average costs to determine which of them is cheaper and handier!

As we look at the cost comparison, there’s a clear indication that outsourcing dental billing services are massively cheaper than hiring an in-house officer. If you also want to save those extra dollars for something more critical to be handled at your dental clinic, you can easily outsource your dental billing operation to DentalRevu.

We have top industry experts hired in the team. Each of them has immense knowledge and specializes in the art of managing dental bills the finest way. They can help you uplift the revenue stream without really costing you a fortune.

What Factors Can Affect The Cost Of Outsourced Dental Billing Services?

Though the average cost of outsourced dental billing remains almost the same, there could be slight uplifts in the overall costing based on some factors.

Take a look at these possible factors which could affect the overall cost of outsourced dental billing services and stay prepared to tackle things at your dental clinic.

Additional Services May Cost You A Little More – A standard package of dental billing services from an outsourcing company would come along with basic things such as managing your accounts receivables. However, if you want additional services such as patient AR, online scheduling, insurance verification, etc. – there’s a 100% chance it would cost you more.

As long as you stick to the basics, your monthly cost won’t exceed the defined average. But for additional benefits from your outsourcing company – you’d definitely have to pay the extra fees. However, some outsourcing dental billing companies might offer discounted combinations of one or two services in addition to basic dental billing.

The Size Of Your Practice Matters – The size of your dental practice is a major factor affecting the overall cost. A practice could have one doctor serving a limited number of patients or tens of hundreds serving unlimited patient accounts.

Now that the number of your patient accounts really plays an important role in determining the overall workload required from your outsourcing company, it can significantly impact the cost of services. The bigger your dental service is, the higher the cost of outsourced dental billing you’ll have to bear.

A Startup Structure May Cost You More – A startup structure is entirely different from established dental practice. Your services might not be that extensive as a startup, but you’ll sure need the basic software setups and installations. All of that calls for a different level of dental billing services, so the dental billing cost for a startup might differ from that for an established dental clinic.

However, these changes in the pricing are only slightly different. The best way to pick the best option is fully analyzed whether hiring a full-time employee as your dental billing officer or outsourcing the operation to a professional agency would cost less. The lesser the cost, the more revenue you’d be able to generate. Though the element of quality has to be well-contained.

Multi-Location Dental Practices May Cost More – A very important factor that may affect the cost of your outsourced dental billing is whether your practice is singly-located or spread across two or more places. The more locations you’re operating from, the more billing accounts you’re likely to have. And that contributes directly to the workload of dental billers. Thus, the cost of a multi-location dental practice might differ from that of practice with a single location.

Is Outsourcing Dental Billing A Better Option For Your Dental Practice?

As we compared the cost of hiring a dental billing officer in-house and outsourcing the entire operation to some professional agency – the results clearly indicate that the latter is cost-effective. However, you cannot pick an alternative based on the cost only. It takes a lot of other factors to finally determine which of the two are best for your practice.

The finest way to decide is – to assess your dental practice and the billing department. Determine the number of patient accounts you’re dealing with at the moment and the possible profits they’re bringing in. Now, think of both the in-house and outsourced dental billing costs and compare them with what you’re earning as revenue. This analysis would truly help you draw sensible outcomes and assist in making the right decision.

No matter which option you choose – the primary objective shall be maximizing revenues while delivering quality patient care at your dental clinic.