Practice Management Insider: Increasing case acceptance; 5 practice tips; and Medicaid eligibility

Dear Practice Management Insider,

When you talk with your patients about treatment acceptance, how often do they say yes? You might think your failure rate is below 20%, but Kevin Tighe of Cambridge Dental Consultants suggests taking a look at your patient files to see. He has some ideas to help you improve your case acceptance rate. Read more here.

In other Practice Management Community news, Jay Geier and his team at the Scheduling Institute are embarking on a health challenge. After 90 days, everyone will find out who had the commitment and discipline to make the necessary changes to adopt a healthy lifestyle. The same approach can apply to your practice: Are you willing to take these five steps to help it thrive? Learn more here.

When a U.S. state expands Medicaid eligibility to include dental benefits, does this increase the number of low-income adults who see a dentist in that state? What does this expanded eligibility mean for low-income parents of children in these states? A new study in Health Affairs has some answers and what they might mean to your practice. Learn more here.

Important aspects of practice management are patient communication and understanding their needs before you undertake treatment. As such, you use a health history form and discuss this form and their health with each patient. But, as William S. Spiegel and Dr. Marc R. Leffler write in their latest Legal Cases series, it is impossible to get every condition onto a form. Learn what happened to a new-to-practice prosthodontist who placed implants in a 68-year-old patient here.

Also in the Practice Management Community, you'll find the following recent practice management industry news:

• A new survey has found that dental offices have the shortest patient wait time.
• Henry Schein has added a payment solution to Dentrix Enterprise.
• AssureCare has launched a treatment authorization module.