DrBicuspid.com Practice Management Insider

Dear Practice Management Insider,

Welcome to our Practice Management Insider sponsored by Dental Marketing.

As always, there's new content in our Practice Management Community, led by our popular column on insurance coding by Dr. Doyle Williams. In this edition, he writes about coding for patients who need limited scaling and root planing but who have otherwise healthy mouths.

Dr. Roger P. Levin writes for DrBicuspid.com every week. In this Practice Success column, he writes that your most enthusiastic patients may tell everyone they know what a great dentist you are, but there's a limit to how many people will get this message directly from the source. By collecting written testimonials from happy patients, you'll be able to spread the good word indirectly. Include the best testimonials in printed materials such as your practice brochure and on your website.

Another practice management expert, Sally McKenzie, offers six tips to reduce no-shows and cancellations. As she writes, broken appointments can mean tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenues every year. And that doesn't even include the thousands of dollars in lost production you never even had the chance to diagnose.

Steven Edelstein, the vice president of the Hilb Group of New York, writes that a topic that isn't often covered until too late is practice insurance, specifically business overhead expense insurance. He writes about the benefits of this insurance to your practice here.

Because of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Medicaid market for dental care will grow significantly nationwide, according to new research by the ADA Health Policy Institute. But translating expanded Medicaid dental benefits coverage to expanded access to dental care will require significant reforms to Medicaid programs, the researchers noted. Read Features Editor Donna Domino's article here.