Sikka Payments, by Sikka and Sphere, was launched at the GNYDM!
Sikka Payments is an easy to use app that gives your patients choices for when and how they pay, so you get paid faster. All payments are processed through a single easy-to-use interface. Unlike other payment applications, Sikka Payments posts all card and ACH payments automatically to your practice management system!
Check out this revolutionary product in this video from Kevin Henry.
Patient-Centric Approach Redefines Payments Integration for Dentists
December 2, 2019, New York, NY– Sikka Software, a market leader in advancing retail healthcare connectivity, and Sphere, the leading provider of end-to-end integrated payments and security software, today announced the launch of a new payment platform, Sikka Payments, for dentists and their patients. This innovative platform is designed to equip patients with a pay-anywhere capability and automate the payment and reconciliation process for providers. The announcement came during the Greater New York Dental Meeting, a global event featuring some of the best new products and services for dental professionals.
Dentistry has one of the highest overheads in the health industry, and when you add the ever-growing contractual write-offs, profits can quickly dissipate. What if there were a way to increase production without drastically affecting overhead? This can easily be achieved by refocusing the way appointments are scheduled.
A growing trend in dentistry is scheduling for production based on hourly breakdown. This process can be simple to learn, easy to understand, and organizes the mind of the team members when scheduling appointments. Most importantly, scheduling based on hourly production increases the opportunity to achieve the goals set by the practice.
Very often, dentists find themselves on a rollercoaster of production. There are days when a dentist sees what feels like a million patients only to be disappointed by the production number at the end of the day. Then there are those days that seem flawless: production was high, patient load was low, and stress was minimal. What if every day could be like this?
Scheduling based on hourly production might be unfamiliar to you, but there is an average hourly production already occurring in your practice. Here is the simplest way to calculate the current hourly production: Review the last six months of production, one month at a time. Calculate the hours worked by the office each month, and then divide the monthly production by those hours. The number calculated is the average production being scheduled per hour in the practice. (This number can be broken down further into individual providers.)
Next, determine if your current hourly production is appropriate. What is the ideal production per hour? With the overall annual goal of the practice in mind, determine if your current hourly production is appropriate by working backward to make sure your hourly production goal will be sufficient to meet this goal over time.
For an example of how to implement this method into scheduling, look at this scenario. Assume the practice consists of one dentist and one hygienist with a goal of producing one million dollars annually. Both providers work four days per week, eight hours per day and plan to work 200 days this year. This production goal can be turned into a scheduling format by dividing one million dollars by 200 days to equal $5,000 per day. Assuming the hygienist could easily produce $1,000 per day, the dentist would need to produce $4,000 per day. Now take each daily goal and divide it by hours worked. For the dentist, divide $4,000 by eight hours to equal to $500 per hour. For the hygienist, divide $1,000 by eight hours to equal $125 per hour. In this case, the practice should schedule a total of $625 per hour.
Scheduling by hourly production can change the way you practice. Rather than memorizing a template, team members will know where to schedule an appointment by looking at the numbers across the hour on the schedule. Although this requires an adjustment in thinking in the beginning, this type of scheduling will become second nature and easy for all team members to follow. You and your team will enjoy treating patients, changing lives, and hitting production goals one hour at a time!
Note: Now is a great time to update your fees. Get started with a free 10-procedure fee survey for your zip code from the app Practice Mobilizer, available for free in the Apple App and Google Play stores. Or, if you want more in-depth information, you can purchase a full fee survey with more than 600 procedure codes for three zip codes here.
Originally a high school science teacher, Dana Watson is a dental spouse and has been a practicing office administrator for 16 years. She is a speaker, trainer, consultant, and the founder and CEO of Distinction Dental Management Systems. She has the greatest affinity and heart for the dental spouse, which make up the majority of her clients. She is currently managing a two-doctor practice in Nashville, Tennessee, is a member of the ADMC, SCN, and is an AADOM Fellow.
This article originally appeared Tuesday, April 10, 2018, on DentistryIQ. You can view the original article here.
In my experience advising dental practices, I have found that the most successful practices do not necessarily have dentists with the most advanced clinical acumen or professional designations, but rather those who take most seriously the responsibilities of business ownership.
One of the most crucial indications of success is collections, the gross amount of money your business brings in each year. Certainly overhead, insurance write-offs, discounts, and staff salaries also play a role in your practice’s success, but collections are a key component.
Additionally, collecting every dollar owed is crucial as practice owners are furthered burdened by other financial pressures of increased student loan debt and higher operational expenses.
5 tips
Rather than spend time on variables that are outside of our control, such as government intervention, education expenses, insurance networks, legislation, and others, here are five tips you can use today that can help mitigate this trend in your practice.
Many practices make the mistake of underestimating the patient’s portion and consequently spend time chasing small balances that are cost-prohibitive for your practice and additionally create tension in the patient relationship.
By slightly overestimating the patient portion, you actually reimburse the patient for the difference. The psychology of patients getting paid by their dentist for treatment compared with ones that have to pay is an important distinction. Patients who get refunds are happier than those who get bills.
If you do not ask, you shall not receive. Even when poorly implemented, this simple policy can move staggering amounts of bad debt into your current cash column.
Asking for payment is a mindset as well as a physical best practice. Your patients pay for everything else at the time of service. Why do you allow your business to be excluded? If you don’t make the decision to ask, the patient makes it for you and walks out without paying.
“Your team will be relieved not having to chase payments from patients.”
If you choose options that allow you to automatically charge a patient’s credit card or draft their checking account, it becomes out-of-sight and out-of-mind for both parties. You are helping your patients improve their health and accept your treatment, and your bottom line also will be rewarded. Your team will be relieved not having to chase payments from patients, and your billing expenses will decrease.
Daily is best then weekly for billing. At the minimum, patients should be billed on a monthly basis. Any account on your accounts receivable list depreciates daily regardless of the reason. This clock starts ticking as soon as the patient walks out the door.
Develop a protocol that includes a series of steps and consequences if a patient chooses to not pay. Then take the time to ensure these best practices are implemented systematically. If your patients are not consistently reminded and motivated, they will quickly forget and will move onto other perceived higher priority activities.
I recommend having set, blocked times on the calendar for your team for this crucial activity. If you do not have the resources or the desire to do this in-house, consider hiring a company to do it for you.
We all do things that drive us toward pleasure (financial reward) or away from pain (asking for money). If your staff has an incentive, then asking for money is easier. Once learned, it’s like any other habit in that it becomes intuitive.
If you have the right people in place, share the success with your team. Paying this small investment has yielded large dividends for my clients.
Do you know what your collections look like? What does not get measured does not improve. Like hidden caries, an exam is required to find out where you stand.
Andy Cleveland has been working with individual and group practices on improving their revenue cycle for nearly 20 years. His websites are www.andycleveland.comand www.dentalpracticeninjas.com.
Download Practice Mobilizer and get all your critical practice information right on your phone: anytime from anywhere you have an Internet connection. The app is completely free and is available from your phone’s app store. The app integrates with 96% of practice management systems and gives you critical data to grow your practice. Find out more here.
This article was originally published January 25, 2018 on DrBicuspid. You can view the original article here.
October 22, 2019 – Sikka Software, the leading platform and marketplace for retail healthcare, was awarded Best in Health APIs from the 2019 API World Awards. This is the second time Sikka Software has won this recognition for the company’s work in the booming health API industry.
Sikka, with its One API, is enabling retail healthcare providers to accelerate their digital transformation and adopt new and innovative solutions that enable them to better manage their practices. Sikka’s secure platform cloud connects to over 90% of practice management systems and provides a single access point where partners can build their apps. There are now over 50 unique apps powered by Sikka’s One API including apps that help practitioners increase productivity, patient retention, profitability and more.
Update your fees every six months to keep aligned with the cost of living, labs, salaries, procedure mixes, and geographical trends.
Join Vijay Sikka, CEO of Sikka Software, for a free webinar on Fees, Profitability and Optimizing your Practice (the best 45 minutes of your time to enhance practice profitability).
Watch the webinar recording here.
Welcome back to the Sikka Software Podcast! Here at Sikka we are passionate about bringing you tools and solutions that benefit your patients and your practice.
Today, we’ll be giving you the breakdown of five key metrics that all dentists should know in order to make sure that their practice is maintaining profitability and serving all patients effectively. Utilizing these statistics will help practices run more efficiently and help providers better serve their patients.
Number One: No Shows to Appointments. If you’re getting a high amount of no shows relative to appointments, the problem may not be with the patient. A high amount of no shows means that a practice needs to look at their communication practices. We consider more than 1 in 100 appointments being no shows to be abnormal. Be sure to send reminder messages to your patients prior to their scheduled appointment times on a medium where they’re likely to see it.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Have you developed a collections plan for your dental practice? It can be challenging to maintain relationships with your patients while still taking steps to collect payment. Resources and best practices can help you navigate these situations.
Join Kevin Henry in an interview with Chris Morris from IC System as they discuss what you need to know about collections. They will cover topics like when to outsource your receivables, internal best practices and what questions to ask your collections agency. Don’t let your accounts receivable balance overwhelm you in 2019! This webinar will help you create an action plan.
Hi, welcome back to another episode of the Sikka Software podcast. Today we’re going to talk about using technology to enable closer doctor-patient relationships.
A strong doctor-patient relationship is crucial to ensuring positive health outcomes for your patients. A study by Health Services Research confirmed what common sense long suspected, that patients who feel that they have a strong relationship with their provider are more active in managing their own health. Psychology has long known that likability is a strong motivator in ensuring compliance. When patients like their providers, they are more likely to follow the provider’s advice and will have better health overall. Patients will also develop a sense of loyalty to their practice.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Sikka Software Podcast. Here at Sikka we are passionate about bringing you tools and solutions that benefit your patients AND your practice. Today we are going to introduce you a powerful benchmarking index available on our Practice Optimizer and Practice Mobilizer – The Sikka Success Score. As a practitioner, you can benefit from the score by comparing your own performance to other practices across the country, identifying areas that could use improvement, and building actionable growth plans. We will also give you a view of how this Score is calculated.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download