Running a dental practice today isn’t just about dentistry. It’s about running a business, and more often than not, the financial side is what keeps practice owners up at night.
We hear it all the time, “We’re seeing patients, we’re producing, but we still feel behind on collections.” Or, “Our accounts receivable is creeping up, but I don’t have time to figure out why.”
That’s the thing about billing problems: They’re rarely loud. They don’t show up all at once. They build slowly and quietly until one day, you’re staring at a backlog of unpaid claims, confused patients, and a bank balance that doesn’t reflect the work your team is doing. If that’s where you are right now, you’re not alone.
What you don’t know is costing you
Running a busy dental practice means making hundreds of decisions each day, often based on instinct and habit. Billing, however, isn’t something you can afford to run on autopilot.
Many offices assume everything is fine because no one is complaining. Meanwhile, claims are aging out, adjustments go unreviewed, and patient balances quietly stack up behind the scenes. The result? Thousands of dollars slipping away each month -- unnoticed until it’s too late to recover.
If you ever thought the following:
- “We’re busy, so why is cash flow tight?”
- “Why does our AR keep growing?”
- “I thought those claims were handled …”
Then it may be time for a gut check. You haven’t done anything wrong, but your systems may be quietly working against you.
The good news: A quick audit of your financial health can make a real difference. With the right tools and data -- much of which you already have -- you can identify missing revenue and improve collections without adding chaos to your day.
So, what can you do?
This isn’t about running marathon spreadsheets or becoming a billing expert overnight. A billing self-audit is a focused check-in -- a way to assess your practice’s financial health using a few key reports from your practice management software. Think of it as a diagnostic for your billing engine.
With the right guidance, you can clearly see where breakdowns are happening, whether that’s claims not being followed up, patient balances aging out, or unnecessary adjustments. You’ll know what’s happening and what to do next.
With just a few metrics, you can uncover these roadblocks:
- Where revenue is getting stuck
- What isn’t being followed up
- Where systems or staffing may be creating bottlenecks
These insights make decision-making easier. You’ll know whether to fix workflows, coach your team, or delegate part of the process. You don’t have to do everything, but you need visibility into what’s happening behind the scenes to protect what you’ve already earned. You can’t fix what you can’t see.
Why this matters
We’ve worked with hundreds of practices and seen the same patterns repeat:
- A practice producing $100,000 a month but collecting only $88,000
- Another sitting on $300,000 in AR, much of it more than 90 days old
- Dedicated teams doing their best -- without the tools or time to get ahead
These teams aren’t careless or lazy. They simply lack visibility. And when no one is closely watching the numbers, even productive practices lose revenue quickly.
A billing self-audit won’t fix everything overnight, but it will show you exactly where problems exist. It replaces guessing with clarity and allows you to make smarter decisions about your revenue systems.
When claims sit too long, balances age out, or write-offs pile up, the impact goes beyond finances. It strains your team, frustrates patients, and limits sustainable growth. Visibility gives you the power to act.
This isn’t about mastering financial reports. It’s about using the tools you already have: pulling a few reports, reviewing key metrics, and understanding what they reveal. You can absolutely run this self-audit on your own. We created a DIY Dental Billing Self-Audit Kit with step-by-step guidance, benchmarks, and examples.
And if you’d rather have a partner handle the digging and problem-solving, that’s what we do at Wisdom. We run this audit for every new client before touching a single claim, because fixing the right problems matters.
Whether you DIY or delegate, what matters is taking the first step. Your practice -- and your peace of mind -- will thank you. Your practice may be producing well, but hidden billing gaps could be quietly draining revenue and stressing your team.
Ashley Bond is the co-founder and chief dental billing officer at Wisdom, a dental billing company. She previously founded Bond Dental Billing. Bond has a background deeply rooted in the dental industry. She worked alongside her father in his dental practice. Bond is passionate about helping dental practices thrive through innovative solutions and effective dental billing strategies.
The comments and observations expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinions of DrBicuspid.com, nor should they be construed as an endorsement or admonishment of any particular idea, vendor, or organization.
