Even though diagnosis and billing codes may vary from patient to patient, a few items are required consistently on each dental claim. We’ll now discuss which items you’ll need to ensure are visible on each claim before submission of payment to the payer.

What’s Required

The following information is required for filing a dental claim. Each claim that your practice submits to payers needs to include the following:

1. The Subscriber’s ID;
2. The Patient’s Name, Date of Birth and relationship to the Subscriber;
3. The Dentist’s name or Practice Name, Tax Identification Number or Social Security Number, National Provider Identifier (NPI) and phone number;
4. The American Dental Association procedure code number (CDT), treatment date, tooth number, tooth surface(s), doctor’s fees, and a narrative or description of services as appropriate;
5. The Member’s signature for release of information and/or assignment of benefits. Signature on file is acceptable;
6. The Dentist’s signature.

Ensuring Correct Submission

In order to ensure that each claim is correctly filed and submitted to the payer, it is advisable that your dental practice maintain an up to date practice management software. These softwares will allow your staff to enter the necessary data that is required for proper dental claims.

Be sure that the software you use for your dental practice is optimized to include the required data for each patient. For example, you might be able to create forms within your practice management software that allow you to created mandatory or required fields to be filled out before the form can be officially saved to the patient’s chart. Check with your software provider to see if these options are available to you.

In addition to practice management software, it is important that your practice utilize a clearinghouse. A clearinghouse is a software that integrates with your existing practice management software to scrub your dental claims for errors or inaccuracies. The clearinghouse notifies your claims staff of errors within the claims, allowing the claims professional to address and correct the errors before final submission.

If you would like more information regarding dental claim clearinghouse submission, check out our Dental Provider page to learn more.

https://www.benecare.com/dentists_info.asp?a=13&b=2

Articles with this disclaimer may not represent the beliefs or core values of Apex EDI. The following is simply a summary taken from the industry’s general community to help readers stay up-to-date on what people are talking about.