Your practice may be busier than ever these days. Between handling new protocols, staff shortages and patients’ increasing expectations, there’s a lot on your plate. Fortunately though, patient financing is now integrated into the latest version of your practice management software (PMS)—and activating it can help you reap the benefits.

While you and your staff might be comfortable with the current version of your PMS, and with processing patient transactions through your terminal or portal, accessing the patient financing integration in the Open Dental platform requires minimal effort that can pay off in the long term.

Let’s consider some of the key benefits and help you rethink some common hesitations you may have about leveraging the patient financing integration in your PMS.

Hesitation 1: Financing is not a high priority for my staff among our other responsibilities.

The integration of patient financing into your PMS offers a multitude of benefits for your practice.

Help improve revenue cycles: We know your staff’s time is valuable. With an integrated payment option embedded in Open Dental software, your practice can spend less time processing payments and more time helping patients get the care they need. It eliminates the need for your staff to process payments manually and provides patients with an easy, secure way to pay for their dental treatments over time—similar to how they would pay for retail purchases. Providing a simple way to pay also helps reduce the likelihood of human error and improve billing collections.

Help increase patient engagement: We also know that providing a great patient experience is important to you. The reality is that patients want and expect payment options to help them move forward with the care they need. The software’s tools, features and integrated payment option provides several opportunities for you to educate and engage with patients. For example, when you have a patient’s account and payment information easily accessible at your fingertips, you’ll feel more prepared before they even arrive. Knowing current insurance coverage and available payment options will help you lead straightforward and successful cost conversations. Then you can use automated tools to send messages to patients for a follow-up visit or future appointment—and remind them about a convenient way to pay over time.

Hesitation 2: Learning to use a new feature in my PMS will take too much effort, and I’m happy with how things are.

We understand that you’re busy and may be comfortable with the current process. However, it allows you and your staff to manage multiple processes seamlessly, from patient scheduling and documentation to processing credit applications and transactions—all from one screen. With everything available in a centralized location, you can access important information in just a few clicks, without having to close your window or open another program. It can also reduce human error in managing information across multiple locations. This can help you breeze through workflows and save time completing everyday tasks.

Hesitation 3: Activating the new feature in my PMS will take too long.

We know that there is a lot for your team to balance each day as your practice aims to complete administrative work and maintain billing processes, all while striving to improve patient outcomes. This can be a major challenge, so maybe that means it’s time to put a structure in place that can help automate and streamline tasks.

The good news is, activating the new patient financing feature in your PMS only takes a few simple clicks—that’s it! Just visit https://www.opendental.com/site/carecredit.html to learn how. Once the activation is complete, the patient financing integration will be ready for you to use right away. You can also easily see if patients are pre-approved with Batch Quickscreen.

As these benefits help demonstrate, your practice’s success is worth the investment. There’s no need to wonder if activating integrated patient financing in Open Dental will be too costly or disruptive to your dental practice. Because, in reality, the patient financing integration with the software you’re already investing in can help you boost efficiency, improve payment collections and help more patients get care without delay. In the long run, your practice may experience cost savings as a result.

Want to learn more about simplifying your workflow?

The patient financing integration is available to providers who accept the CareCredit credit card and use Open Dental Software. Speak to our team about how to get started offering CareCredit to help improve the financial experience for your patients and staff. For more information about benefits and to ensure your integration is seamless and successful, visit https://www.opendental.com/site/carecredit.html.