Cash Flow Too Slow? 5 Ways For You to Improve Cash Flow at Your Dental Practice

When you imagine your dental practice running at peak performance, what do you envision? Are you fully staffed and fully booked with appointments? Is all of your technology running smoothly? What about accounts receivable— is everything getting paid on time? 

A healthy cash flow is one of the main features of a well-operating dental practice. But if your cash flow is more like a cash trickle, major problems begin to pile up. 

Improving your cash flow should be one of your biggest priorities this year.

Imagine the relief you’ll feel when your cash flow improves and you can focus on taking care of patients, not stressing out over dental accounting and bookkeeping tasks! 

If you’re ready to take control of your dental practice’s cash flow, here are 5 ways you can improve cash flow at your practice. Make your life easier by following these steps!

1. Review Your Accounts Receivable Procedures

How up-to-date are your accounts receivable practices? Are you stuck in a previous era of accounts receivable bookkeeping, or have you consistently made changes to update your procedures? 

Sometimes, when other responsibilities feel more urgent, you might end up forgoing important updates to your day-to-day business practices. 

Unfortunately, unpaid bills make up a large percentage of the cash flow issues in many dental practices. One of the best ways to improve cash flow is to improve accounts receivable and billing. 

Some ways to do this include:

• Transparent communication with patients about what they can expect to pay
• Making phone calls to patients with an outstanding balance
• Proactively sending out monthly statements and bills

Unfortunately, unpaid bills make up a large percentage of the cash flow issues in many dental practices.

2. Accept More Forms Of Payment

To increase patient compliance with billing, consider accepting more payment methods. 

For example, you likely already take credit cards and cash. But do you use contactless systems like PayPal, Google Pay, Zelle, and Apple Wallet?

You may not be able to accept all of these methods of payment, but any methods you can add will help you bring in more payments overall. 

3. Offer Financing

What happens if your patients can’t pay upfront for their dental care? Too often, they either leave without getting the care they need, or they look for somewhere cheaper. 

When you offer financing options to your patients, you are doing something that benefits both of you! They get the care they need when they need it, and you get to be the provider they choose for their services. 

You have two options for offering financing:

1. You can offer financing yourself
2. You can outsource your financing offerings

There are pros and cons to both options, but being able to offer flexibility to your patients is a win for everybody.

4. communicate Your Payment Policies to your patients

If you have a lot of non-paying patients, it’s likely time to examine your payment policies. 

Do you clearly communicate your expectations to your patients? Do they receive information that outlines when payments will be due and what the penalties could be for non-payment?

Also important: how consistent are you with enforcing your established policies? 

Unfortunately, some patients will take advantage of lax policy enforcement. If they notice that they can delay payments indefinitely, they will continue to do so— and you end up carrying the costs. 

5. Get Advice From Your CPA

A small business or dental CPA can offer useful advice for increasing cash flow.

They can evaluate everything from your accounting records income statements, accounts receivable, cash flow statements, and cash outflow predictions. 

To get dental practice accounting right, you’ll need a CPA who knows about small businesses, the dental industry, tax laws, and more. 

Chaliff + Associates: Dental CPAs That Can Help You Increase Your Cash Flow

Chaliff + Associates is proud to be a premier small business and dental practice accounting service for the Memphis area and Mid-South. 

We are uniquely qualified to provide outstanding customer service to dental practices owners. We know that you face challenges that are unique to the dental industry, and we understand how it feels to constantly juggle your need to provide excellent care with the financial needs of your practice. 

Schedule a free consultation with one of our experienced dental practice accounting professionals today. We know you’re busy, so we make it easy to pick the time and date that works for you! 

Click here to schedule your no-obligation consultation today!