Dental Patient Accounts Receivable
Every clinic has a list of balances. Nobody wants to make that call.
Outstanding patient balances are a conversation most clinics delay longer than they should. We handle it professionally and consistently, with dental professionals calling under your clinic's number, preserving the patient relationship while moving the balance toward resolution.
Mint Ops calls your patients about outstanding balances under your clinic's number, takes payment where you accept it by phone, and logs every arrangement in your software, from $1,500 a month.
The problem
The longer it waits, the harder it gets.
Nobody joined a dental team to ask people for money. Your front desk knows these patients by name, sees them in the waiting room, and has to greet them warmly on their next visit. Asking about a balance feels like it costs something, so the statement goes out again, and the call keeps moving to next week.
The delay is what makes it awkward. A call about a balance from six weeks ago is administrative. The same call about a balance from fourteen months ago is a confrontation, because by then the patient has assumed it was written off, or forgotten it entirely, or half-remembers a coverage conversation that went differently than the invoice suggests. Time turns a routine question into a difficult one.
Most of these balances come from ordinary gaps: a statement that went to an old address, an insurance payment that came in lower than anyone expected, a patient who fully intended to sort it out and then didn't hear from anyone again. Usually nobody asked.
In plain terms
What patient receivables work is.
Patient balances accumulate for ordinary reasons: insurance covered less than estimated, a portion was always the patient's, a payment was missed at checkout in a busy moment. Your practice management software knows every balance and how old each one is. Receivables work is the discipline of keeping that list current, because every month a balance sits, it gets harder to collect and more awkward for everyone.
The method is a conversation. It starts with being able to explain the balance (what was billed, what insurance paid, why the remainder belongs to the patient), because most people pay what they understand and resist what confuses them. Then a respectful call: clear information, a way to pay on the spot, an arrangement when the full amount isn't realistic, everything logged in your software.
Tone matters most. These are your patients, people who will sit in your chair again next year if this conversation goes well. Handled consistently and early, balances resolve while they're small and the relationship stays intact. Handled rarely and late, the same conversation happens anyway, with a larger balance and more at stake.
The difficulty in accounts receivable is rarely the technique. Chasing balances is nobody’s favourite job, it never carries a deadline, and it slips until the balances are old enough to be awkward to raise. What works is doing it on schedule.
The service
A respectful call about the balance.
We call your patients about their outstanding balances the way your best front-desk person would on a day they had time: professionally, without apology and without pressure, starting from the assumption that this is someone you want back in the chair. That approach makes the balance collectible and keeps the patient yours.
How a call ends depends on how your clinic takes money. If you can accept payment by phone, the balance is settled in the same conversation that raised it. If you only take payment on the pinpad in the office, we get the patient committed and booked, and they pay when they arrive. That is a good outcome too, because the account is moving and the patient is back on your schedule.
Your clinic's number appears on every call, and callbacks reach your team. Payments, arrangements, and call outcomes are recorded against the account in your practice management software (MaxiDent, Dentrix, ClearDent, Curve, ABELDent, Tracker, and other major Canadian platforms), where your team already looks. We work within your clinic's own policies on payment arrangements rather than setting our own.
The people making these calls have at least ten years inside dental clinics. On this service that experience counts, because a balance conversation is usually about something behind the balance: a claim the patient thought would cover more, or a treatment they don't remember agreeing to pay for. Someone who understands dental billing can explain what happened, and an explanation resolves more accounts than a reminder does.
This is one of five Remote Administration services. It runs alone, or alongside recall, treatment follow-up, insurance verification, and payment reconciliation, with the same team representing your clinic across all of them.
What your team gets
- Outstanding balances called consistently, before they get harder to collect
- A professional conversation that keeps the patient relationship intact
- Payment taken on the call where your clinic accepts it by phone
- Arrangements made within your clinic's own policies
- Every call and outcome logged against the account in your software
- Wrong numbers, duplicate accounts and stale contact details corrected as we work the list
- A monthly report of what was worked, resolved, and arranged
Balance age and threshold are set with you before we start. Arrangements follow your policy.
Questions
Asked before you ask.
Is this collections?
No. A collections agency buys or pursues a debt and has no stake in whether the person stays your patient. We're calling as your clinic, about a balance, with the assumption that this is someone you want back in the chair. That difference shapes every word of the conversation.
How do you keep this from damaging the relationship?
By having the call made early, by a person who has had it before. Most outstanding balances come from oversight: a missed statement, a coverage gap the patient didn't expect. Someone who has worked a dental front desk knows how to open that conversation without putting the patient on the defensive.
Can you take the payment on the call?
If your clinic can accept payment by phone, yes: the balance is settled in the same conversation that raised it. If you only take payment on the pinpad in the office, we can't. Instead we get the patient committed and booked, and they pay when they come in.
What if a patient can't pay right now?
Then the useful outcome is knowing that, and arranging something workable within whatever your clinic already permits. We follow your policies on payment arrangements rather than inventing our own. An honest conversation that ends in a plan is worth more than a balance that sits untouched for another year.
Which balances do you work?
We set that with you: how far back to reach, whether there's a minimum threshold worth calling about, and which accounts your team wants to handle themselves. Some balances belong in a conversation your office manager has personally, and we leave those where they are.
Will patients know the call came from outside our clinic?
No. Your clinic's number appears on every call, and callbacks reach your team directly. Before we call, your clinic completes a number verification that formally authorizes us to display it: a CRTC requirement, and the reason this is legitimate rather than spoofing. We walk you through it during onboarding.
Where do payments and notes end up?
In your practice management software: MaxiDent, Dentrix, ClearDent, Curve, ABELDent, Tracker, and other major Canadian platforms. Every call is logged against the account with the outcome and any arrangement made, so your team sees the current state without asking anyone.
Can we run this on its own?
Yes. Patient accounts receivable is one of five Remote Administration services and each engagement is scoped individually. It's often paired with insurance payment reconciliation, since a patient balance is sometimes the leftover of a claim that was never properly resolved.
Pricing
What patient accounts receivable costs.
Patient accounts receivable starts at $1,500 a month on a six-month commitment. Where your clinic lands above that depends on the size of the list we are working and whether this service runs on its own or alongside the others.
Month one is setup and learning when your patients answer. By month three, results are steady enough to plan around. Six months is long enough for the months after that to compound. After six months it continues month to month, and either side can end it with 30 days’ written notice. You get your number in the first conversation, before anything is signed.
Get started
It all starts with a conversation.
Tell us about your clinic: your software, how far back the balances go, and what your team has already tried. We'll tell you what we'd recommend, whether that's receivables alone or alongside other services, and what it would cost.