At-a-glance
A leading outsourcing servicing for US dental practices embraced Time Doctor to refine the speed, consistency and impact of its remote team’s work.
Dentistry Support’s story
A woman-owned business dedicated to helping dental practices across the United States thrive—Dentistry Support® removes the burden of admin and accounts management from dental offices, so they can focus on treating patients.
Dentistry Support’s fully remote team members provide a range of outsourced services including billing and posting payments, verifying medical insurance eligibility and filing claims, and phone-based customer service such as scheduling and confirming appointments. Dentistry Support® is led by Sarah Beth Herman, a 5 time CEO with over 22 years in business leadership and dentistry.
The challenge
To earn the trust of dentists, the business is devoted to complying with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulations, and in particular—protecting patient information through strong data security and strong internal adherence to protocols.
Transparency is also critical: for both Dentistry Support’s clients and in terms of effective workflows when dealing with medical and dental insurers, who often demand evidence before approving claims. Keeping meticulous records and providing daily recap reporting on every task completed by her team were priorities for CEO Sarah Beth Herman.
Herman needed both of these objectives to be met efficiently at scale, thanks to her growing, national client base and global, remote workforce. And since Dentistry Support’s team is spread across locations including the United States, Philippines, Mexico and Pakistan, in-depth visibility of how they spent their time was vital.
It became clear the company needed a secure employee monitoring solution that would reliably provide proof-of-work and drive effective workflows without overwhelming remote employees.
The solution
Dentistry Support® adopted Time Doctor to monitor employees‘ productivity and outputs, as well as maintain an accurate record of all on-screen activities for audit and compliance purposes. CEO Sarah Beth Herman said the ability to hold people accountable was a “game-changer” because she was now able to:
- Maximize how she allocates resources and manages payroll;
- Safeguard her business through effective auditing and compliance;
- Verify employee process adherence to quality-check service delivery; and
- Genuinely support employees to be the best versions of themselves.
After starting with 10 accounts initially, Dentistry Support® now has more than 100 users tracking their time and activity with Time Doctor.
Core benefits of using Time Doctor for Dentistry Support® include:
- Bolster clients’ revenue: By using the Screencasts feature to capture all eligibility verification steps taken by its remote support staff, Dentistry Support® has the ability to quickly provide necessary evidence to insurance companies to substantiate claims that might otherwise have been denied.
- Maintain strict compliance standards: Dentistry Support® operates in the healthcare sector, and handles sensitive information on behalf of its clients, having an employee monitoring tool designed for strong data security has been critical to maintaining HIPAA compliance.
- Improve workflow efficiency: Herman said Time Doctor beautifully tracks productivity and was especially valuable for how it categorizes the specific projects, tasks, software, and websites her team spends time on—revealing how resources, time, and tools could be better applied
Dentistry Support’s team includes auditors whose role involves continually reviewing Time Doctor screen recordings to make sure people are following protocols, and completing tasks inside the practice management software correctly.
“Not from a ‘you’re in trouble’ kind of standpoint. Once you hire somebody, and then you hire a hundred more people—what happens is, everyone has their own way of training, their own way of teaching,” Herman said. Her goal is to streamline travailing, guide her team with resources and provide a better way for future employees of the company.
In this way, Time Doctor has helped Dentistry Support® to gauge process inconsistencies and address training gaps. The company also uses Time Doctor as a performance management tool.
Specific metrics set based on job descriptions can now be compared to actual performance measures from Time Doctor’s suite of reporting tools. Herman can understand what’s causing inefficiencies—which then provides the basis for effective coaching and support to help her team of professionals better manage their workload and energy.
“So I had an idea of these metrics before Time Doctor, but I was not able to actually measure them accurately until I had Time Doctor.”
The results
Sarah Beth Herman’s remote workforce is now more motivated and effective in helping dentists level up the efficiency of how they run their practices.
“Before we had a recording system of any kind, we were at about a 48 to 50% efficiency… since Time Doctor our efficiency level for our employees is between 86 to 89%.”
Fewer of Dentistry Support’s clients’ claims to insurance companies are denied because the company’s systems for gathering and presenting evidence of eligibility verification are almost watertight—supported by Time Doctor’s accurate and comprehensive tools. The success rate of approved and paid claims lifted from around 76% to as high as 99% for some clients.
“There are other software out there that offer screen monitoring and recording but not in the way that we can visually non-stop record.”
Herman said Time Doctor was an essential resource for quality control across the business, ensuring Dentistry Support’s clients get maximum value.
“It’s not just tracking time and making sure we figure out our payroll and our reporting systems and all the things—it helps us actually make sure that our clients get paid for the dental services and work they’re providing to their patients.”
Driving high performance has also become a more nuanced endeavor, with a renewed focus on ensuring employees have the knowledge they need to succeed and don’t experience burnout.
“We learned where we were making mistakes as leaders and expecting too much and then we also learned how to coach our team members better by watching what Time Doctor was able to show us.” For us it was about gaining transparency, creating effective operations and leading our team through actionable resources.
Amy Owens is a product marketing enthusiast with a passion for writing content that communicates the features, values, and benefits of products.