S2 Episode 3: How Eligibility Support Builds Trust from Day One

In this episode of Inside Dentistry Support, Sarah Beth Herman speaks directly to the eligibility support team, recognizing the vital role they play in creating a strong first impression and building trust with new clients. She walks through the onboarding journey during those crucial first 90 days, stressing the importance of being precise, keeping thorough documentation, and responding quickly to client needs.

Sarah also shares how their 24-hour help desk plays a key part in making sure clients always feel supported. She highlights why accurate insurance verification and following each client's unique protocols are non-negotiable — because even small errors can erode trust.

Above all, she brings it back to the heart of the work: the people. Sarah encourages the team to take true ownership of their role, reminding them that keeping resources up-to-date and leading with care isn’t just good practice — it’s what makes their service exceptional.

Transcript

Hey, team. It's me, Sarah Beth Herman. Welcome back to another team episode here at Dentistry Support.  This one is for our eligibility support team, the first line of accuracy, detail, and dependability for our dental offices.  This episode is titled How Eligibility Support Builds Trust from Day One. Let's talk about what it really means to onboard a brand new client.

What our clients are expecting when they're onboarding and how every single thing that we do in the first 90 days  matters more than most people realize.  When a client signs on with us, especially for eligibility support, they're counting on us to bring order to what is often chaos. They don't just want accuracy.

They expect perfection. They expect, Hey, I hired a third party company. I asked them to do this job, they're gonna do it. They've had missed verifications, they've had bad data, they've been burned by previous employees, and they are absolutely expecting that Now that they're with dentistry support, it's gonna be perfect.

So what do we do? We show up.  The best. More thorough,  more organized, more human. More better than anybody has ever, ever, ever been. So let's start with the few basics of  what it means to work in our eligibility team. Now, obviously, you know that we have our 24 hour  support help desk. This isn't just some sort of feature we sell.

It's a promise, and it means our clients can depend on us day or night, especially during the early stages. If a client has a specific verification schedule, say they submit their schedule 72 hours in advance,  we go above and beyond that in their first three months. With us, we don't wait last minute to do anything.

We go above and beyond,  so that 24 hour help desk, when you see those notifications come in, that means we're busting it out immediately. We are immediately on top of it. If they have a same day verification,  our promise is that we will finish that full verification within 60 minutes,  but they will get preliminary information  within the first 10 minutes of that submission.

  Now that means as a team member, you should see that respond and tag the team, letting them know I'm on it. I got it. They need to know something.  They can't just submit something through a help desk and hope and pray it's gonna happen. because likely they have a person sitting in front of them. Now you really need to know exactly how the help desk works  so that you know how to guide our clients if they're abusing it or using it the wrong way.

If they send a immediate insurance verification request for a client that's scheduled next week, kindly let them know that we will handle that in our traditional eligibility format. Now, if it's someone scheduled tomorrow, we promise to complete those within eight business hours. Go back to the basics and what all of our literature says inside of our help desk.

Go through practice putting in an entry. Know what it looks like to our clients and what they expect.  here's the truth.   The first 90 days for dentistry support with a new client, it makes or breaks a relationship if you're inaccurate, if you're late, if you skip a detail. If you don't get the right information, if you don't complete the task, it sends a message.

It's not the message that we wanna send. When you're working in eligibility, you're not just verifying dental insurance benefits,  you are building our reputation. The client is making a judgment on who we are, based on how well  you interpret group numbers,  frequencies, waiting periods, downgrades history, insurance limitations,  fee schedules.

Their software.   You are building a legacy of precision and you are handing them the reason  to cancel support. let me repeat that. You are handing them a reason to cancel support. We don't wanna hand them a reason. We wanna be the reason they stay forever.  Let's talk about what detailed eligibility support looks like.

You don't skip fields. You complete every box. You read The frequency limits clearly like one in six months versus twice per year. You don't generalize downgrades. You ask questions  and you note specifics. You cross reference with previous entries or similar plans  to double check your own accuracy. You log into the portal to compare what you received over the phone.

You document any anomalies immediately. You are aware of PPO versus DMO versus indemnity plan  and how the benefit's structured.  You enter subscriber details, breakdowns, percentages, and waiting periods  with a mindset that someone else is going to rely on this completely because they will. Your eligibility verification is going to be placed in front of a patient  and that patient is going to be told how much money  they need to pay for services  based on the information you gave them.

If your information is wrong, that patient will be misquoted and they will be given a bill that they were not expecting. You must be accurate. The Wiki for your position with the client you're assigned to. Is your guide. Now, none of it is guesswork. You have help. You have tools.  Every dental office we support has their own wiki page.

 And on that Wiki page you will see the office hours and contact preferences,  submission schedules, instructions for how the office wants their dental insurance verifications formatted.   You will see screen recordings and videos of how exactly to verify  the way the office prefers it.  You'll see their logins to dental insurance companies.

 You'll see everything that they expect from dentistry support. But here's the kicker. If you go into the Wiki page  and you don't see a video for what you're trying to do, that's not a dead end. That's your moment of leadership. You go to your leader and you say, Hey, we need this video, and then you make sure it gets uploaded.

Within 24 hours, you'll connect with the admin team to make that happen. We don't wait. We don't assume we take ownership.  If we don't see what we need. We find out where we get it from, so that next time you need it or next time another employee needs it, it's all right there. Your team is counting on you.

You have to remember that your entire team is counting on your success  the first 90 days of every office we onboard, if you're late. It affects billing. If you're unclear, our phones team gets questions. If you don't document correctly,  our leadership has no backup. If your work isn't accurate, we look unreliable.

But when you nail it, when your verifications are perfect, timely, clean, uploaded properly in all the right places in the dental software. You've responded to the office at every chance you've completed your recap for that office  perfectly  so that they know exactly what we did for them. It gives everyone else the freedom to work from a place of clarity and trust.

You've changed everything. AI is getting better every single day, and one day it will automate more and more tasks. But here's what AI will never do. It will never understand the nuance  of a broken dental benefit. It will never send a message to the office  at eight 15 in the morning because you notice something didn't add up.

 It will never build trust like you can, and that's why we don't chase the easy tasks. We chase the hard ones and we do them so well, so thoroughly that offices stay with us for years, not just two months. This is what we do here. This is why our eligibility support team matters,  and this is why onboarding has to be perfect.

 This is why the first 90 days matter so much. ' cause everything that we do after that depends on it. If we continue support for an office after 90 days, we have won. We have won every piece of what needed to be done.

You've got this. You are seen, you are trusted,  and you are one of the most important people in the success of every dental practice we bring on. Let's go be the reason that they stay.