Better Practice Solutions, LLC

10/12/2026

09/30/2026

If you participate in the DenteMax Network, you're already in-network for NationsDental members under a new partnership between NationsBenefits and the Maximum Care PPO network, effective January 1, 2027. Claims will process under your DenteMax fee schedule, or your direct Careington schedule if you hold one. A new NationsDental portal is coming, with registration instructions to follow in the next few months. Keep an eye on your inbox.

09/23/2026

Aetna has reversed out-of-network payment fee policies in Illinois, Oregon, and Florida after state dental societies pushed back. If your practice is out-of-network with Aetna in one of these states, confirm you're not still being charged the rescinded fee. If you're in a different state and dealing with something similar, your state dental society may be able to apply the same kind of pressure.

09/18/2026

This month, we're recognizing Hispanic Heritage Month and honoring the rich histories and cultures of Caribbean and Latin American communities. We stand in unity with the people and traditions that make up this heritage, and we're proud to celebrate that richness with you.

09/16/2026

Aetna has confirmed a system error that processed roughly 55,000 Medicare Advantage dental claims under the wrong set of rules, applying medical balance-billing restrictions to out-of-network dental claims that should not have been affected.

Aetna says it is correcting the issue and reviewing prior claims, but it has not said whether reprocessing happens automatically.

If your practice sees Aetna Medicare Advantage patients out of network, this is worth a direct look rather than a wait. A misprocessed claim usually gets absorbed as an ordinary write-off unless someone goes back and checks it against what actually happened.

betterpracticesolutions.com

09/11/2026

Today we pause to remember the lives lost on September 11, 2001, and to honor the first responders, service members, and families who carried the weight of that day forward. We hold that memory with you.

09/09/2026

A full schedule tells you the practice was busy. It does not tell you what came in.

Production and collections are two different numbers, and the gap between them is where most billing problems actually live. A practice can be fully booked and still be behind on cash flow if the systems moving production into collections are not working.

If your production looks strong but your bank balance does not agree, the gap is worth measuring, not guessing at.

betterpracticesolutions.com

09/03/2026

Several states passed new dental insurance laws this year, and downcoding is one of the areas getting attention. The direction is toward requiring carriers to explain a reduction rather than simply applying it.

Worth watching even if your state has not moved yet.

What legislation does not fix is in-office tracking. A new rule only helps if the practice can identify a reduced claim in the first place, and most cannot, because reductions are entered without any distinction from routine adjustments.

If you have never looked at how often your claims come back reduced, that is a reasonable place to start.

08/20/2026

Boutique is not a smaller version of a billing company. It is a different arrangement.

You know who is working your claims. You can ask a question and get an answer from the person who has actually seen your account, not from someone reading notes about it. When a payer changes something that affects you, you hear about it directly.

That is only possible with a select number of practices, which is why we work with solo and small group practices and intend to keep it that way.

Book a free 15-minute RCM review at betterpracticesolutions.com

08/18/2026

The math behind the squeeze, from the ADA's own data.

Since January 2021, dental practice costs have climbed sharply — staff wages, supplies, and equipment each up roughly 23%. General inflation over that period ran about 27%.

Average reimbursement across all payers rose about 19%.

That is a four-point gap against your own payroll and an eight-point gap against inflation, compounding for five years. The ADA also reports that dental premiums rose less than 1% between 2023 and 2024, which is part of why reimbursement has not moved — carriers are not under pressure to raise it.

The uncomfortable conclusion: the reimbursement rate itself is outside your control. What you can control is how much of what you have already earned actually gets collected — clean claims the first time, denials worked rather than written off, AR that does not age past the point of collection.

Not a satisfying answer, but it is the one that is actually available.

Visit betterpracticesolutions.com to learn more