In the world of dental practice management, it is easy to get seduced by "Production." We celebrate the $10,000 days and the record-breaking months. But there is a sobering reality in business: Production is vanity; Cash Flow is sanity.
You can produce $2 million a year, but if your "Days in Accounts Receivable (AR)" is climbing, your practice is effectively giving out interest-free loans while struggling to meet its own payroll.
Understanding your Days in AR—the average number of days it takes for a practice to get paid after a service is rendered—is one of the most significant "vitals checks" for your financial health.
Unfortunately, the longer a debt remains unpaid, the less likely it is to ever be collected. In the dental industry, time is the greatest enemy of your accounts receivable. Dun & Bradstreet statistics show that the probability of collecting a past-due balance drops to roughly 70% at 90 days, and plummets to just 23% after one year. As debt ages, patients become less likely to prioritize payment for a service they have already received, and the administrative cost of recovery often begins to outweigh the value of the balance itself.
To protect your practice’s cash flow, early intervention within the first 30–60 days is critical.
Most practice owners don't notice a slow financial leak. If the number of days your practice collects its money creeps up from 30 to 45 days, it might not seem like a catastrophe on a Tuesday morning. However, that 15-day delay quietly drains your cash reserves. When money stays in AR, it isn't just "sitting there"—it is losing value.
A jump from 30 to 45 days in AR often means your team is struggling with insurance denials, forgotten patient balances, or a breakdown in the checkout process. Without a visual "Early Warning System," you might not realize there is a problem to be solved.
This is where the Flex Insights Carousel and Days in AR Graph transform from "tech features" into financial consultants. Instead of waiting for 40-page PDFs that get printed once a month and buried under a pile of mail, turn to the real-time Flex Analytics and Reporting with Open Dental integration.
Make costs visible—before resistance sets in.
One of Flex’s most effective features is the ability to present treatment plans on a tablet. Patients clearly see their insurance breakdown and out-of-pocket costs. Include customizable payment options (like same-day discounts or financing) directly in the presentation. Patients can select a plan and with FlexPay, pay immediately on the tablet before the procedure even begins.
Verify before you present, not after you chase.
Do real-time insurance eligibility checks at time of treatment presentation using FlexVerification.
Capture payment when checkout doesn’t happen.
If a patient is in a hurry and can't wait for a formal checkout, or if there is a remaining balance after insurance, FlexPay bridges the gap. Staff can send a secure payment link via SMS or email with one click. Patients pay on their own phones using Apple Pay, Google Pay, or a credit card—no portal logins or passwords required. This "frictionless" experience significantly increases the speed of recovery.
Replace paper statements with persistent, polite reminders.
To prevent debt from reaching the 90-day mark, Flex Automated Patient Statements "nudge" patients to make payment. Instead of printing and mailing paper statements, which are often ignored, Flex sends automated digital invoices. You can set a schedule to automatically resend these digital statements if they remain unpaid, keeping the balance top-of-mind for the patient without extra work for your admin team.
Eliminate ledger guesswork the moment payment clears.
When a payment is made through FlexPay, it automatically posts to your Open Dental ledger and allocates the funds to the correct procedure and provider. This ensures your aging reports are always accurate, so you aren't chasing patients who have already paid.
Remove your practice from the collections business.
For larger cases that might otherwise go to collections, Flex integrates with Wisetack, a lender that offers patients monthly payment options. The practice gets paid in full upfront by the lender, while the patient pays in installments. This shifts the "collection risk" away from your practice and onto the financing provider.
In most practices, there is a dangerous gap between potential cash flow and actual cash flow. A healthy, fast-moving AR ensures these two numbers are one and the same. When your collections are immediate, your paper profits become tangible capital—the kind that allows you to give raises, upgrade technology, and weather economic downturns without panic.
Many practice owners check their real-time Flex Analytics dashboard each day to monitor their financial heartbeat. Curious how real collections could transform your practice?
Schedule a Flex demo, and see for yourself. Read more about how Flex improves AR Management and move from the uncertainty of hoping you're profitable to the absolute security of knowing your cash is in the bank.
Meta Description: How to spot a “Days in AR” problem early and create faster cash flow with Flex.