Dental insurance and billing coordinator job description
A dental insurance and billing coordinator gets insurance claims and patient balances paid for one or more of a dental group's offices. They run benefits breakdowns, send claims with x-rays and notes attached, post payments, and appeal denials until the aging report is clean.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
You'll handle dental insurance and patient billing for [one or more] of our practices. You run benefits breakdowns, send claims with the right attachments and narratives, post payments, appeal denials, and work the aging report until balances are paid. You protect patient information under HIPAA in every call and claim.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Run full benefits breakdowns: deductibles, annual maximums, frequency limits, waiting periods, downgrades and missing tooth clauses.
Submit claims every day with the right CDT codes, radiographs, periodontal charts and narratives from the dentist's notes.
Send pre-authorizations (pre-determinations) for crowns, periodontal therapy and other treatment that needs them, and track the replies.
Post insurance payments from EOBs and electronic remittances, and apply write-offs from the right fee schedule.
Work the insurance aging report: call payers, correct and resend claims, and appeal denials.
Send patient statements, set up payment plans the practice manager approves, and answer billing questions.
Coordinate benefits for patients covered by two dental plans.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Check that yesterday's claims went out and cleared the clearinghouse.
Post the day's insurance checks and electronic payments.
Call insurance companies about unpaid or denied claims.
Answer benefit questions from the front desk and treatment coordinator.
Prepare refunds for patient and insurance overpayments and send them to the Bookkeeper.
Send claims denied because of a dentist's network status to the Insurance Credentialing Specialist.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Claims sent on time: [your target].
Clean claim rate: [your target].
Aged insurance claims: [your target].
Denials appealed on time: [your target].
Patient balances collected: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[2+] years of dental insurance billing, or medical billing and a willingness to learn dental.
Knows CDT codes, dental claim forms, EOBs, and how PPO fee schedules and write-offs work.
Comfortable in [your practice management software] and insurance web portals.
Organized and persistent with follow-up calls to insurance companies.
Follows HIPAA rules for patient records, claims and phone calls.
6. Preferred Experience
Experience with [dental Medicaid or CHIP plans].
Medical cross-coding experience (CPT and ICD-10) for procedures billed to medical insurance.
Experience writing claim narratives and appeals.
Has worked in a multi-practice group or central billing office.
7. Physical Requirements
Sit at a computer with frequent phone calls for most of the day.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Based at [practice] or the central billing office in [city].
Office hours: [Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.].
Remote or hybrid work [may be possible after training].
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new insurance and billing coordinator gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
A medical biller will know the claim forms and the follow-up calls. Dental plans add their own code set, yearly maximums and frequency rules, x-rays and gum charts sent as proof, and patient balances the office has to collect on its own.
The code set changes every year
Dental claims use CDT codes, which the ADA reviews every year. The ADA notes HIPAA requires the code from the version in effect on the date of service, so the same work can need a different code from one year to the next. Codes come from the dentist's notes on what was done, never from what pays best. Check new codes against your fee schedules before each new version takes effect. Source: American Dental Association: Frequently asked questions about dental procedure codes.
Medicaid claims have a hard deadline
Federal rules make each state's Medicaid program require claims within 12 months of the date of service. Check your state's own limit too, and track the limit for each Medicaid dental plan and commercial plan, since they set their own. A Medicaid claim rejected for a wrong member ID and fixed after the deadline is money the office likely won't recover. Work the oldest unpaid Medicaid claims first, every week. Source: 42 CFR 447.45: Timely claims payment (Cornell LII).
Two plans follow an order
When a patient has two dental plans, the primary plan pays first, and the secondary claim goes out with the primary's EOB. For a child covered by both parents, the ADA calls the birthday rule the most common test: the parent whose birthday falls first in the year has the primary plan, unless a court order says otherwise. Some secondary plans use nonduplication of benefits and may pay nothing after the primary. Source: American Dental Association: Glossary of dental administrative terms.
Paid in full can mean no claim
HIPAA gives patients one privacy right that lands on the billing desk. If a patient pays in full for a service and asks the office not to tell their plan about it, the office must agree, unless a law requires the disclosure. Flag that service in the software so no claim goes out on its own, and tell the front desk, so a routine resend doesn't break the promise. Source: 45 CFR 164.522: Rights to request privacy protection (Cornell LII).
The proof goes with the claim
Many dental claims don't pay on codes alone. Crowns, gum treatment and other larger work often need x-rays, periodontal charts, photos or a narrative drawn from the dentist's notes. A missing attachment is one of the easiest denials to prevent. Build a checklist by procedure and plan, and have the clinical team save what the claim needs in the chart before the patient leaves.
How much dental insurance and billing coordinators make
The closest BLS group for dental insurance and billing coordinators is billing and posting clerks. Billing and posting clerks who work for dental offices earned a median of $24.96 an hour ($51,910 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s above the $48,500 median for billing and posting clerks in all industries. About 15,240 of the 404,060 billing and posting clerks in that survey work for dental offices.
Usually hourly and eligible for overtime. A bonus works best when it rewards claims sent on time and old claims paid, with the practice manager or CFO signing off on large write-offs.
Dental offices
$51,910$51,910 median Middle half $48,270–$62,900 10th–90th $41,690–$70,270
All industries
$48,500$48,500 median Middle half $42,840–$58,290 10th–90th $37,290–$67,710
$30k$40k$50k$60k$70k$80k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Dental offices
$41,690
$48,270
$51,910
$62,900
$70,270
All industries
$37,290
$42,840
$48,500
$58,290
$67,710
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Reads an EOB and finds the reason a line paid less than expected
Calls an insurance company again and again without losing patience or the notes
Knows CDT codes, dental claim forms and how PPO write-offs work
Keeps payments, write-offs and refunds exact to the cent
Explains a balance to a patient in plain words, without blaming the plan or the dentist
Teach these on the job
Your practice management software's ledger, claims and aging reports
Each plan's portal, attachment rules and appeal steps
Your clearinghouse and how to read its rejection reports
Which fee schedule each office and dentist bills under
Medical cross-coding for the few services billed to medical plans
The work runs through the practice management software's claims and ledger, a clearinghouse for electronic claims and attachments, and the insurance companies' websites. Many groups also use a benefits verification service or a shared inbox for EOBs, so check which ones your billing team will inherit.
Dental insurance and billing coordinator interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
Write in your own targets from each office's aging report and denial log since January, and set them by payer, since a Medicaid plan and a PPO behave differently.
Claims sent on time
Claims sent within your set window after the visit, out of all claims for those visits. Check the unsent claims report every morning, and fix anything held for a missing attachment.
Clean claim rate
Claims paid on first pass, with no rejection, request for more information or correction. Use your clearinghouse and payer reports, and sort the failures by reason to fix the cause.
Aged insurance claims
Open insurance balances grouped by age, from the aging report. Watch the oldest group by payer, and record the last action and next step on every claim in it.
Denials appealed on time
Denials appealed or corrected before the plan's appeal deadline, out of all denials worth contesting. Log each denial's reason, deadline and outcome in one place.
Patient balances collected
Patient balances paid, against balances billed, for the same period. Read it with the statement cycle and payment plans, and pass accounts that stall to the practice manager on your written schedule.
Career path
Front desk coordinatorChecks eligibility and collects at checkout, learning how plans pay.
Insurance and billing coordinatorGets the group paid by plans and patients, office by office.
Yes. The template even names medical billing as a starting point. Claims, EOBs, appeals and payer calls carry over. What's new is the CDT code set, tooth numbers and surfaces, frequency limits, yearly maximums, and attachments such as x-rays and gum charts. A medical biller also brings a skill dental offices often lack: billing a medical plan for the dental services it covers. Give them a month next to an experienced dental biller before they work denials alone.
How much does a dental insurance and billing coordinator make?
Billing and posting clerks who work for dental offices earned a median of $24.96 an hour ($51,910 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $48,270 and $62,900 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and overtime.
Can the billing coordinator discuss a patient's claim with the insurance company?
Yes. HIPAA allows a provider to share health information for payment without the patient's signature, and calling a plan about a claim is payment. The minimum necessary rule still applies, so share what the claim needs and no more. Verify you're talking with the plan itself, and note the rep's name and a reference number on every call.
Should a dental group bill from each office or from a central office?
Either can work, and some groups mix them. Central billing makes it easier to train, cover vacations and hold every office to one set of rules. Office-based billing keeps the coordinator close to the dentist's notes and the patients who call with questions. If you centralize, set a daily routine for getting attachments and narratives from each office, since a central team can't pull those on its own.
How does the billing coordinator work with the credentialing specialist?
When a claim is denied because a dentist or office isn't linked to the plan, the billing coordinator sends it to the credentialing specialist instead of resending it. The specialist fixes the enrollment, and billing resubmits once the plan confirms. Keep a shared log of these denials. The same plan showing up again and again means a roster or tax ID problem, not a billing one.
