AirPay — Insurance Verification Implementation Playbook

For DSOs & Multi-Location Groups

About This Resource

At scale, the cost of bad insurance verification compounds daily. AirPay's automated verification platform and proactive AirPay Warnings™ system are designed to eliminate the inconsistency that plagues multi-location verification when front desk staff are left to do it manually, on their own timetable, with varying levels of rigor.

Who this is for: DSO operations directors, VP of Revenue Cycle, regional managers, and office managers overseeing insurance workflows across 5+ locations.

What's covered: DSO-specific use case, rollout strategy, enterprise considerations, key questions, and red flags.

What AirPay Does at DSO Scale

AirPay connects to 1,200+ dental insurance payers and automatically verifies every patient on your schedule — across all locations — producing a unified dashboard showing coverage status, plan breakdowns, and proactive coverage warnings before appointments occur.

DSO-relevant capabilities:

• Enterprise-wide schedule verification with centralized or location-level dashboards
• AirPay Warnings™: predictive alerts for coverage issues that will cause claim denials
• Standardized verification workflow across all locations regardless of local staff habits
• Detailed plan breakdowns reducing front desk interpretation errors
• 90%+ verification rate per company claims

The core DSO value: Consistency. When 20 locations are doing verification 20 different ways, clean claim rates are a lottery. AirPay normalizes the process so claim acceptance rates become a function of coverage, not of which front desk coordinator happened to work that day.

Why DSOs Benefit

The Consistency Problem

In a multi-location DSO, insurance verification quality is rarely tracked at the location level — but it directly drives AR performance. A location with a thorough verifier may have a 95% clean claim rate; one with a rushed or undertrained verifier may run at 78%. The 17-point difference represents real revenue sitting in denial queues and appeals workflows.

AirPay removes the human variability from the verification step. Every patient is verified the same way, against the same payer data, with the same warning system flagging the same issues. The result is a standardized baseline that makes RCM performance comparable across locations and auditable by your central team.

The Year-End Production Opportunity

AirPay's benefit tracking lets your RCM team identify patients across all locations who haven't used their annual maximum — typically in October and November. For a 20-location DSO, a targeted year-end outreach campaign to these patients can represent $200,000–$500,000 in incremental production. This is only possible with centralized, structured benefit data — exactly what AirPay provides.

Implementation Model

Phase 1: Pilot Cluster (Weeks 1–3)

• Select 3–5 locations with motivated office managers and high insurance volume
• Configure AirPay with PMS integration at each pilot location
• Run parallel verification for 2 weeks — compare AirPay data vs. manual process
• Document: accuracy rate, warnings caught that were previously missed, staff time saved

Phase 2: Regional Expansion (Weeks 4–8)

• Expand to a full region (5–15 locations)
• Standardize morning dashboard review process across location teams
• Train regional managers to monitor verification completion rates and warning response
• Configure centralized reporting for RCM leadership

Phase 3: Enterprise Rollout (Weeks 9–16)

• Deploy to all remaining locations
• Integrate AirPay data into DSO-level AR reporting
• Launch year-end benefits campaign using AirPay benefit tracking data
• Establish escalation protocol for failed verifications and complex coordination of benefits cases

Key Questions to Ask AirPay

1. Can you provide location-level and roll-up reporting for our central RCM team? This is non-negotiable for a DSO — you need visibility at both the location and enterprise level.

2. How do you handle a DSO with mixed PMS environments? Many DSOs run Dentrix at some locations, Open Dental at others. Confirm multi-PMS support in a single enterprise account.

3. What does implementation look like at 20+ locations? Get specifics on implementation team size, timeline, and location-by-location rollout support.

4. Is there a dedicated enterprise account manager? At DSO scale, a shared support queue is not acceptable.

5. How do AirPay Warnings™ flow in a centralized RCM model? If your billing team is centralized, do warnings surface to them, to location staff, or to both?

6. Can you provide customer references at comparable DSO scale? Request at least 2 DSO customer references with 10+ locations.

7. What is your enterprise pricing structure? Confirm per-location vs. enterprise flat rate, and whether volume discounts apply.

8. How does AirPay handle Medicaid/CHIP verification? Increasingly important for DSOs with diverse patient populations.

Multi-Location Workflow Design

Option A: Location-Accountable Model

Each location's front desk is responsible for reviewing AirPay's morning verification dashboard and acting on warnings. Central RCM monitors completion rates and denial patterns but doesn't touch individual verifications.

• Pros: Maintains local accountability, faster response to patient-specific issues
• Cons: Requires consistent training and adherence across locations
• Best for: DSOs with strong local management culture

Option B: Centralized Review Model

AirPay data feeds a central RCM team that reviews flagged warnings and routes necessary patient contacts back to locations.

• Pros: Maximum consistency, specialist handling of complex cases
• Cons: Requires more central staffing and communication overhead
• Best for: DSOs with existing centralized billing departments

Option C: Hybrid Model

Routine verification is location-accountable; AirPay Warnings™ escalate to central RCM for resolution.

• Pros: Balances local speed with central expertise
• Best for: Most DSOs in the 10–50 location range

Red Flags

⚠️ No enterprise reporting dashboard. If AirPay can't give you a roll-up view across locations, you're flying blind on standardization progress.

⚠️ Per-seat pricing that doesn't scale. DSOs add staff and locations — your verification cost should not scale linearly with headcount.

⚠️ Can't handle multi-PMS environments. This is a reality for most DSOs that have grown through acquisition.

⚠️ Implementation support is location self-serve. Rolling out a new verification workflow to 20+ locations requires hands-on implementation support, not a video library.

⚠️ No Medicaid verification support. For DSOs in markets with significant Medicaid participation, this is a hard requirement.

⚠️ Missing BAA or HIPAA documentation. Non-negotiable. Request before any data sharing.

Pricing Context

AirPay for DSOs is typically negotiated as an enterprise subscription. Expect:

• Volume pricing that improves per-location cost at 10+ locations
• Implementation fees that may be waived for enterprise commitments
• Annual contracts with multi-year discount options

Request a detailed ROI analysis from AirPay based on your current clean claim rate and verification labor cost — they should be able to model the payback period for your specific situation.

Integrations

• PMS: Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental, Curve Dental, others via API
• Carriers: 1,200+ payer connections
• RCM: Can feed verification data into RCM workflows and billing platforms

Avized Take

AirPay has a compelling DSO value proposition built around consistency and predictive warnings. For a DSO where location-to-location verification quality variation is driving AR performance gaps, this is a high-priority evaluation.

The enterprise questions are the ones that matter most at scale: reporting depth, multi-PMS support, and implementation resources. Get clear answers on all three before committing. The product is built for this use case — the question is whether their enterprise delivery matches the product quality.

This playbook was created by Avized as a free resource for the dental community. Visit avized.com to explore more vendor profiles, implementation resources, and advisory services.